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What does it mean to be “safe?”

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 Trauma causes our brain to get stuck in a place of defense. Anything that
reminds our trauma brain of the original experience, whether conscious or
unconscious, will trigger our fight, flight, or freeze response.

In order to shut o! our trauma response, we must be in an environment

that is truly safe. Otherwise, we will continue to be retraumatized, or
compound our trauma with other equally damaging experiences.

When we think of being safe, we usually think of being physically safe. But
safety is so much more than that. In Redefining Love, there are five realms
of safety: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and financial.

Physical safety
From early childhood we are taught basic rules meant to keep us physically
safe: wear your seatbelt, look both ways before crossing the street, don’t
talk to strangers. And yet, there are many other ways we must learn to
protect ourselves that are overlooked, or even discouraged by modern life.

Here are just a few ways that culture sanctions behaviors that put our
personal safety at risk:

Children are forced to hug or kiss adults they don’t know well or they
don’t really like.
Violent or sexually explicit media that reinforce unhealthy
relationships.
Food used as a coping mechanism for comfort.
Diet culture
Tobacco or excessive alcohol use.
Denial of basic physical needs such as sleep, food, proper clothing
for weather, and shelter.
Regular yelling, screaming, or other major disturbances that disrupt
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 the sense of security and peace of the household.
Threats to physical safety, even if they are not acted upon.
Corporal punishment (any physical punishment that leaves a bruise,
abrasion, or cut on the skin).
Withholding basic needs such as food, water, sleep, etc. as
punishment.
Denying someone’s personhood – making someone feel invisible or
lacking in value.

The truth is, there are endless examples of ways we can be physically
unsafe, and as a parent I can tell you that it is impossible to protect your
children from exposure to everything. It could even be argued that
insulating children from every danger in the environment does not properly
prepare them for life in the real world.

That being said, it is important to realize that violence is so much more than
physical beating or sexual assault. Any action that causes physical harm, a
sense of impending harm, or ongoing anxiety that physical needs won’t be
met consistently is an act of violence.

Any time someone is left with a feeling that they do not have
autonomy over their own body, their physical safety has been
compromised.

Emotional safety
Historically, the cultural expectation of emotional expression is very
gendered. Women are “too emotional” to be rational, and men are not
supposed to have any emotions except anger and happiness. Regardless of
gender, the final result of these toxic emotional expectations causes people
to mask their true feelings in order to be taken seriously.

Gendered expectations of emotional expression are incredibly damaging.

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 We are given emotions for a reason. We cry when we are sad. We laugh
when we are happy. We shake when we are angry. We gasp when we are
scared. The expression of emotions is an energetic release that regulates
our nervous system. When we stifle these reactions, we are disrupting our
body’s natural processes and our brains get stuck.

Stifling emotional expression simply compounds our trauma. Not only have
we experienced a traumatic event, but we are traumatized further by
stifling natural reactions to that event. Our brains are designed to process
traumatic events with emotion, yet we also teach our brains to identify
those emotions as bad. The next time you experience that emotion, your
brain is going to automatically shut it down because that’s what it’s been
programmed to do.

It also creates a “volcano e!ect” – we hold the emotion in until our bodies
can no longer take it, and then they erupt into violent rage or a total
emotional meltdown. Or, alternatively, our bodies literally absorb the
emotions and they manifest as physical symptoms of pain or illness.

So, how do you become emotionally safe? You surround yourself with
people who will sit with you in your big feelings. And you allow yourself to sit
with your big feelings, express them as they arrive, so they can be released
and you can move on.
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 Mental safety
Mental safety often gets confused with emotional safety, but they are
actually two entirely separate things. Mental safety is when you can trust
yourself and others around you to be honest, direct, consistent, and
reliable. In short, you aren’t worried about your close relationships playing
mind games with you, and you trust yourself to discern when you are being
manipulated.

Words like “gaslighting,” “scapegoating,” projecting,” and “toxic

relationships” are related to mental safety. When we feel mentally unsafe,
we do not trust others or ourselves to discern the reality of a situation. Our
brains become programmed to distrust all people and ourselves, making us
susceptible to isolation and further manipulation.

Spiritual safety
Yikes. This is such a minefield… Here’s the deal. Religion is a beautiful thing
when it is used as a means to connect with yourself, humanity, and the
universe in a way that is fulfilling for you and in service to the greater good.
When practiced in a healthy way, religion is good for ourselves, our families,
and our communities.

