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Key points
- Every person has a deep drive to feel safe. We are anxious when we feel unsafe.
- In the physiological state that accompanies feelings of safety, your body refuels, regenerates, and heals.
- Sustained stress breaks down your body—mentally and physically.
- There are many ways to create a sense of safety—and heal.
The need to feel and be safe is a deep driving force of all life, including human. In the physiologic state ushered in by feelings of safety, the body refuels, regenerates, builds muscle and bone, empties waste products, fights off foreign invaders well—and the organism thrives. Consider newborn babies who are cared for and nurtured by their family, especially their mothers. They not only thrive as children but have better health in adulthood.
A chaotic, even abusive upbringing predicts a harsh life. Many chronic mental and physical health issues occur that shorten lifespan and also markedly compromise quality of life. Raised in such an environment, a child cannot reach his or her full potential—so much energy is consumed by trying to survive. Consider a young plant in rich soil with plenty of sunlight and water. Compare it to the same plant in poor soil, limited sunlight, little water. It may even look like a different species.
Feeling unsafe
When we don’t feel safe, the state of threat is reflected in our physiology, with mechanisms of flight or fight (the stress response) turned on and preparing us for action. We’ll do whatever we can to restore a sense of safety. Feeling unsafe drives many, if not most destructive behaviors. Feeling trapped can cause us to react aggressively to resolve the situation. Anger represents the body’s powerful last-ditch effort to regain control.
Since the most stressful problems are ones we can’t solve, sustained anger turns into rage and destructive behaviors,. What's more, the wear on tear on body tissue resulting from a sustained stress response causes physical breakdown leading to chronic illnesses.
Consider how many life situations are unsolvable. One of the deadliest and universal problems is feeling trapped by our thoughts. We can’t escape our thoughts. Suppressing unpleasant thoughts fires up the threat response even more than experiencing such thoughts. Suppression causes the hippocampus (memory center) of the brain to shrink1 and increases craving for opioids.2 Distracting ourselves also fires up the immune system.3
Coping behaviors
Addictions. Addictions create a sense of safety but only temporarily, so they are obviously not long-term solutions. Addictions are so destructive because they temporarily mask mental and physical pain, and pursuing relief is compelling.
Power. An outcome of feeling chronically unsafe is the relentless pursuit of power in order to gain more control. It can’t and doesn’t work, but few of us are taught alternatives. Means of control can vary but they can infiltrate every domain of our lives and relationships with others. No one wants to be controlled,
Every child has anxiety when they leave home to begin school. They want acceptance but also need to diminish fear. This plays out in forming cliques, excluding others, and overt bullying. Nothing enhances our feeling of control more than by gaining power in some way.
A study compared the physiological profile of bullied students versus bullies. 4 Researchers measured an inflammatory marker called C-reactive protein (CRP); it’s often measured to detect infection and also indicates a stressed, overactive immune system
Bullied children were found to have elevated CRP levels compared to those who hadn’t been bullied. Even more disturbing was that CRP levels in bullies were lower than the norm. There is both a social and physiological reward for power. How all of this plays out in adulthood isn’t subtle. Why give up power and control when anxiety is the alternative?
Every child has a strong need to be accepted, yet it gives him or her more power (and self-esteem) to reject someone else? This is an endless loop.
Self-esteem. Much of our self-esteem is programmed in by people telling us who we should be or not be. The voices in our head become as concrete as any object. The “stories” are essentially cognitive distortions. Pursuing self-esteem as a means of feeling better about ourselves can't work; it is a gross mismatch of the unconscious brain overpowering the conscious brain. We expend a tremendous amount of energy building up our ego and then spend endless efforts defending it. Factors such as stress, past trauma, and perfectionism affect the frequency and intensity of self-critical thoughts. Since we cannot escape our thoughts, feeling safe can be challenging.
What can you do?
Learn to be emotionally vulnerable, which is at the core of meaningful human relationships, although there is no reward in nature for being physically vulnerable. The capacity for language creates emotional pain in humans that is much more complex than in other mammals. Since emotional pain is perceived similarly to physical pain, it hurts. Anger, as unpleasant as it is, is powerful, addicting, and masks being vulnerable. Anger is an attempt to create a sense of emotional safety—but no one around you feels safe. How do people learn to be vulnerable who are used to dealing with a lot of anger?
Dynamic Healing. The need to pursue dysfunctional behaviors dissipates as you address anxiety, the source of sustained threat physiology (anxiety). You cannot control survival reactions but there are numerous ways to regulate them. Creating the condition of safety physiology—what I call “dynamic healing”— allows you to feel safe, connected, and relaxed:
- Dealing with life’s challenges in a manner that has less negative impact on your nervous system.
- Regulating the state of the nervous system—from threat to safety, hyperactive to calm.
The focus is on learning skills to create cues of safety. It is embodied healing rather than “self-help."
References
1. Hulbert JC, et al. Inducing amnesia through systemic suppression. Nature Communications (2016); 7:11003 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11003
2. Garland EL, et al. Thought suppression as a mediator of the association between depressed mood and prescription opioid craving among chronic pain patients. J Behav Med (2016); 39:128–138. 10.1007/s10865-015-9675-9
3. Cole SW, et al. Social Regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-9-r189
4. Copeland W, et al.” Childhood bullying involvement predicts low-grade systemic inflammation into adulthood.” PNAS (2014); 111: 7570-7575.
