Does your body feel safe?

I immersed myself in the ocean, hoping for some kind of reprieve. My body had felt uncomfortable for days. My pupils dilated and on high alert, my heart racing, my chest tight, my body trembly, my tummy tense. The feeling of being so wired yet so tired all in one, my system feeling like the inside of a jack in a box ready to combust and burst out, spilling my contents everywhere.

A similar sentiment shared by so many of the women sitting opposite me in consultation whose bodies drive them to continually shift in their seat; the ever persistent hypervigilance driving their nervous system and themselves to the near point of feeling like they may spill out everywhere too. 

You see, I listen to women’s stories for a living. Big, textured, layered, unique, bold and beautiful stories. I spent years and years of my career educating individuals on protein and greens and still finding the women sitting opposite me were struggling with symptoms, body system function and daily physical and emotional health struggles that felt so very chronic. 

Around two years ago I started exploring the notion of body safety with myself and my clients as I was noticing the real epidemic I was seeing with the women sitting opposite me ~ bodies so activated it was impacting systemic function. Bodies so touched out, so tight, so dysregulated, so at capacity and burnt out that they did not feel safe to function. I noticed that the gentler I began to treat the physical body and the woman, the greater the response to the treatment. 

I began wading deep within foundational waters, focussing on the elements of health and wellness that allow women’s bodies to feel safe. I encouraged my clients to wade within there too. 

To immerse themselves into these often overlooked key areas and to remind their body that it is safe. That they are safe. 

Like some kind of divine magic, my female clients began to feel better. Although it was not magic at all, I began realising this notion of body safety was actually really very essential and fundamental in order for women to feel well.

Female hormones cannot be created nor function well if the body does not feel safe. A woman’s body function is severely impacted when within this state. 

Our body needs to feel safe to bleed.It needs to feel safe to fall pregnant.

To ovulate.

To orgasm.

To send us energy for joy and not just for survival.

It needs to feel safe so that our structural fascia can release and relax.

It needs to feel safe to adequately digest and absorb food.

It needs to feel safe to pump blood to our entire system and not just have it rush inward in anxiety.

It needs to feel safe so that we feel safe, so that our nerves know they don’t need to be so alert.

Our body needs to feel safe so that we can feel steady. So that we aren’t spinning. 

So that our brains function for decision making and feeling and not just like a reptile.

It needs to feel safe so that it can excrete what it needs to and keep what it needs to.

Absorb what it needs to. 

We need to feel safe for our heart rate to steady, our blood sugar and blood pressure also.

We need to feel safe so that we can live, a full, happy and healthy life. 

Within my work, I have begun to notice the spaces within which women’s bodies may perceive that they are not safe. Spaces that when women repeat over and over again or reside in for long periods of time can equate to a dysregulated nervous system and a body perception that they are not safe at all.