Safe

Horror movies are not something I have ever been a big fan of. I’ve watched them, but never seek them out. It is fun, however, to listen to the variety of responses in the audience to the unsafe moments that characters are choosing to step into.

I remember the feeling of climbing backward down a mountain ridge of loose rocks on the Appalachian Trail, with a 30-pound pack on my back. “Is this going to end well?” was definitely a question on my mind. But I would do that again, even though “safe” is not how I would describe how I felt in that moment.

Have you ever been driving and realized you just woke up, still alive, and cruising the road? Do you pull over, or keep going? My guess is that most people keep going.

We have a “risk scale” that spans from avoiding risk to actively pursuing it.

Not all safety is about the level of physical risk. The nature of feeling safe for a person who lives with anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideations is extremely different. This person might want to talk with someone, but will do so only when they sense little to no risk. If you are a safe person, you are probably a natural and regular sounding board and depository for those seeking safety. If a person living in these struggles of being finds no one, isolation becomes their companion, which is a danger zone.

“Safe” has a certain feel to it. What safe feels like is very subjective and personal, which means finding the words to describe that feeling can be difficult. Descriptions of the feeling can include relaxed, calm, trusting, respected, empowered, a sense of belonging, being open, empathy, a connection, and even a sense of control. No matter how it is defined, you personally know safe when you feel it.

Feeling safe also has a look to it. This observation is usually because you know what a person acts like when they don’t feel safe. Because you often see their state of feeling unsafe, you recognize when they are feeling safe as they open up and act as their more complete self. When you observe that sense of safety in a child or someone you know who has been through significant trauma, it is a distinct behavior that is celebrated.

Interestingly, if you ask, “Why did you feel safe with that person?” the answer tends to be, “I don’t know. I just did.” It’s that answer that makes the meaning of safe elusive. We know, but we don’t know.

By definition, to be safe is to be free from harm or risk, secure from the threat of danger. “Free from” and “secure from” have physical ideas to them, and how a person’s body is safe. But they also describe feelings that someone can have in the moment about the people and the place. One of my favorite descriptions that people consistently share when they visit my and my wife’s home is that, “It feels so peaceful here.” They feel safe.

Why do some people bring a sense of safe presence more than others? It’s like they have the ability to direct message a person’s inner-being to say, “It’s okay to let them know you’re not okay.” Think about it. When do you personally feel safe? Not just an “I don’t see any cars, so I can cross the street” safe. I mean, REALLY feel safe in your deepest being with another person with whom you can share.

This “feeling safe” conversation is deeply important, even if you consider only one statistic: every year, over 727,000 people take their own lives, and there are many more people who make suicide attempts.[i] That number bothers me. As I read it and write it, I feel the pain of the people the number represents. Do we need to be safer people?

That question leads to another question. Is being a person with whom people feel “safe” a learnable capacity? If so, to what extent? Are there certain personalities that tend more toward an atmosphere of feeling safe vs. feeling unsafe? Is it entirely determined by the person who needs to feel safe?

This article invites you to consider not only if you show up as a person who makes people feel safe and the adjustments you may need to make, but also to reflect on your own needs. Who makes you feel safe? Do you have someone to whom you can go when your inner world, outer world, or whole world is undone? Whether you are considering your own capacity to be a safe person or your need for a safe person, hopefully, you find something here that helps you walk within the human experience that seeks safety.

Someone Safe to Sit with in Silence
A quiet physical presence can be powerful. A person in crisis doesn’t always need words spoken by anyone. To sit in silence with someone struggling isn’t necessarily easy. For some, quiet is who they are. For others, quiet is a display of self-control that recognizes the moment’s need for giving a person what they need and just being there.

If you need to cultivate your ability to sit in silence, for your good and to be of help to others from a place of silence, here’s a pathway. You can start with one to three times a day, each time for 1 to 3 minutes of sitting still with your eyes closed in silence. Set a timer for your chosen amount of time. After a week or two, increase the time you sit in silence, as well as frequency, if you like. You will quickly find that when you or someone needs you to sit in silence, it will come easily.

