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Longing for Connection
“Safety is an absence of threat plus a feeling of connection.”
Our nervous system prioritizes our physical safety over connection and routinely hijacks us. We want to feel close to someone yet we are afraid to trust. Our perception of safety and threat is unconscious. Our primitive brain is constantly on the look out for danger and bases its predictions on the past. It works in black and white thinking. Mindfulness of our body and thoughts can help us use the more sophisticated part of our brain to weigh the evidence for a more nuanced perception.
We are all subject to being activated into fight/flight/freeze responses when we face uncertainty or danger. Deb Dana speaks about our home in ventral vagal, a state of trust and connection, and our home-away-from-home, our tendency to go into fight, flight or freeze. It is necessary to understand this basic process so we can notice when we are in fight/flight/freeze and know how to come back home.
Monitor your body for changes. Are you holding your breath? Clenching your jaw? These are signals that you are perceiving that something is wrong or dangerous.
