Ep 116: Finding Safety

Bliss and Grit

Today we are honing in on how we find safety in the world and in our relationships, whether those relationships are with intimate partners, or our children, friends, coworkers,etc. We are deepening the conversation from our last two episodes: the episode on awakened relating with Lynn Marie Lumiere, and last week’s episode on the “how” of self-love. In particular we are using the lens of Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal theory to look more closely at what happens when we don’t detect safety, and the magical things that can happen when our nervous systems do detect safety and therefore do not have to be defensive. We ponder what even is defensive behavior beyond the caricatures we typically think of? What are the cultural stories that keep us from experiences of safety? How do we get out of the “you’re a problem, or I’m a problem” binary loop? Then we look at how healing really begins to happen, and how healing really takes care of itself, the more we can self-regulate and co-regulate.