Part 2: Safe Enough to Move Through Shame
Safety is a key ingredient in our growth and connection as humans. It supports our ability to flourish and thrive.
If we come back to the AEDP Change Triangle shared in part 1, safety is what makes the processing of core emotions possible. And to add another layer to our triangle, it also gives us greater access to states of openheartedness; calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, clear — the 7 C’s.
But before we get to openheartedness, in a real, authentic way, we have to be with whatever emotions are asking to be felt. We can’t bypass our emotions and expect to stay in openheartedness for very long. Our feelings have a way of tugging at our bodies as to say please pay attention to me. A heavy heart, knots in the stomach, bracing through the shoulders, all signs our emotions are attempting to communicate with us.
Yet, many of us have learned emotions are to be repressed, overridden, and numbed. That our feelings are too much, too burdensome, and too “negative.”
Have you ever heard the following?
“Don’t cry”
“It’s not that bad, others have it way worse”
“You’re overreacting/being dramatic”
“It could be worse, think on the bright side, cheer up”
“You’re such a downer”
“I don’t have time for this (your feelings)”
“Stop being so negative/weak/emotional”
“Boys don’t cry”
“You’re taking up too much space”
And raise your hand if it was a parent, or caregiver who told you the above.
As little ones, we rely on our parents to help us regulate our emotions. To regulate our feelings with another being is called co-regulation, the often forgotten, and foundational piece of how we regulate our emotions.
(I could go off on a tangent about how our culture prioritizes and celebrates self-regulation, to a fault, but I will leave that for another time.)
Gustav Klimt, Mother and Child, 1905
When we’re children, our brains are not developed enough to regulate on our own. We need to co-regulate with a trusted other. Yet, what often happens—whether it be through the popular parenting advice of the time, personal upbringings and dysregulation, or the very real demand of young parenthood in a hyper-individualistic society—many of us are not afforded the steady support of co-regulation from our caregivers. We are left with big feelings on our own, devoid the capacity to weather their bigness.
This sets off alarm bells, and anxiety comes alive in our little bodies. Then comes the judgement—shame. Scripts of “what’s wrong with me, why can’t I stop crying? I feel bad, I am bad” are born.
Because anxiety and shame also feel bad, defences (also referred to as protective mechanisms, or survival strategies) are learned to keep us safe from this felt inner badness. We reverse engineer the change triangle.
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We Need Safety to Move Through Our Emotions
Through co-regulation, a child learns from their caregiver, “this sadness is safe to feel,” “here are ways I can feel my anger safety, without hurting someone else or myself,” “my caregiver shares in my joy and excitement, my joy and excitement is welcome.”
Like a parent checking both ways before crossing the street, the child trusts and knows it is safe to get to the other side. Through safety, we learn we can get to the other side of an emotion and be okay. And in AEDP, we believe we get to the other side of an emotion and become transformed. Remember the 7 C’s and the state of openheartedness? Yum.
In the following section I share several practices for cultivating an inner sense of safety. Maybe you decide you’d like to move through them sequentially, or perhaps you explore them one by one. As always, invitation to listen to your body and check-in with what you need
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Tools for Creating a Felt Sense of Safety
Co-regulation
We learn safety in the eyes and arms of another, and that safety is then translated into an internal felt sense that we can access and feel. But what happens when connection has historically been unsafe? When there was no trusted other, or the person you thought you could trust harms you?
Fortunately, we can co-regulate with figures other than the people in our lives. Nature, fictional characters, animals can all be co-regulators.
When we practice co-regulation, all we’re doing is getting into relationship with our source of co-regulation, and then noticing what happens inside. What comes alive in your body as you chat with a close friend, walk through the forest, or pet your dog? Maybe there’s an experience of warmth, or ease. Maybe it’s a felt feeling of delight, or closeness, or trust.
In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown describe shame as modulated through secrecy and silence. If it feels possible, what might it be like to share your shame story with your trusted other?
Orienting and Resourcing
When co-regulation isn’t available, orienting and resourcing are other somatic skills we can practice to cultivate an inner sense of safety.
As we orient, we move through the layers of our senses (sight, sound, touch, scent, taste) to presence ourselves in the moment. With the eyes open, we might look around the room, really taking in the details alive before you. We might transition to sound, listening for the layers of sound available to you, then touch, next scent, and finally taste. We can move through all 5 of our senses, or even selecting one to practice.
To resource, we extend our co-regulation beyond people, plants, and animals, to also include inanimate objects (maybe it’s your favourite sweater, or a blanket you love), a memory that delights you, any spiritual figures, or ancestors, or even an inner feeling, like a warm heart, or grounded feet. Resources can be inner, outer, tangible, or intangible—giving us lots of room to explore what feels anchoring.
Unlike co-regulation, we’re not going into physical relationship with our source of regulation, rather, we’re transporting ourselves in our minds eye. And just as we do when co-regulating, can you notice what comes alive inside as you scan your room and connect with your resource? Here we see if we can hold dual awareness, as to really take in, and savour, the moment, and what it’s like to be connected to your resource.
Regulating Your Physiology
Here I want to offer two tools: counted breathing and the vu breath.
Counted breath: Through your nose, breath in for a count of 4. Pause at the top. Exhale, through your lips as though you were breathing through a straw for a count of 6. Pause at the bottom. Repeat for minimum 1 minute.
Vu breath: Take a full breath in through your nose. As you exhale, sigh the sound “vu” aloud, allowing the sound to reverberate through your throat. Repeat 5-10 times.
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Go Deeper
In your journal, describe what it feels like to feel safe. Finish this sentence, “I know I am safe because…”
Practice one of the above tools once a day for the next week, always with the intention to see if you can connect with an inner sense of safety.
