“Ok, I can see you’re getting overwhelmed. Let’s try going to your safe space and see if that can help your body regulate.”

I sat on my couch in my virtual EMDR therapy session experiencing flashback after flashback, feeling like my mind was no longer connected to my body, like I wasn’t in the room at all. I was back in the hospital, hooked up to the monitors, doubled over in pain. 

My therapist was doing her best to stay with me, help me come back to my body and the present moment. Knowing I would be trying to process intense, traumatic experiences, we had talked about using my “safe space” if I ever got too overwhelmed. I knew what she was asking me to do and I tried my best to bring the images of my safe space into my mind.

But there was a problem. Every time I thought of my safe space, my body got even more anxious and the flashbacks got worse. I kept trying to picture the forest I had pictured hundreds of times before when I needed a safe space to go to in my mind. I had used the image of this forest during multiple childbirths, marathon training, and the terrifying medical events I experienced this year.  Every other time it had brought me an immediate sense of peace and security. This forest was the safest, calmest place I could imagine and my brain loved to be there. But this time, it wasn’t working. The forest felt scary, too. 

Seeing that I was still dysregulated, my therapist suggested various grounding techniques instead and gave me time to work through them.

“Notice 5 objects in the room around you.” “Put both of your feet on the floor.” “Drink some cold water.” 

Finally, I was able to help my mind come back to the therapy session and felt my body calm down. Once I was calmed down, I was able to start processing what had happened and why my safe space “failed.” And I had a profound realization, my safe space was no longer safe. 

Unfortunately, because I had used the imagery of this safe space to cope with many hours of intense pain and life-threatening medical events, my mind had formed a connection between the pain and the imagery of that space. So now, when I brought the image to mind it felt scary and unsafe, my body remembered the pain. 

Forcing A Safe Space

Sometimes I hear members of the church talk about how much joy and security it brings them. For many, many people- the church is a “safe space.” They attend their meetings, go to the temple, read their scriptures and these actions create a sense of fulfillment and peace. They feel at home.

But for others, the church can be more complicated. There may be aspects of the church that feel safe and bring them peace, but other parts do not. And they struggle to reconcile their feelings of safety with the discomfort and dysregulation they feel. “Why does it feel so good when I’m singing the hymns on Sunday and then I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin when I sit down to read the scriptures?” 

This type of dysregulation can also come with a good dose of guilt- “I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I should feel good about all of my involvement with the church.” And that guilt is often perpetuated by church culture and rhetoric that vilifies negative feelings such as fear, discomfort, and sadness and claims they are products of a lesser testimony or Satan’s temptations. There is an assumption that we can force people into better feelings or more conviction. That if we preach at them enough, give them our perspective, send them just the right conference talk, they will feel better and feel the peace we feel.

But if there is one thing I have learned through my personal traumas and that of many clients in my therapy practice, you cannot force someone to feel safe. It’s just not possible. Safety is something that must come from within.

So what happens when you try to force it? What would’ve happened if my therapist said “No, Callan, you must think of the forest. The forest feels safe to me so I’m sure it’ll be great for you, too. Just think harder, try harder to feel peace there.” For my therapist, images of a forest might have peace and safety tied to them. Those same images had always felt safe to me in the past, too. But then I went through something very painful and it changed those images for me. That context matters and my personal experiences matter. My therapist knew to honor my personal feelings of safety. She knew that safety could only come from within me, so she encouraged me to try to find it another way and stayed with me in the process. If not for that understanding, the flashbacks would’ve continued and gotten worse and this session would’ve been its own retraumatizing event. It could’ve eventually led to me feeling like therapy itself is not safe.

Trying to force family or friends to feel safe in the church will only increase dissociation. They will either become more disconnected as a way of coping with the discomfort or their feelings of unsafety will increase. It could cause them to either become more numb to their body’s safety cues or become so overwhelmed by their body’s cues that the church as a whole feels unsafe.

Instead, when someone is telling you that the safe space of the church no longer feels safe, listen to them. It’s likely that the loss of safety is due to discomfort or pain. Some kind of principle, procedure, or process no longer feels safe to their body and they are doing the hard work of listening to those cues. Be with them in their discomfort and let them find their own way through it. It’s possible that your no-pressure presence and understanding can become the temporary safe space they need to work through the painful pieces and reestablish their own church safety.

But what if they leave?

Sometimes even your openness and understanding will not be enough to create the safety a family member or friend needs in the church, and that’s OK, too. It’s possible their personal experiences have been painful and uncomfortable enough that the church as a whole has become unsafe for them. As hard as it can be, trust that they can follow their own body’s cues of unsafety. Let them know you trust them and believe them when they say they are unsafe. This will go much further in helping them heal whether that’s in or out of the church. Remind yourself that you cannot force them to feel safe in a place that doesn’t feel safe to them and be compassionate to your own feelings connected to that. Try to focus on remaining a safe space for your friend or family member, regardless of their church involvement. 

I’m working with my therapist on creating a new safe space, one that doesn’t have a connection to the trauma itself. While that’s possible to do in my mind, it’s not always physically possible in our day-to-day lives. We will encounter many circumstances that trigger feelings of unsafety and we can’t always avoid it. But the more we notice and care for our safety needs, the more our bodies will trust that we are OK. And that trust will take us to the safe spaces we need.