Episode 183 - Building Your Safety Foundation
Learn how to build a personal safety anchor and regulate your nervous system with a simple sequence. Discover the daily fundamentals that create lasting emotional resilience.
Why You Can't Think Clearly When You're Activated
If you've been wondering why you can't access compassion in certain moments or why your mind goes blank when you're triggered, it might not be a willpower issue. It might be a safety issue.
Last week on the Seasons of Joy Podcast Episode 182, we explored how the nervous system works. I spoke about the survival brain versus the CEO brain, and the three states: Team Resilient, Team Hyper, and Team Hypo. Today, we're putting that knowledge into practice.
But learning information isn't enough. None of the regulation tools, communication strategies, or relationship skills work if you don't have a foundation of safety. You can't regulate what doesn't feel safe. You can't access clear thinking if your nervous system is screaming "danger."
Safety is the foundation. Safety is the key to healing.
Understanding Your Unique Safety Needs
Think about the food you like, the places you feel comfortable, the people you want to be around. All of it reflects your nervous system's assessment of safety.
Each person's sense of safety is actually unique to them. What feels safe to me might not feel safe to you, and that's totally okay. There isn't a right or wrong. There's just what works for your particular nervous system.
Some people love big gatherings with lots of energy. It feels exciting and safe to them. For others, a crowd sends their system into hypervigilance. Too much stimulation gets read as a potential threat. Neither is wrong. They just have different nervous systems.
This matters because it's only when we feel safe that our brains can access the resources they need. When you feel safe, you can:
Access your thinking and language skills
Connect authentically with others
Experience healing
Rest and restore your body
But when you don't feel safe, all of that goes offline. Your survival brain takes over.
How to Create Your Personal Safety Anchor
Think of a safety anchor like an actual anchor on a boat. When a boat drops an anchor, it can stay in one place even when the water gets choppy. The anchor keeps it from drifting away.
That's what a safety anchor does for your nervous system. It's something you can come back to when you start to feel dysregulated. When you feel yourself drifting away from your regulated state, your anchor helps you find the path back.
Step 1: Choose Your Word
How does the word "safety" land for you? For some people it's perfect, but for others it might not resonate.
Maybe you prefer:
Grounded
Centered
Anchored
At peace
Home
Aligned
Find a word that feels right in your body. Say it out loud a few times and pay attention. Does it feel true? Does it help you access that felt sense of being okay. That place where you feel most like yourself?
For me, I use the word "grounded." That word feels solid, stable, and present to me.
Step 2: Choose Your Touchpoint
We want to anchor this feeling of safety to a physical sensation—a specific place on your body. This could be:
Your hand on your heart
Both hands on your belly
Your hand on the back of your neck
The soles of your feet pressing into the ground
Here are three ways to find your touchpoint:
Option 1: Body Scan Scan your body and notice. Is there a place that feels relatively calm, relatively safe? That could be your anchor point.
Option 2: Safe Memory Think of a memory when you felt truly safe and peaceful. Maybe it's a moment in nature. Maybe it's being held by someone you love. When you bring that memory into your mind, where do you naturally want to put your hand?
Option 3: Imagined Safe Place Create a safe place in your imagination. What would it look like? How would it feel? It doesn't have to be a place you've even been. It just needs to be a place you can envision that feels good in your body when you think about it. Then anchor that feeling to a touchpoint.
For me, when I want to feel grounded, I put my hand on my heart. I close my eyes and take a breath, and I bring up a memory of being in the mountains, hiking. I can smell the pine trees, I can feel the sun on my face, I can hear and feel my steps on the leaf-covered path. My whole system settles.
Step 3: Practice Daily
You can't build an anchor in the middle of a storm. You have to practice when the water is relatively calm.
Every day, just for a few minutes, practice your anchor:
Use your word
Place your hand on your touchpoint
Bring up your safe place or memory
Breathe and notice what happens in your body
You're training your nervous system. You're creating a pathway back to your home base. You're building an association between this cue and that felt sense of safety.
The Safety Sequence: What to Do When You're Dysregulated
Now that you have your safety anchor, let me teach you Leah Davidson's safety sequence. This is what to do when you notice you're starting to feel dysregulated.
The Safety Sequence
Step 1: Use Your Safety Cue Place your hand on that anchor point. Say your word. Bring up that safe place in your mind. Take a few breaths.
Step 2: Ask "Am I Safe?" What I mean here is physically safe right now, in this moment. Are you physically in danger?
Most of the time the answer is no. You're sitting in your living room, you're in your car, you're at your kitchen table. There's no actual threat to your physical safety. Just that acknowledgement can help your nervous system start to settle. You're giving it information that you are actually safe.
Step 3: Ask "Do I Feel Safe?" In all honesty, the answer is probably no. You don't feel safe emotionally. That's why you're feeling dysregulated.
Maybe your daughter just told you something that felt like rejection. Maybe your husband just criticized you. You might be physically safe, but emotionally you don't feel safe, and that's okay. That's reality.
Step 4: Acutely Relax Your Body This is based on something researcher Joseph Wolpe discovered: stress, fear, and anxiety cannot be felt in a relaxed body. You cannot be tense and relaxed at the same time.
So:
Drop your shoulders
Unclench your jaw
Soften your belly
Take a few slow, deep breaths
Make your exhale longer than your inhale
You're not denying your feelings. You're just creating some space in your body. You're helping your system shift out of protection mode, even just a little bit.
When you have moved through this safety sequence, you can include this next step.
Step 5: Give Yourself Permission to Feel This is where so many of us get stuck. We think, "Okay, I'm physically safe and I just relaxed my body, so I shouldn't feel this way."
