“Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate,
the Self will spontaneously emerge,
and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process.”
~~ Bessel van der Kolk
Greetings to all my precious people!!
Last week, we began the practice of returning—the simple, profound act of noticing when you’ve left yourself and choosing to come back. To your breath. To your body. To this moment.
Many of you wrote to share what you noticed. The restlessness at first. The wandering mind. The urge to check your phone, to DO something, to be anywhere but HERE.
And then—sometimes in the third or fourth day—a softening. A settling. A recognition: “Oh. I’m here. I’m safe. I can rest here.”
This is not small. This is the beginning of sanctuary.
What Dr. van der Kolk Understands About Safety
Bessel van der Kolk is a psychiatrist and trauma researcher who has spent over four decades studying how trauma lives in the body. His book, The Body Keeps the Score, has changed how we understand healing.
And one of his most profound insights is this: Healing cannot happen without safety first.
Not just external safety (though that matters). But internal safety—the felt sense in your nervous system that you are not under threat right now. That you can let down your guard. That it’s safe to feel, to rest, to be fully present.
Van der Kolk writes about “protectors”—the parts of us that learned to guard against pain, to stay vigilant, to never fully relax because relaxing wasn’t safe when we were young, or during difficult passages, or in relationships where we couldn’t trust.
These protectors are not the enemy. They kept you alive. They kept you functioning.
But here’s what happens: Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate—once they believe you’re not under threat anymore—the Self spontaneously emerges.
Not through force. Not through willpower. Not through more striving or fixing or improving.
Spontaneously. Naturally. Like a flower opening when conditions are right.
This is what sanctuary makes possible.
Dr. Gabor Maté: The Conditions for Emergence
Dr. Gabor Maté, physician and author of books including The Myth of Normal and When the Body Says No, has spent his career understanding the intersection of trauma, health, and healing.
And his central teaching aligns perfectly with van der Kolk’s: You cannot heal what you cannot feel. And you cannot feel what isn’t safe to feel.
Maté teaches that most of our chronic health issues—physical pain, autoimmune conditions, addiction, anxiety, depression—are not primarily biological problems to be fixed with medication. They are adaptive responses to environments that didn’t feel safe.
Your body learned: “It’s not safe to feel this. It’s not safe to rest. It’s not safe to trust. I must stay vigilant, tense, ready to respond to threat.”
And that adaptive response—brilliant in the short term—becomes destructive over decades. The nervous system never gets to rest. The body never gets to repair. The immune system stays on high alert.
Healing requires creating different conditions.
Not just thinking about safety. Not just understanding intellectually that you’re not in danger anymore.
But teaching your body—at the level of the nervous system—that it is safe now. That it can finally exhale.
This is what we’re doing when we create internal sanctuary.
The Neuroscience of Sanctuary: How the Body Learns Safety
Here’s what happens in your body when you practice returning, when you create sanctuary, when you teach your nervous system that it’s safe:
The Default Mode Network (the part of your brain that generates the constant stream of thoughts, worries, plans, memories) begins to quiet—not because you’re suppressing thoughts, but because the brain recognizes: “I don’t need to problem-solve right now. I’m safe.”
The Salience Network comes online—this is the part of your brain that helps you notice: “Ah, I’ve wandered into worry again.” Without judgment. Just recognition. This awareness itself is healing.
The Vagus Nerve engages. This is the major pathway of your parasympathetic nervous system—the “rest and digest” system that counterbalances the “fight or flight” response. When you breathe slowly, when you soften your gaze, when you place your hand on your heart, you are stimulating the vagus nerve. You are literally sending your body the signal: “It’s safe. You can relax now.”
Heart Rate Variability improves. This is one of the most important markers of nervous system health—the ability of your heart rate to fluctuate in response to your breath. Higher variability = more resilience, more capacity to respond to stress without getting stuck in threat mode.
Oxytocin can rise: the hormone associated with warmth, trust, and social bonding. But here’s what most people don’t know: You generate oxytocin not just through connection with others, but through self-compassion. When you respond to your own suffering, your own wandering mind, your own difficulty with kindness instead of harshness, your body chemistry changes.
The Prefrontal Cortex: the region of your brain responsible for perspective, emotional balance, insight, and wise decision-making, becomes more available. When you’re in threat mode, this region goes offline. When you’re in sanctuary, it comes back online. This is why clarity emerges when you stop forcing it.
Inflammation decreases. Chronic inflammation is increasingly understood as the root of most disease. And chronic inflammation is intimately connected to chronic stress, to a nervous system that never feels safe enough to rest. When you create sanctuary, your body can finally begin the repair work that inflammation prevented.
All of this is to say: Creating sanctuary is not metaphor. It is physiology.
When you practice returning to your breath, to your body, to the present moment—you are literally changing your biology.
You are teaching your nervous system: “It is safe now. I can rest now. I don’t need to stay in vigilance mode.”
And over time, your body begins to believe you.
