Safety is not the absence of threat...

There’s no way around it. Adversity will always be part of our lives.

So how can we create a sense of safety when adversity knocks on our door?

We can bring connection to our unsafe experiences. Here’s an example …

I recently spent a few days in the hospital with my husband.

When I came back home and got a chance to process the experience, I realized that one of the biggest challenges was dealing with the medical establishment. We lacked agency, and the information needed to make informed choices.

In my recent somatic therapy session I focused on this.

The bottom line: It didn’t feel safe.

My therapist asked me, “If you could go back in time and bring anything to that situation that would contribute to your sense of safety, what would that be?

My immediate reaction was, it would’ve been so great to have someone we trust who had all the medical information we lacked, who’d explain what was going on, who would know what questions to ask and advocate for us.

In other words: a doula.

Sure enough, a traumatic memory of my first birthing experience surfaced.

That experience created a sense of mistrust in the medical establishment. I’ve been carrying with me ever since, and I’m sure it affected my recent experience.

Before my second child was born, I became a doula myself, no accident there.

I came to the second birth empowered and educated. I created the most positive birthing experience I could.

I hired caregivers and a doula that believed in empowering me and my body as a birthing mom.

Needless to say, I found tremendous healing in that second experience.

In my session I tapped back into the safety I experienced during that birth. The safety came from a place of connection to my team, whom I trusted, and to the internal support I’d created for myself.

Then I got to bring this sense of connection to both the first birthing experience and my recent experience in the hospital.

I can’t begin to tell you how healing this process has been.