Naming Your Window of Safety

+ a word on exercising agency

(I recorded the voiceover with my nice mic that picks up everything. Forgive the background murmurs of my family hanging out and playing Zelda in the room adjacent to my office.)

Photo by Nelly Antoniadou on Unsplash

In the 1991 animated version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, there’s a moment in the beginning of the movie when Maurice, Belle’s father, is navigating a path in the woods with his horse, Philippe, trying to reach the fair with his new invention. They’re clearly lost when Maurice and Philippe come to a crossroads. Philippe (the horse) looks down one path and sees sunshine and a clear way. He looks in the other direction and sees a dark path with sinister vibes. Figuring it was a no-brainer, Philippe attempts to walk down the safer looking path, but he’s reigned back by Maurice who is determined to believe the more-daunting way is a shortcut.

(Spoiler alert: It was not a shortcut.)

Sometimes, safety is easily defined as the sunny safe path in contrast to the dark and ominous one. But when we’re talking about safety within the church (or with any high-controlled environment or totally codependent relationship), I have realized that naming our safety can be confusing or even crazy-making. Like Philippe, we might begin with a strong posture that innately trusts our own intuition only to experience someone forcing us to walk down the more dangerous (and sometimes presumably “faithful”) path. And if we experience a consistent pattern of abusive behavior in the church, then our trust in ourselves erodes slowly, chipping away into oblivion.

I want to do two things in this conversation. I want to 1) lay out a limited framework for how I navigate safety, and 2) I want to empower you to name your own safety. What I don’t want to do? Reduce safety down to a short to-do list or attempt to comprehensively define safety for all of us in general. So, let’s chat knowing this is a tricky topic requiring a lot of nuance, and this post is my meager attempt at giving you a place to start.

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“How do you know when you’re safe to tell your story?”

This question or questions on “safety” are the primary topics that land either in my direct messages or email inbox from others who read my words or follow my work. So many reach out wanting to share their story, but many do not know how, when, or even if they can. My answer is always, “I can tell you how I named safety for myself, but I can’t name it for you.”

Objective and Subjective Safety

When I think about what is and isn’t safe, there are two filter questions I ask. First, “Is this person, place, or thing objectively unsafe? Meaning it is unsafe for everyone. Or, second, “Is this person, place, or thing subjectively unsafe?” As in, unsafe for a particular person in a particular context. Something that is objectively unsafe would be akin to sleeping in a burning building—you are 💯 going to get hurt if you don’t move. But to evaluate what is subjectively unsafe would require one to consider a person’s lived story and their own personal experience—including emotional, psychological, and physiological experiences—to understand how to define and name safety for themselves.

When we talk about safety, we are, in part, talking about stress and our nervous system’s response to it. In a previous Substack post, I mentioned that those with a high Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) scores have experienced throughout their childhood an avalanche of stress hormones flooding their system. (This flooding response exists in adulthood, too). In the TEDtalk video with Dr. Burke Harris, she mentions the HPA-axis, which names the interaction of your Hippocampus, Pituitary gland, and the Adrenal gland. Your hippocampus is what detects the threat and sends a signal through your pituitary gland, telling your adrenal gland to flood your body with stress hormones. With the flood of stress hormones your body feels the rush of adrenaline as it prepares you to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn. But how does your hippocampus distinguish what is or isn’t a threat?

Trauma triggers or what it means when someone is “triggered” is common enough in our everyday language. But at the risk of being redundant, being triggered—in the simplest terms—means your brain (which is always subconsciously scanning your environment) has detected a threat, sent a signal through the HPA-axis that, in turn, has flooded your body with stress hormones, and is preparing you to respond. But because of trauma and our need to be hyper-vigilant during a previous traumatic experience in order to survive, we can be easily triggered.

Hear me: Being triggered is not inherently bad. We need our body to respond when a real threat enters our orbit. Many of us can be easily triggered, even in situations where there is no immediate threat. When a perceived threat has passed, you might be tempted to think you were being ridiculous, but in reality you did FEEL unsafe because that moment recalled a similar memory or experience from the past where you were actually unsafe. This is NORMAL. You are normal. Based on your history and the life you have lived, being triggered is a normal response. It means that, against so many odds, your body has learned how to survive and take care of you. However, being stuck in survival mode sucks because you are living life constantly on-edge and often without hope. We can hurt people when we are triggered, too. But thriving is possible, and if you want to move from a life of survival to a place of thriving, you can work with a support system to build your resiliency and widen your window of tolerance.

Window of Tolerance

In chapter 4 of Looking at Trauma, Abby Hershler lays out great info on Dan Siegel’s framework for the window of tolerance. In short, the window of tolerance is a range wherein we feel safe and capable. We are able to self-regulate our nervous systems and be present to our current experience. But when we are in a situation that becomes stressful, we will begin approaching the extremes on either side of our window of tolerance, and our brain and body will shift (or trigger) so that we can respond to stress.