Someone Safe to Talk To
“Promise me that you will talk to me” may be words you have said or heard before. They come from a heart of concern, with a clear sense that someone is in a bad place. When that promise is requested, it is meant wholeheartedly.

It is vital to understand that desiring wholeheartedly to be a safe presence and being a safe presence are not the same. Willing is not able. Some people carry with them a feeling of anxiety and a clearly intense need to control what is going on. It is defined as a desire to help, but it isn’t helpful. This anxiety, lived on display, can create a swirling atmosphere that feels unsafe. They will certainly not sit in silence and listen, but a safe conversation is also not possible with this person. As much as they want to help, they may actually make a person who is in distress worse.

When you don’t feel safe, you may not even know why. You just know you don’t, and that makes you “stand back” and move to high alert. For some, it means being triggered and responding out of self-protection.

One factor impacting what safe feels like to a person is trauma. When this moment feels like another moment in a person’s life when things turned out badly, it is often triggering. They don't care about what's going on with their amygdala, hippocampus, or prefrontal cortex. They know what they feel. How a person with them responds to that difficult moment will mark them as safe or unsafe.

Learning to Be a Safe Person
In the movie Patch Adams (which I mention often, so if you haven’t seen it yet, take the hint), after a self-imposed stint in a psych hospital, Patch is accepted into Harvard Medical School. His roommate, Mitch Roman, is a young man whose family has a distinguished history at Harvard, and as physicians. He doesn’t like or respect Patch Adams until he realizes Patch has “a way” with patients. When Mitch finds that he is unable to get an elderly patient to eat, he approaches Patch in desperation, saying, “I need to learn this way.”

Patch works with Mitch’s patient to fulfill a childhood dream of swimming in a pool of noodles, and finally gets her to eat. From that point on, Mitch was different. He understood there was a way of being safe that he needed to cultivate. He learned that before the plan, and before the response, to see and hear the person. When you feel like a project to be done or a task to be completed, the walls will go up.

Mitch learned because he wanted to. If, like Mitch, you desire to “learn this way,” here are some insights to help you understand what leads to feeling safe.

Trust in the Conversation
When we are having a conversation, each person present is more than a physical existence with a name. We come like a suitcase, full of everything that makes us who we are. Just as travelers manage their baggage differently, we manage the baggage of our lives in myriad ways as we converse with one another. Those “ways” about us can impact trust.

People often carry a strong “felt presence” about them, no matter where they are or with whom. They have a “settling way” about them that transcends all contexts because it’s just who they are. It is a conversational presence that is woven into their very nature. People who have this “way” about them simply show up with it. They enter your space with an ineffable presence that immediately brings your walls down. You might even take a deep breath, like the air somehow became cleaner and lighter.

When you enter a conversation, particularly when you believe someone needs something fixed, what is that entry like? Safe enters in a way that seeks not to rattle and trigger, or even control. More on this below.

Sometimes, the safe connection with a person is due to a shared story. They have been through what I am going through or something that closely resembles my experience. This is often true with veterans. A veteran can be suicidal, and until there is someone in the room who brings the “I served” card, the room might remain unstable for an extended time.

Proven care leads to recommendations. When someone I trust trusts a person, I will trust them too. You may have had a phone call or someone approach you and say something like, “Johnny Baldwin told me to come talk to you. He said you were a good listener.” It’s encouraging when such recommendations are made about you, isn’t it. I find that it makes me want to do everything I can to maintain my reputation as a trusted, safe person.

Timing of the Conversation
Being a safe person isn’t always the only variable that affects a person’s willingness to open up and share about their crisis. For instance, they may not be in the mood. Are they ready to talk?

However, sitting in silence with someone who is not prepared to talk can eventually lead to the floodgates opening. Patience is essential here. The mood can’t be forced, although openness might be coaxed through conversation about shared interests that have nothing to do with the crisis.

Another factor about timing is the surroundings. Is the place where you are located safe? Can people hear the conversation? Are there sounds, sights, or smells that are triggering? If you sense the person needs to talk, but the surroundings are a barrier, find a creative way to change locations.

