Safety With Others Begins Within
Updated: Aug 18
One Conscious Breath: Issue 18
"We get hurt in relationships. But we heal in them too."
Before we begin, I invite you to take one conscious breath.
Feel the cool air as it enters your nostrils. Follow it as deeply as it goes into your body.
And then exhale. Out of your mouth. Slowly. Elongate the release as much as you can. And as you exhale, feel your shoulders drop. Feel your jaw soften. Feel your feet firmly on the floor.
Now pause.
Give yourself permission to simply be. In this silence. For just one conscious breath. And then gently meet whatever arises ~ whatever has been waiting underneath all the inner and outer noise ~ for a moment of stillness like this one.
And when you're ready ~ let's begin.
Last week, we talked about where safety begins ~ within. Before anyone else can connect with us deeply, we have to be connected within ourselves first.
This week, we turn toward how we stay connected within, even when we’re triggered.
If you know me or have read Triggers Are Gold and The Rupture Within, you already know: a trigger isn’t something to avoid. It’s a signal, pointing precisely at emotions that are ready to rise and release. Opening the pathway to reconnect with our core Self and our hearts.
And nowhere does this opportunity show up more than in our closest relationships ~ the ones where our heart is most exposed and we are our most vulnerable. Someone says or does something that triggers an unhealed wound deep within us. And immediately, our nervous system activates an old survival strategy, hijacking our present-day self, leaving us reacting to the trigger from a younger place within us. A place where the wound originated.
The question now is: does what triggered us today require the level of protection our nervous system is signaling? Or do we have more resources now to meet what’s happening, especially if we remain safely connected within? Because the gift of staying open and present is the opportunity to finally feel the original wound ~ and release it ~ allowing us to stay open-hearted. And open-hearted is where genuine repair becomes possible.
And a trigger can activate us toward opening just as quickly as closing. Perhaps you’ve felt the spark ignited within, when falling in love. An opening that pulls you toward your heart ~ and someone else’s ~ so you follow it.
Until this very opening begins to touch old wounds, protected by survival strategies built long ago. It may not have been safe to stay open-hearted when we were little. Particularly if the mirroring and attunement we needed wasn’t available. So protection built around the one thing that needed it the most.
The activation of falling in love triggered the very thing that’s been hidden, deeply fortified for as long as we can remember ~ our heart. And so, just as quickly as we open, the closing begins. The running, the shutdown. The familiarity of what’s always worked to keep us feeling safe emerges. And just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it is healthy.
We begin to question our feelings: is it safe to stay and deepen this connection? Only our core Self can discern if this is authentic love, an old pattern, or something genuinely misaligned.
And if this turns out to be an old survival strategy, it was never a flaw. It was brilliantly adaptive when we were small. It just may be keeping us disconnected now ~ not only from ourselves, but from others, too.
We may not fully trust ourselves until we follow our triggers back to our heart.
But when we are connected within, we can choose a more courageous path ~ remaining open, with ourselves first and foremost. And then choosing to stay and repair a relationship or leave it, even while we still feel the love, because love was ~ and never is ~ the problem. Capacity is.
Let’s take a closer look at how this might actually show up in our lives.
Whenever we are triggered, it can be tempting to believe our triggers are about the other person. What did they do to make us feel a certain way? They might have done something, that may be true. Even so, I’d still encourage you to look at what’s being activated within you ~ because if there was nothing inside you to be triggered, you’d be indifferent. What anyone else says or does wouldn’t bother you much.
To separate this from blaming someone else for triggering us, let’s look at a relationship with a baby. Babies are completely innocent and open-hearted from the get go. They only unabashedly ask for what they need, the moment they need it. And that’s often exactly what triggers us. Not because they did anything wrong, but because their unguarded asking touches something within us that keeps us from asking for our own needs to be met ~ from living that openly ourselves. Whatever triggers us becomes our greatest teacher when we're courageous enough to look within instead of projecting our feelings outward. Safety within isn’t only what lets us open our hearts to others. It’s also what lets us welcome that same openness in them, instead of being triggered by it.
This isn’t a judgment, or cause for shame. It’s simply being self-aware enough to discern if we’re living open-hearted or guarded. And once we know the difference, we get to choose. The answer is clear when you get to the heart of it: it is safe to remain open-hearted whether or not anyone else reflects it back to us. No-one else gives us permission, nor do we have to earn the right to be open-hearted, because, as adults, it’s no longer contingent upon anyone else keeping us safe. We open our hearts and extend them, whether or not anyone else is open or capable of receiving it. It becomes a choice to live with an open heart.
This is the work. In order to repair ruptures and remain in connection with others, we must first return to feeling safe within our own selves. In doing so, we increase our capacity to stay present when we’re inevitably triggered by someone else. The realistic goal is not to be present and open-hearted all of the time. It’s increasing the flexibility of our nervous system to return to safety and open-heartedness when triggered.
The next time you’re triggered, and there will be a next time, get curious about what’s happening in your body ~ not to judge it, but to learn your own pattern. And then turning toward it with compassion instead of shame or blame ~ to update it to the present.
Once you’ve increased your self-awareness and created a bit of space within, you begin to notice you have more choice to respond when triggered, instead of automatically reacting.
And that’s the gold ~ not the trigger itself. What heals us is compassionately meeting the wound within that leads us back to our heart.
Repair doesn’t always mean staying in the connection that triggered you. Sometimes the most honest repair is knowing, clearly and compassionately, that a connection has run its course ~ and saying so directly. Without avoidance. Without ghosting the discomfort of honesty.
Rather, making a conscious choice: to stay or to go. If it’s chosen from an open heart instead of a braced one, it’s repair either way.
A Practice for This Week
The next time you feel triggered by someone, pause before you react.
Notice if there's bracing in your body. Take one conscious breath. And then elongate your exhale.
Ask: is this nervous system response necessary and helpful right now?
If not, remind your body and brain that you’re safe. In this one conscious breath. Elongate your exhale again. And when you feel your body soften and return to feeling safe, ask a second question: do I want to stay in this connection and repair, or is it time to part, clearly and with love?
There’s no right or wrong answer. Just don’t let the reaction of an outdated survival strategy make the choice for you.
We get hurt in relationships. But we heal in them too.
That was the wound. This is the repair.
With love and One Conscious Breath,
Jody
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