For Youth: Feeling Safe Is Different than Being Safe- LA Fires 2025

Although your logical mind knows you are no longer in mortal danger,

your body can’t shake the feeling it still is.

Even when we logically understand we are safe, we can still feel on edge. This disconnect arises because while our lived experience is influenced by a combination of body sensations and logical thoughts, body sensations often have a more immediate and powerful impact. These uneasy feelings signal a nervous system to be on alert.

This essay explores a framework for understanding this difference between feeling and knowing. It also offers two practical steps we can take to help regain a felt sense of safety. This approach is partially inspired by the work of neuroscientist Stephen Porges, PhD.

Feeling safe biologically is different from knowing we are safe cognitively.

Can you relate to this idea of a felt sense of safety? Note, we can find an instance of this

when bringing to mind a precious memory that triggers an inner smile.

We infrequently take time to explore this disconnect from a sense of safety. It points to our nervous system staying on alert even after dangers pass. Such alertness impacts the quality of our lives because our experience of the world is heavily influenced by our nervous system. This intricate system branches through our body, and it also includes our brain. The importance of finding familiarity with our nervous system can be seen in theories of how it evolved.

A popular evolutionary theory is that our brain evolved to take care of our body and developed complexity, in part, to survive threats. Given that view, it makes sense that our nervous system developed capacities to scan for threats outside our immediate conscious awareness. Unfortunately, our nervous system never developed the skill to differentiate between dangers leading to physical death and those existing in our minds.

Can you think of a time when you have felt on edge when there was no readily identifiable threat? Sometimes this happens when replaying past events in our minds.

When perceiving potential dangers either in the real world or in our minds, our bodies release neurochemical signals, preparing our minds and muscles for defense. These biological shifts impact how we see the world and, therefore, how we live in it.

Alerts trigger immediate, powerful, and pervasive impacts on our mindsets, perceptions, thinking, and behaviors. For example, if I am worried about feeling judged by others, my nervous system primes my attention to look for possible signs of contempt.

Ideally, our nervous system would only detect real-world, imminent threats. In ancient times, our alert system needed to prepare our bodies to confront deadly physical dangers (think lions, tigers, and bears), where the speed of our reaction was immensely important. Consequently, our nervous system reacts in thirteen milliseconds when seeing something potentially scary, whereas thinking about what we are seeing takes 180-200 milliseconds.

The difference in speed is stunning. You can try this yourself: Stand with your back to a window and close your eyes. Then, with your eyes still closed, turn so you would be looking out the window. Before opening your eyes, prepare yourself to look for a tree. Now open your eyes and find a tree. Did you notice a slight lag in processing what you see?

This means our body prepares for defense faster than we could possibly understand what’s going on. Often, we rationalize our threat defense and let it lure us into conflict—often against our interest—instead of logically asking ourselves if we currently face a mortal danger.

Have you ever felt your body react when you are waiting for someone to text you

back? Or an elevator is slow to come?

In our everyday lives, we no longer typically face marauding tigers. Still, our nervous system defends itself the same way it did against those hungry beasts. It energizes our muscles, disengages itself from nonessential[JB2]  tasks like complex thinking and digestion, and hijacks our attention. In a better-safe-than-sorry way, our body primes itself for active defense when we could simply negotiate through most of today’s conflict situations. A difficulty here is that because defense reactions lower our access to complex thinking capacities, we may temporarily forget to consider more value-aligned, logical approaches.

This is especially true when facing everyday minor stressors, which can include running late, missing a ride, forgetting our phone, seeing unexpectedly poor marks on a paper or test, feeling misunderstood or bullied, not being invited to a party, burning toast, or spilling a drink on our shirt. The list seems endless and can vary person to person.

Some of today’s major stressors that affect almost all of us are the fears of rejection and social judgment. These fears can cause our body flooding itself with the same neurochemical signals that prepare us to run for our lives. Rejection can feel like the same mortal threat posed by those predatory tigers. To be clear, feeling rejected is not usually deadly, even though it can feel like it to us.

It helps to remember that when we feel like we “might die” from a nonphysical threat, it’s our body’s natural survival response. Instead of giving into this fear and acting upon it, we might find greater relief by internally reminding ourselves that we are not in physical danger.

We have seen examples of why threat detection glitches can and do occur. If we don’t understand how our biology is primed for preemptive reactive defenses, we tend to needlessly antagonize conflicts.

By default, activated defense systems are a negative experience for us. In response, we generally search out what’s wrong in us, or in others, or our environments, instead of just recognizing it’s our excessive alarms.

Something else to keep in mind is that when we are in continually high-stress states, our body finds a new normal of living in high stress. This shows up in all kinds of ways. We can normalize what others perceive as high stress in sports, jobs, relationships, etc.

Signs we are stuck on high alert include hypervigilance and tension. We rush around with seemingly endless energy in a frenzied way. Our bodies are physically stiff; our voices strained; our hearts and guts tend toward dysregulation. Our minds are narrowed by our fears and we find ourselves acting judgmentally. We focus on short-term comfort instead of long-term goals. We don’t sleep well, and we can’t comfortably sit still. Our mindsets lean toward defensiveness; this can look like people pleasing, aggression, competitiveness, avoidance, indecision, and so on. We feel like we “have to be better” than others, otherwise they will harm us.

If we become truly overwhelmed, we can fall into a victim mentality, feeling hopeless and helpless.

A well-regulated nervous system flows through all its possibilities seamlessly. Its home is in a calm, alert, and engaged mindset. Eyes are soft. Movements are fluid and calm even if quick. Muscles are relaxed. The voice is melodic and pleasant. The mind is sharp and curious. We can easily sit still. We sleep well.

Keep in mind that learning to work with our own nervous system takes time and effort. Also, please remember we cannot tell what’s going on inside others without them telling us.

While these ideas can feel abstract, the application of methods to lower our defenses can provide easy and helpful relief. Two such methods are below.

Lowering Everyday Stress Responses

Physiological sigh breaths are often natural to us before falling asleep, when we are asleep, and when we cry. Research shows them to effectively lower nervous system activation in the moment. Physiological sigh patterns consist of two inhales through the nose followed by a slow exhale through a slightly open mouth. Repeat the pattern for two to five minutes whenever needed.

Savoring practice is when you bring to mind a precious memory that makes your heart feel full and warm. Examples include snuggling with a beloved pet, a meaningful hug, the smell of fresh-cut grass, the sound of summer rain, etc. Your task is to simply enjoy the feeling. Then let it go. Do not try to hold on to it. It’s helpful to keep in mind or make a list of a few of these memories to use as needed. 

For more information, www.clearripple.com.