Try something like, “There’s a little too much going on here for me. Do you mind if we go for a walk and get some fresh air for a few minutes?” Maybe the change in atmosphere will open things up.

The extent of their need can also determine a person’s readiness to talk. For many people, desperation is the key to the door of entry. If they aren’t desperate enough for a breakthrough or for someone to help in some way with their struggle, no one will be let into the vault of their inner world of thoughts and emotions.

The fact is, you may never know why a person won’t talk in that moment. Timing can be everything. Just remain faithful to being a safe person even when the timing is off.

Tone of the Conversation
How you say what you say and the sense of your intentions significantly impact whether or not the conversation feels safe. This can be one of the most nuanced variables you experience. How someone hears and feels tone is very individualized.

A safe person carries an empathetic presence and speaks with the same tone. Someone in crisis knows when the person talking with them is only interested in delivering a lesson, and they will shut down. A safe tone communicates:

“I see you.”

“I hear you.”

“I care for you."

“I am here for you.”

An empathetic person will offer thoughts, insights, encouragement, hope, and even some corrections, but they will be delivered with appropriate tone and timing. They have conversational wisdom.

Questions are another element of conversational tone. This means of opening doors to understanding is helpful, but it can also lock and block those same doors. When someone is seeking to gather information about a person’s situation, the conversation can take a bad turn if questions are asked in a way that feels like an interrogation.

To avoid such an isolating atmosphere when safety is needed, cultivate your awareness of the following:

• Rate of questions – Does it feel like you are listening to answers or staging the next question? Sit with, consider, and even feel their answers. Be sure you give their responses the time and presence they deserve.
  
  
• Type of questions – Do your questions give the person the sense that they matter to you as a person? Questions like, “Are you able to tell me more about that?” or “Thank you for sharing that with me. How did that make you feel?,” Do your questions make the person feel like you are trying to manipulate them? Attempts to move them with, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if you….?,” or “Why can’t you just move on?” are not helpful.
  
  
• Eye contact – Do you maintain eye contact while you listen to a person’s answers? Don’t stare them down like you are trying to look deep into their soul. They might run! Throughout a conversation, I will look up, down, or to the side, slightly shaking my head as I think about what they are saying, and then restore eye contact. If they move me to tears, I don’t hide it. I’m human too.
  
  
• Body language – I like what the Global Listening Centere says about body language, “Look like you are listening.”[ii] Be careful with “mirroring” and what I would call orchestrated head nodding. If the body language feels fake or copycat, it will be off-putting to the person you desire to make safe. Don’t cross arms, but you might fold your hands in your lap or on the table, to help tell your body and brain to settle and focus. Lean forward a bit. Let how you sit show your heart is open.
  
  
• Volume and tone of voice – For someone with Post Traumatic Stress, high or sudden volume, especially if it feels like yelling, can be very triggering. Tone is about coming across as condescending, angry, or impatient. A safe tone is quiet, calming, and affirming.

I know there is a lot here. If you are someone who naturally makes people feel safe, I hope this article has affirmed you. But if you know you need to work on being a safe person, some capacities can be learned. Choose one or two adjustments to focus on. Find someone you know to be safe and learn from them. Allow them to speak about how you are present in conversation. You may become a natural at helping people feel safe.

If you need a person safe to talk to, please don't hesitate to reach out to someone you know, call 988, or reach out to me. My email is below.

Your current life situation may be unbearable, but you matter, and you are not alone.

[i] World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

[ii] Global Listening Centere: https://www.globallisteningcentre.org/body-language-of-listeners/

Do you desire to strengthen your CharityTracker or OasisInsight network and achieve new levels of collaboration and impact? Reach out to Chuck today to schedule your conversation: chuck@simonsolutions.com. 

Dr. Chuck Coward serves as Community Impact Specialist for Simon Solutions, Inc. Chuck has invested over 37 years in fostering human and community development from a variety of places and roles, including as a pastor, non-profit Executive Director, Director of Development, businessman, consultant, university professor, The Struggle Coach, and the founder of Entrusted Foundation. Serving to make people and communities stronger is his great passion. Chuck is the proud husband of Anita, dad to four, and granddaddy to eight (number nine is on the way).