After trauma we can be so hypervigilant that anything will scare us, whether it’s a loud noise or scary thoughts, we perceive threats at every turn. This is a hard way to live; we just can’t relax and remain jumpy and tense, often for years.

As children grow they internalize levels of safety, if the caregivers were trustworthy the child feels safe enough to relax, if the caregivers were both physical and emotionally unsafe the child is always on alert to any real or imagined danger.

Many children never had or lost their sense of safety very early in life and grew unaware of any other options; this belief is carried into adulthood leaving the adult sometimes to create extreme safety methods like isolation. This would be a normal response to an abnormal childhood but in adulthood it is very unhealthy.

Take notice to what safety means to you, are you edgy in crowds, have no patience for mistakes and uncertainty, is safety something you find elusive and long for.

Giving a long list of methods of how to relax does not work, you must go deep into that scary trauma place, it won’t be easy, and temporarily scary and uncomfortable, but coming through to the other side of examining what your safety issues are and where they came from will expel that threat energy to relaxed energy that will create a safe space for you to heal.

Find that place where you deserve to heal, find someone you feel safe with, a therapist, friend, a piece of paper and pen, try any and all ideas you have to heal, you are worth the effort.