Help establishing a sense of safety

[triptych]

It was a great exercise because I could understand my triggers better.

That's a really interesting point I will definitely consider what triggers come up when I'm doing this. I think one of my problems with this exercise is being at home/told I am safe/comforted can be a trigger for me.

My safe place morphed in time and now my safe place is installed into me and my heart. I think that is the general idea of the safe place model. Externalized becomes internalized....which is actually what should have happened had I had secure attachment models.

I appreciate you explaining it like that as it makes a lot of sense and is a good end goal.

Taking ownership of where you live, your environment, making it your place, with your taste is a huge part of feeling safe...I learned.

That's good advice! I have a lock on my bedroom door at my new place at it feels good to know no one can come in if I don't want. You're right though I think personalising with things that make me feel "in the present" some more would be a good idea. The objects I already have in my room that remind me of my life as it is now are helpful.

 

[user27357]

I have a few experiences I can call up and almost get there in all of my senses, almost escape into fully, not like a PTSD Dissociation, but a guided re-entry into a happy and safe place I have been and remember well.
My best and easiest one? The split second of leaving shore in a small boat, like a canoe or a kayak or even a rubber raft, it's flight, it's leaving the restriction behind, it's a new realm that changes everything you were into what happens next. That moment is one I can pull up like a warp tunnel to come out of in a different place and a different time than where I was just a second ago.
Thats not a "safe place" but when fight/flight is getting close to taking over and I need to run, guess where I might be headed?

 

[TruthSeeker]

I have a few experiences I can call up and almost get there in all of my senses, almost escape into fully, not like a PTSD Dissociation, but a guided re-entry into a happy and safe place I have been and remember well.
My best and easiest one? The split second of leaving shore in a small boat, like a canoe or a kayak or even a rubber raft, it's flight, it's leaving the restriction behind, it's a new realm that changes everything you were into what happens next. That moment is one I can pull up like a warp tunnel to come out of in a different place and a different time than where I was just a second ago.
Thats not a "safe place" but when fight/flight is getting close to taking over and I need to run, guess where I might be headed?

Photography.....has a similar effect....when I'm behind the camera....I am in total control, and totally focused in the moment.....I'm feeling safe....have no intrusions, and with the right nature subjects, I'm having a grand time. Making clay statues, which also requires bookoos of concentration and focus, does a similar thing....they are different from dissociating because I created something wonderful in the moment....when I dissociate I am not productive.....I'm hiding. So I see photography and art as therapeutic.

I also can take a journey....or a mindwalk in my head, but I usually do that to solve problems. I journey to my safe place, my healing garden. I almost always feel less stress and often a bit more content afterwards.