I Am Safe, So Why Hasn't My Body Gotten the Memo?

Key Takeaways:  

• Circumstantial safety and a sense of safety in our bodies are not the same thing—prolonged trauma can cause a chronic sense of threat and danger.  

• Body-based practices may help some survivors notice their nervous system responses and build greater capacity for regulation.  

• Healing does not require forcing yourself to feel calm. Small, tolerable experiences of safety, as well as choice and connection matter. 

Why Don’t I Feel Safe? 

This is a common question asked when it comes to healing from trauma. For many survivors, safety doesn’t always make it from their head to their body. 

When you’ve lived in a state of sympathetic activation (commonly known as “fight or flight”) for an extended period of time, the nervous system often continues responding as though danger could return at any moment. This state of the autonomic nervous system can become second nature to survivors of trauma. Sympathetic activation is a protective and mobilizing state of the nervous system designed to help you fight back or flee danger and, ultimately, keep you safe (thank you, body!).  

But we’re often left feeling “stuck” in fight or flight mode. Unfortunately, this is a common experience. While talk therapy is extremely beneficial, some survivors find that cognitive insight alone doesn’t fully resolve the physical sensations associated with trauma that can linger in the body and nervous system long after the threat has passed.    

Feeling Safe Again  

Somatic work has officially entered the chat. Whereas talk therapy is a top-down approach, somatic work begins in the body and moves upward to cognitive awareness. Or as Psychosomatic Practitioner Kyle DallaTorre so eloquently describes it, “It’s like talk therapy, but your body is doing the talking.”  

Somatic work is a body-based healing intervention. In somatic therapy and coaching, the practitioner invites the client to become aware of physical sensations like temperature, tingling, tension, heaviness or numbness, while processing an experience. Sometimes the only words necessary are to describe what is happening in the body.    

These sensations can give us a window into what we call implicit memory—the ways past experiences can influence our present-day emotions, bodily responses, and patterns without us consciously remembering or thinking about the original experience.  

Sometimes knowing “I am safe” isn't enough to change the body's response. Somatic approaches add another pathway by working directly with bodily sensations and physiological responses. In other words, we can’t always talk our way into safety, but we can feel our way into it.  

This, it turns out, is actually a great thing because our bodies are often available to us long before our minds are accessible. The same goes for the survivors that many of us work with. As Iona Singleton, somatic therapist, says, “We’re not ignoring thoughts, we’re merely starting with physiology.”  

While we highly recommend working with a somatic practitioner or therapist, we also want to provide ways that you can begin learning about your nervous system on your own.  

Mapping Your Nervous System   

Polyvagal Theory by Dr. Stephen Porges offers a framework for understanding nervous system responses through three broad states. These three broad states look different, as seen below, and you may recognize some of the signs and experiences.   

Ventral Vagal/Social Engagement 

• Eye contact comes with ease 

• Breathing is effortless and causes expansion of the belly, without much chest involvement 

• Shoulders relax 

• Steady and slowed heart rate 

Sympathetic Activation  

• Fast talking 

• Hypervigilance 

• Fidgeting (pacing, legs shaking, hands moving erratically) 

• Quickened heart rate 

• Eyes shifting 

• Breathing often causing chest to rise and fall 

• Often cold hands and feet 

Dorsal Vagal Shutdown  

• Lack of eye contact 

• Little to no talking 

• Vacant look 

• Slow heartrate 

• Feeling of heaviness 

• Fatigue/lethargy 

While Dr. Porges’ Polyvagal Theory didn't originally include what many modern practitioners have referred to as “functional freeze,” it is worth mentioning. Functional freeze is when you're still going through the motions of daily life, but you’re disconnected from your emotions and bodily sensations. Some practitioners use the term to describe a blended state between sympathetic activation and dorsal vagal shutdown. It encompasses the experience of mobilization and shutdown occurring simultaneously.   

Your Nervous System is the First Intervention 

At the end of the day, a straightforward way to create a felt sense of safety in your body is by providing it with small moments of positive or even just neutral sensory input. When you’re starting out, these moments can be as small as a soft sweater, a warm cup of tea, a soothing song, a good stretch or an image that you find peaceful. Each of these micro moments gives your nervous system another opportunity to notice and receive signals of safety. While it can take time to re-establish a felt sense of safety, this worthwhile pursuit will pay dividends for your healing journey.  

Please note that paying attention to your body may not feel comfortable at first, and that's more than okay. For some survivors, turning attention inward can feel uncomfortable or even overwhelming. You don't have to force yourself to notice sensations that feel like too much. It’s important to note that the nervous system comes into play even if you aren’t the survivor but are interacting with one. Our nervous systems are constantly communicating with one another, often without words. If you recite a calm-sounding script to a survivor, but your voice is rushed, your body is tense or your movements are frantic, the survivor may pick up on those signals. Through what Polyvagal Theory calls neuroception, the nervous system is subconsciously taking in cues and asking, “Am I safe?”

To try some somatic movements at home, you can reference this helpful series of how-to videos from Johns Hopkins medicine. They include exercises like three dimensional breathing, a body scan and grounding. 

Additional Resources   

Back in May, we put out a survey in preparation for our webinar Somatic Tools for Crisis Response with Iona Singleton. We received nearly 500 responses from domestic violence professionals including advocates, case managers, crisis responders, attorneys, law enforcement and more. Our webinar with Singleton shares the results of this survey and addresses the specific needs of those that responded. 

Watch the full webinar here: Somatic Tools for Crisis Response with Iona Singleton. 

You may also appreciate “When Talk Therapy Isn’t Enough: Practical Ways to Create Safety and Release Survival Energy,” which talks more about the autonomic nervous system and how to create felt safety in your body post-trauma.