Did you know that a sense of safety is the foundation for you to learn, develop and be creative in your life? When you feel unsafe, a large part of your energy and attention goes into survival. It is tiring and hard on your body and soul and it slows down your growth.
The good news is that you are designed to create safety within yourself and with others. The most highly developed part of your nervous system, the social engagement system, ensures that the first thing we naturally do in a crisis or under stress is to seek help by contacting other people. When we don’t, it’s often because we’re too stressed or traumatized to do it. But it is possible – even in stressful or unsafe situations – to create small moments of micro safety for yourself.
We can actually also use our creativity, imagination, imagination, and playfulness to get out of stress and trauma and strengthen our social engagement system. Through creating, especially with others, we can become good at feeling safe again – even if just for a moment.
Safety and creativity are connected in a circular system that is absolutely central to our survival and well-being as a species.
Here are a few simple things you can do to strengthen your sense of security – and therefore your creativity:
- Notice who you feel comfortable and safe with. Make time to be with them if you can. Put your screens away (unless you are connecting online), make eye contact, and pay attention to the other person’s facial expressions, tone of voice, and breathing. Play with mirroring it or changing your own and the feeling between you.
- Use movement to feel out a room. Look around you – pretend you are an animal that sniffs and smells or listens quietly. Orient yourself up and down, look behind you and to the sides. Look for colors and shapes – feel what that does. If you are in a space you don’t particularly feel safe in, maybe it is possible to find one thing to notice and look at. Even if it is your own hand.
- Sing alone or with others – use your voice in many different ways – this stimulates your vagus nerve, which is the core of your social engagement system.
- Be sure to choose therapists, teachers, mentors, friends, partners, collaborators, etc. with safety in mind. Notice how you feel with other people or in a given room. Are you comfortable with them? Or you become more so through play/contact and cooperation?
If you want to know more about my approach to healing and creativity, you are always welcome to visit my website at www.karinvondaler.com where I often add new articles and my latest news. Just click the button below and join me on a journey into healing creativity.
Thank you for reading my newsletters – it makes me so happy. And I would love to hear from you.
I wish you safety and lots of healing creativity,
Karin
Paintings and words by Karin von Daler 2023 ©