Unfortunately, because religion is a human institution, all religions can be

abused to attain power and control over others. If you believe your religion
is immune, or that the institution you attend is immune to such corruption,
it’s probably time to do a deep dive to explore the roots of this belief. The
only way our religion can be beneficial is if we maintain a healthy
skepticism of the power structures within our chosen faith.

The first step in attaining spiritual safety is to recognize the di!erence

between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is your relationship with your
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 higher power. Religion is the human institution created to express that
relationship. A spiritually healthy person recognizes that if all human-
created concepts were removed, they would still have a connection with
their higher power. Spirituality is about relationship. Religion is about
expression.

If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions, you may be

experiencing spiritual abuse:

Does your religion encourage violence towards others? (Remember

that violence is not only about physical assault.)

Does your religion place humans in absolute power over others?

Are you allowed to ask questions about your religion without fear of
mental or physical retribution?

Does your religion place you or others on a hierarchy above others?

Are you afraid of social abandonment, isolation, banishment, or

punishment if you question the tenets of your religion? (Another way
to ask this question: Would the primary people in your life no longer
have a relationship with you if you ask too many questions or leave
the faith?)

It’s important to recognize that abuse can be within a household, or it can

be institutional. The danger of spiritual abuse is that it can insert itself into
all layers of a person’s relationships, and may be encouraged within
households by the larger institution itself. This makes extracting ourselves
from spiritual abuse a very isolating – and sometimes dangerous –
situation.

If you believe you are experiencing spiritual abuse, try visiting another
place of worship outside of your current institution’s a"liation. Pay
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 attention to how the new place of worship is di!erent from your own, and
gauge how your close relationships react. A little confusion from your
family and friends is understandable, but displays of excessive anger,
threats of banishment, or isolation from your faith peers is a sign that you
may need help or support.
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 Financial safety
When we are financially dependent on someone else, it creates a power
di!erential. Certainly there are plenty of families who function beautifully in
these family structures. But it only works when the breadwinner does not
use finances to control others within the household. When others in the
household feel trapped in the relationship by their financial situation, their
financial safety is at risk.

The classic example of this is when a physically abused woman cannot

a!ord to leave her abuser. As many as 99 percent of domestic violence
survivors experience financial abuse (National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence).

Financial safety applies to more than just domestic violence situations,

however. Financial safety is when you feel trust towards those who have
financial power over you. If you feel that your personal autonomy is
determined not by you, but by the person who has control of your finances,
you may be experiencing financial abuse.

Financial conservatorships are an extreme example of this. Other examples

are: parents who buy their kids a!ection in a divorce situation, when a
parent withholds basic needs like proper clothing as punishment, or when
a spouse demands line-by-line justification of receipts for basic household
needs.

Be careful when considering possible financial abuse that you are taking
personal accountability. A parent who chooses to withhold college tuition
from an adult child who is failing all their classes is not being abusive, nor is
a spouse who closes credit cards because a spouse is charging luxury
vacations and clothing they can’t a!ord.
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 Healing our trauma
It’s been said that we cannot heal in the same environment that made you
sick. If you live in a house with black mold, you aren’t going to recover from
it’s e!ects until you eradicate the mold or move to a new house. Similarly,
we can only heal from our trauma if our current surroundings are truly
safe. So it’s important that we examine and understand what it means to be
safe, in all it’s forms.

Once you have determined the ways you feel unsafe, you can determine
whether the best course of action is to resolve the issues within the
relationship, or leave the relationship entirely. It may be that the other
person simply didn’t know that their behavior was causing harm. Once they
understand, you can work together to remedy the situation. And
sometimes, a situation is so toxic that you must remove yourself from the
situation entirely.

**A note on physical safety**

If you feel physically unsafe in your home, please seek help. You don’t have
to face this alone. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-
SAFE (7233), or visit their website at www.thehotline.org.
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 Learn more...
To learn more about the Redefining Love Way, I encourage you to browse
the site. Have questions? Feel free to email me at sara@sarabethwald.com,
or schedule a free discovery call.

For more information on how to join the Redefining Love Community,

please visit redefine-love.com/coaching.

Related Links
What is Redefining Love?
Boundaries
Accountability
Grace
Dealing with Anger
Toxic Relationships
Mental Health
The Health Connection
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