Source: Jade Emery, Psychology Today

Many who spend considerable time doing internal healing work may find that their window of tolerance is huge; they are not easily triggered, and their ability to self-regulate is stellar. Through healing, maybe their window of tolerance is five stories tall. But someone who is easily triggered may have a window only 5 inches tall and, thus, the space therein for being present, curious, and grounded is very limited. But when you work to widen your window, you broaden our ability to self-regulate and experience safety within many different environments.

I briefly want to say, what may be safe for me may not be safe for you. A person who is safe for me may not be a safe person for you. There are objectively unsafe people and spaces out there to be sure, but we need wisdom to understand that to love our (traumatized) neighbors we need to give them the freedom and agency to name their own safety. And we need the humility to know that sometimes we may not be the safe person another traumatized individual needs, no matter how much we love them. Those who abuse power leverage the trust of others; they name safety for them even as they harm them. But I know and have experienced the power of healing within a safe community—one where people do not bully or mock you (or others) but give everyone space to be and grow.

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Doing the Work to Name Safety

One horrific issue with spiritual abuse—and there are many—is that your agency is withdrawn to the point where you distrust yourself. Pastors and leaders say, “Trust us! Trust our interpretation. Trust how we see and view things.” And from my own personal experience, I saw how my trust in others led me into dangerous places where my agency was withdrawn and my discernment, disabled. Because my warning system was disarmed, I was unable to name my safety. Or worse, if I mentioned I felt unsafe, my leaders worked to make me feel crazy.

To tell my story today, I needed to do the work to name my safety for myself. I needed to weigh and measure the concoction of circumstances surrounding my personal life, and, after understanding the risks, I was able to determine whether I could pay the very real costs of speaking up. I needed to understand what would or wouldn’t trigger my HPA-axis. And I needed to widen my window of tolerance.

When I spoke up, I paid the cost by losing the community I had in my church, and while it hurt like hell, I also know I had the resources and the support system to feel safe enough to speak. I had people around me who made space for me, my story, and my grief—without judgment. I found people who wouldn’t bully me into belonging. In my dysregulated state, I had the kind, compassionate ear of others who would attune and co-regulate with me.

Now, I name my own safety. I do not let other, well-meaning people (even advocates and friends) name my safety for me because I know that I need to exercise long-atrophied agency-muscles.

It is a deeply personal thing to determine when you feel safe enough to tell your story, let alone naming when you feel safe in general. It comes with a lot of hard inner work that only you can opt into, but I know how grateful and empowering it is to be able to name safety for myself. I would never disempower you by naming what is and isn’t safe for you. What I can encourage you to do is find others—people who are safe, gentle, and kind, people you can trust, people who are not judgmental—to help you widen your window of tolerance.

Spiritual abuse does a damn good job of dehumanizing you, making you feel small. It takes power away from you. But naming your own safety is a blessing. It is a power. Resist the temptation of giving that power away to others as you heal. Like Philippe from Beauty and the Beast, if you see the sunny path and you want to take it, walk boldly. Don’t let others grab the reigns and lead you into spaces and places you do not want to go.

Jesus not only validated the wounds of the marginalized, but he also empowered them in their healing. He used his power to empower others. So, look for the other people in your life who use their power to empower you as you heal and speak.

With you and for you,

@jenaiauman 🌾

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I try to end every newsletter with some resources. Here are a few.

Resources

• Widen the Window by Elizabeth A. Stanley, PhD. (I haven’t read this one yet, but it is in my very long TBR list.)

• Literally anything by Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis, but her recent book, Homecoming, is also at the top of my TBR list.

• I highly recommend working with a trauma-informed professional. You can find a religious trauma-informed therapist licensed to work in your state/province using the Reclamation Collective Directory.

• You can also work with a Trauma Recovery/Healing Coach. Coaching is a different avenue for healing as coaches work with clients as peers using a strengths-based approach. You are also freed up to work with coaches who are not located in your state. Check the IAOTRC Coach Directory.

Both therapy & coaching are viable routes to healing, but each comes with their own set of limitations. Therapy can often be cost prohibitive for many who have limited resources. Managed mental health care and insurance may also limit what services a therapist can provide under a client’s coverage—if insurance covers therapy at all. Lastly, not all therapists are trauma-informed, and many of us learn this the hard way. Alternatively, trauma recovery coaching is widely available and their training is trauma-specific, but it is a newer avenue with it’s own limitations.

All this to say: There are great therapists and trauma recovery coaches, and there are many who are not so great. I’m here to offer resources I find helpful, but you have the freedom and agency to make your own informed decisions on your healing journey.

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