But your feelings are not weakness. They're information. Your body is trying to tell you something.
Instead of trying to shut it down, just let yourself feel it. Remind yourself: "I'm physically safe. I don't feel safe emotionally, and that makes sense. My body is more relaxed now, and I can let myself feel what I'm feeling."
Example: A Difficult Conversation
Let's say you just had a hard conversation with one of your adult children. They were expressing pain about some of your parenting choices, and you can feel your whole body start to activate. Your heart's racing. Your chest is tight. You're wanting to defend yourself.
Here's how to use the safety sequence:
You tell them you need a minute and go to another room. You put your hand on your heart and take a breath.
"Am I safe physically?" Yes.
"Do I feel safe?" No. I feel like I'm being attacked.
Then you deliberately relax your body. Drop your shoulders. Soften your jaw. Take some slow breaths.
Finally, give yourself permission to feel: "This hurts. This is hard, and I'm allowed to feel hurt right now. It makes sense that I do."
You don't try to make it go away. You just acknowledge it. That creates enough space that you can go back into the conversation and actually listen instead of just defending yourself. You are allowing yourself the ability to choose who you want to be in that conversation.
That's the power of this sequence.
Creating Space Between Stimulus and Response
Victor Frankl's famous quote says, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
What we're doing by establishing safety is trying to create that space between the stimulus and our response.
If someone is stuck in hyperarousal or shutdown, there isn't space there because the nervous system isn't regulated. It's just automatically reacting from survival instinct. But if we can create some space between what's happening and our response, we have greater access to our agency—the ability to choose—and our ability to live with more intention.
The 5 Daily Fundamentals That Support Your Nervous System
Your safety anchor and sequence are powerful tools, but there are also daily fundamentals that either support or undermine your nervous system regulation.
1. Light and Darkness
The nervous system is connected to our circadian rhythm. You need:
5-30 minutes of natural light within the first hour of waking
Evening light around sunset
6-8 hours of actual darkness at night
This helps your body know when to be alert and when to rest.
2. Sleep
You need 7-9 hours. Not five. Not six. And you can't really catch up on sleep.
Sleep fundamentals:
Go to bed at roughly the same time each night
Create a bedtime routine
Make your room actually dark
When you're well-rested, you have capacity. When you're exhausted, everything feels harder.
3. Movement
This is non-negotiable. Your body needs to move every day. It doesn't have to be intense exercise. You just need to walk, stretch, or dance in your kitchen.
Movement completes the stress cycle and tells your body you're safe.
4. Nutrition
Notice how different foods affect your nervous system. Pay attention to your water intake. Also pay attention to what you're taking into your mind—the news, social media, the conversations you're having. Your nervous system responds to all of it.
5. Relationships
You need safe people in your life. People who can stay regulated when you're activated. People who can hold space without trying to fix you.
You also need connection with a higher power. For me, that's God. When I remember that I'm held by Someone bigger than me, my nervous system can rest.
These five fundamentals aren't optional extras. They're the foundation. You can't regulate a nervous system that's running on five hours of sleep and no movement.
Stress Reduction vs. Stress Resilience
Here's an important distinction: stress reduction versus stress resilience.
Stress Reduction
This is asking yourself:
What stressors can I actually eliminate?
What am I doing that doesn't need to be done?
What commitments can I let go of?
If you're chronically overwhelmed, feeling stretched thin, something needs to change. We're not meant to go nonstop.
Stress Resilience
But you also cannot eliminate all stress. Life is going to keep happening. Your kids are going to make choices you don't understand. Challenges are going to arise.
Stress resilience is about building your capacity to handle stress. It's widening your zone of resilience so you can experience challenges without completely falling apart.
Think of it this way:
Stress reduction is making the waves smaller
Stress resilience is becoming a better swimmer
You actually need both.
If you only focus on stress reduction, you're always at the mercy of your circumstances. You always need life to be calm in order to function. But when you build stress resilience, you develop capacity. You can handle bigger waves. You can stay regulated even when life is hard.
Your Action Steps This Week
This process is simple. The things we've talked about today don't take a lot of time. They do take consistency.
Here's your invitation for this week:
1. Create Your Safety Anchor
Choose your word
Choose your touchpoint
Choose your safe place
Practice it every single day for just five minutes
2. Practice the Safety Sequence
Use your cue. Ask yourself, "Am I safe?" and "Do I feel safe?" Then relax your body and give yourself permission to feel.
3. Pick One Fundamental to Focus On
Maybe it's getting outside for morning light. Maybe it's setting a bedtime alarm. Maybe it's committing to move your body every day.
Just pick one. You're not trying to overhaul your entire life. You're just building your foundation one practice at a time.
What's Next?
In the next episode, I'm going to give you a whole toolbox of regulation techniques you can use in the moment. Quick, practical tools that take seconds and can shift your state when you need it.
But for now, focus on building your safety because everything else builds on that foundation.
If you're working through this series and realizing you want more personalized support, that's exactly what I do in my coaching practice. You can find me at www.seasons-coaching.com or on Instagram at @seasons_coaching.
Remember: Safety isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. You deserve to feel safe in your own body.
Listen to the full episode: Seasons of Joy Podcast Episode 183 - Building Your Safety Foundation
Related Posts:
Episode 182: Why You Keep Reacting the Way You Do
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About the Host: Jill Pack is a certified faith-based life + relationship coach and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She helps women of faith navigate their seasons of life with greater purpose and joy including how to transform conflict into connection. For more resources or to work with Jill, visit www.seasons-coaching.com.
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