Safety: A Hallmark of Recovery
This morning, I called the State of Colorado to inquire about my PT License. I mistakenly allowed my “inactive status” PT license to lapse last October and didn’t even realize this until January.
Ladies. This was a problem.
My PT career has been my big back up plan. My security blanket. My insurance policy incase my marriage falls apart.
As most of you know - I was obsessed with my work as a PT. And if we connect on IG, you might have already read my post from last week about how I kicked and screamed for YEARS before saying okay, I will go where you go, God.
Over the last year, the sweetest thing has happened which has helped me feel like my schooling and time as a PT wasn’t for not: I have been able to use my expertise as a Physical Therapist to help women connect to their bodies as well as to teach women about their nervous systems and what it looks like to become more regulated. God really doesn’t waste anything.
That is my loose segue into what I want to share more about today: safety. It’s going to take the tiniest bit of neuroscience to unpack this, so here is me being grateful for my degree.
We talk a LOT about getting safe in order to be able to heal from betrayal. But what does that even mean?
Safety and our Window of Tolerance
The window of tolerance is a word first coined by Daniel Siegel. His book, Mindsight, is in my queue and I hope to be reading it soon (I have had it in my queue for about two years, sorry Daniel!). Think of the Window of Tolerance as the state of being where you feel safe, calm and secure. More specifically it’s where your nervous system feels safe, calm, secure and regulated.
We can move outside our window of tolerance - sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse. We move outside our window of tolerance when we are in stress (think: sympathetic response). We also move outside our window of tolerance when we stay in a stressed state for too long (this is called dorsal vagal shutdown).
What is key is to work at staying in our window of tolerance (the calm state) because it’s WHEN we are in this calm state that we can better process and integrate the painful parts of our stories.
Bottom line: when we are “inside" our window of tolerance, we can digest pain and trauma in order to get unstuck and move forward in a healthy way.
How do we stay put in and grow our window of tolerance?
There are many things that can help us stay in and grow our window of tolerance. I am going to share three strategies below -
Co-Regulation
This is one of the three hallmarks of Polyvagal Theory, which is something we dig into at the RLW Retreats. Co-regulation essentially speaks to the fact that we regulate our nervous systems off of others we are around. That said, being in community with others that we feel calm and relaxed with is going to help us stay in our window of tolerance and likewise, this will also grow our window of tolerance.
This is why I believe group support is so so transformative. It will not only help us stay in our window of tolerance, it will help widen it.
Boundaries
Remember, the reason we set boundaries is to get safe, yes, and we do this by protecting ourselves (with boundaries). Boundaries = Protection. Boundaries in the recovery process also help us gain clarity - but that’s a story for another day!
Bottom line - boundaries help us protect the window of tolerance that we are working to stay in.
Boundaries can be HARD to figure out. If you are new on this journey - one step in the right direction is to simply consider: what are your limits? What are you okay with and not okay with? Name your limits. And when something happens that you are not okay with - say it out loud.
I am not okay with him looking at porn.
I am not okay with my son watching TV before doing homework.
I am not okay with eating Cheetos (one of my fav junk foods, in case you were wondering) for dinner.
While we haven’t set boundaries by naming our limits, we have brought an awareness to the things we value and thus want to protect. From the examples above - we clearly value sexual integrity, we value doing first things first and we value nutrition over Cheetos (as sad as that makes me).
Bringing Awareness to our Bodies
When I am outside my window of tolerance, I feel disconnected from my body. This will oftentimes happen to me if I’ve had a long workday with clients and I shift directly from client care to parenting. There’s been no decompression and I feel like I am outside myself looking in.
{Quick pause: do you know what it feels like internally when you are outside your window of tolerance? If so, name it. If not, let's talk more about this!}
Being aware of when I am in this disconnected state (physically, and more specifically from a neurological perspective) is critical. If I can go for a walk (with Pluto, of course), listen to the birds chirping and feel the sun beating on my face (even though I always wear a hat and glasses - thanks m + d for the delicate skin!), I am able to quickly reconnect with me.
Find your thing. It could be a walk or it could be lying on the bed and doing deep breathing. It could be going outside and using your five senses to name what you are experiencing. The ideas are endless. The point is - be aware of when you are off kilter and then take the time to reconnect with you.
__________
Safety is an experience. It’s a way of being. It’s feeling calm, connected, grounded. And THEN doing the recovery work from this place as much as possible. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. We will flow in and out. But staying in a place of safety is one of the foundational components to healing well.
So about that call this morning - I know you are all wondering. {Haha!}
The nice lady with the state basically told me I have to reinstate my license and jump through ALL the hoops (whatever those are) since I let it lapse. She also told me, which I greatly appreciate, that even if I didn’t let it lapse - if I ever choose to go back to “active" status - I would have to jump through those same hoops.
So - my mistake really saved me some money. No more paying the every other year fee. And if I do choose to go back to PT someday - well, I will probably have to donate a kidney, sell a child and do a triple back flip. Hopefully it won’t come to that. And if it does - it’s because it’s where God has asked me to go.
As always, I am here for your thoughts and questions. Just comment below and you can always use your initials or no name at all!
xoxo - Shelley