Why the safest relationship you’ll ever have is going to feel, at first, like the most dangerous one.
I am loving your posts. Thank you!!
I appreciate it!
There is a useful distinction here between unfamiliar and unsafe.
But I think there is another distinction that matters just as much:
A trigger is not automatically truth.
And it is not automatically something to override.
It is information.
Sometimes the body is reacting to an old nervous system imprint.
Sometimes the body is registering something real in the current environment.
Sometimes both are happening at once.
That is why I would be careful with the instruction to tell yourself, “This is unfamiliar. It is not unsafe.”
Because the mind does not get to decide safety for the body.
The body has to reveal what it is actually responding to.
If a woman feels alarm in the presence of steadiness, consistency, directness, or calm repair, there may be a nervous system imprint active.
The body may have learned:
Calm is the quiet before punishment.
Consistency is unfamiliar and therefore suspicious.
Being received means I should brace for the reversal.
Letting down my guard may cost me later.
That nervous system imprint can resolve.
And when it does, she does not have to keep managing the same alarm through repeated reps.
The old alarm stops running.
Her body no longer has to treat steadiness as danger.
Then accurate perception becomes available.
Maybe this is secure love.
Maybe it is not.
Maybe the person really has relational capacity.
Maybe something is off.
But now she can tell the difference without overriding herself or obeying fear.
That feels like the deeper shift to me.
Not learning to stay in the room while triggered.
Resolving the nervous system imprint so the trigger no longer has to decide what the room means.
Your nervous system doesn't scan for healthy it scans for familiar. That one sentence explains why the examination has to happen before the attachment forms. Before the nervous system starts running old files on new data.
I am loving your posts. Thank you!!
I appreciate it!
There is a useful distinction here between unfamiliar and unsafe.
But I think there is another distinction that matters just as much:
A trigger is not automatically truth.
And it is not automatically something to override.
It is information.
Sometimes the body is reacting to an old nervous system imprint.
Sometimes the body is registering something real in the current environment.
Sometimes both are happening at once.
That is why I would be careful with the instruction to tell yourself, “This is unfamiliar. It is not unsafe.”
Because the mind does not get to decide safety for the body.
The body has to reveal what it is actually responding to.
If a woman feels alarm in the presence of steadiness, consistency, directness, or calm repair, there may be a nervous system imprint active.
The body may have learned:
Calm is the quiet before punishment.
Consistency is unfamiliar and therefore suspicious.
Being received means I should brace for the reversal.
Letting down my guard may cost me later.
That nervous system imprint can resolve.
And when it does, she does not have to keep managing the same alarm through repeated reps.
The old alarm stops running.
Her body no longer has to treat steadiness as danger.
Then accurate perception becomes available.
Maybe this is secure love.
Maybe it is not.
Maybe the person really has relational capacity.
Maybe something is off.
But now she can tell the difference without overriding herself or obeying fear.
That feels like the deeper shift to me.
Not learning to stay in the room while triggered.
Resolving the nervous system imprint so the trigger no longer has to decide what the room means.
Your nervous system doesn't scan for healthy it scans for familiar. That one sentence explains why the examination has to happen before the attachment forms. Before the nervous system starts running old files on new data.