Just can't find an imaginary 'safe place'

[MrMoonlight]

Does anyone else have this issue with 'safe places'?

My emdr therapist and I have been working on installing a safe place (don't have a real place from my past) through that therapy. I still have a tough time with my mental imagery having switched a bunch of things in my mental visualization of the place. I still don't have it fleshed out.

My first imaginary safe place was a cabin on a secluded lake with the sounds and smells of rainfall. My therapist has expressed the importance of bringing into the visualization/meditation as many senses as you can. Smells, sight, touch even tastes. Also at the beginning I take three deep cleansing breaths and repeat my safe word 'peace' with each breath, or just the first. It's amazing but many times just saying peace to myself make me relax like pavlov's dog. I don't drool but my shoulders, back and neck all come down and relax.

Anyway my cabin unfortunately unsafe to me. My new safe place is a secluded body of water under sun where I float snow angel style. When we first started installing this place through EMDR she observed me and said "oh yeah, this floating place is working for you". She could see in my my body.

It's definitely worth pursuing. My next appointment in four days will be split in two...reinforcing my floating safe place and starting my fire emdr stuff. I'm a bit scared truth be told.

 

[shatter eyes]

I wish yoga teachers etc would think before they talk about this stuff: that not everyone can find safety inside, and that for some, safety is very conflicted.

I second that. Almost makes me angry at the yoga teachers. In the recent years i was introduced to Shooksma teaching. I think its called PeaceTree Innovations. I felt this yoga meditation was different. It felt more geared towards trauma recovery. I did an 8 weekend journey and did find strength to find a that imaginary safe place. I tapped into that for a while and it stayed with me. Sadly, once the program ended the storm slowly slowly took me away from that sanctuary.

Peacetree helped me tap into peacefulness and i am thankful for the experience.

Today i just cannot create that imaginary safety. Hard shutting the mind off and flashbacks of smells and feelings.

 

[UnicornSightings]

Can’t you just do what you can? Like if you can’t imagine a place, can you imagine what “safe” feels like and just really foster and grow that? Let that feeling wash over you? What color is safe? What shape is safe? Etc. Just work with what you have, no specific rules need to be followed here, this is YOUR healing.

 

[AliciaEff]

Yes.

My therapist suggested I create a safe place that may not be a real place that I’ve been before.

I imagined the same images I was imagining as a kid when I read the story “the Secret Garden,” but it’s one of those things like when you’re told to not think of pink elephants, that’s all you can do, so my abuser kept showing up in my safe place in my mind. Changing the place didn’t matter. Sometimes I feel like my mind itself is not safe. I can feel safe in a physical space, and I have come to feel safe around certain people, but I don’t feel safe in my own thoughts, so I struggle to imagine safety.