The Practice of Self-Compassion: The Ground of Sanctuary
Here’s where many meditation teachings go wrong: they emphasize discipline, concentration, perfection. They make you feel like you’re failing if your mind wanders, if you can’t “maintain focus,” if you’re not achieving some ideal state.
But this approach reinforces the very problem we’re trying to heal. It teaches your nervous system: “You’re still not good enough. You’re still failing. You still need to be better.”
This is not sanctuary. This is more threat.
The meditation teacher and neuroscience researcher whose work I shared last week teaches something different:
When your mind wanders (and it will—thousands of times), the practice is not to berate yourself for wandering. The practice is to notice with kindness: “Ah, thinking. That’s okay. Come back.”
That kindness—that gentleness with yourself—changes everything.
When you respond to your own mind’s wandering with harsh self-judgment, your threat circuitry activates. Cortisol rises. Your body tenses. The message you’re sending: “I’m not safe. I’m under attack (even if the attack is coming from inside).”
But when you respond with compassion—“Of course you wandered. Minds wander. It’s okay. Let’s return”—something different happens:
The vagus nerve engages. The heart rate slows. The breath deepens. The nervous system receives the message: “I’m safe. I’m held. I don’t need to be perfect. I can make mistakes and still be okay.”
This is how sanctuary is built. Not through perfection. Through self-compassion.
This Week’s Practice: Teaching Your Body It’s Safe
This week, we’re going deeper than last week’s simple returning practice. We’re specifically teaching your nervous system: “You are safe now. You can rest.”
What you’ll need:
- 10-15 minutes
- A quiet, comfortable space
- Your willingness to be gentle with yourself
The Sanctuary Practice:
Part 1: Arriving (3 minutes)
Sit or lie down comfortably. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Begin to notice your breath without changing it. Just watching: the inhale, the exhale, the pause between.
Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly. Feel the warmth of your own hands. Feel your body breathing you—this miracle that continues without your conscious effort.
Say internally: “I am here. I am safe right now. In this moment, I can rest.”
Part 2: Inviting Softness (5 minutes)
Begin to scan your body gently. Not looking for problems. Just noticing with curiosity:
- Where am I holding tension? (Jaw? Shoulders? Belly? Hips?)
- Where does my body feel tight or braced?
- What would it feel like to soften just 10% here?
Don’t force the softening. Just invite it. Breathe into the tight places. Imagine your breath softening the edges.
If emotions arise—grief, anger, fear, sadness—let them. Don’t push them away. Don’t try to fix or understand them. Just acknowledge: “Ah, feeling. That’s okay. You’re safe to feel here.”
Your tears are not weakness. They are your body finally feeling safe enough to release what it’s been holding.
Part 3: The Kindness (5 minutes)
Now we practice the most important part: responding to yourself with compassion.
Notice when your mind wanders (it will). Notice when judgment arises (“I’m doing this wrong.” “This isn’t working.” “I should be better at this by now.”).
And respond as you would to a beloved friend or a small child:
“It’s okay. You’re learning. There’s no wrong way to do this. Come back. I’ve got you.”
Place your hands on your heart. Feel the warmth. Feel the beating—your heart that has never stopped working for you, even when you forgot to thank it.
Say these words (adapted from traditional loving-kindness practice, but directed to YOURSELF):
“May I be safe.
May I be held.
May I rest in this body.
May I trust that I am enough, exactly as I am right now.”
Part 4: Closing (2 minutes)
Take three deep breaths—longer exhales than inhales (this activates the vagus nerve).
Place both hands on your heart. Say:
“I am creating sanctuary.
My body is learning safety.
I trust the process.
I am here.”
Open your eyes slowly. Notice how you feel—not what you SHOULD feel, but what you ACTUALLY feel.
Journal if you desire: What did you notice? Where did softening happen? Where did resistance show up? What does your body need from you today?
Do this practice 3-4 times this week. Consistency matters more than duration. Even 10 minutes of teaching your body it’s safe is more powerful than an hour of forcing yourself to “meditate correctly.”
What Happens When Protectors Begin to Trust
Here’s what I’ve witnessed in my own practice and in working with women for nearly two decades:
In the beginning, creating sanctuary feels uncomfortable. The protectors don’t trust it. They say: “This is a trick. We can’t relax. It’s not safe.”
But with repetition—with the consistent practice of returning, of responding with kindness, of teaching your body “you’re safe now”—something shifts.
The protectors begin to soften. Not because you forced them to. But because they finally believe you.
And then—often suddenly, often surprisingly—the Self emerges.
Van der Kolk calls it spontaneous emergence. I call it homecoming. Your clients might call it “feeling like myself again for the first time in years.”
It’s the same thing: your true nature, no longer buried under protective vigilance, finally safe enough to be seen.
This is when:
- Clarity arrives without forcing
- Creativity flows without effort
- Decisions feel aligned instead of agonizing
- Your body relaxes into trust instead of bracing against threat
- You know what you need without second-guessing
- The “shoulds” quiet down and the deeper knowing speaks
This is what sanctuary makes possible.
Not transcendence. Not perfection. Not escape from your humanity.
But the spontaneous emergence of who you actually are when you finally feel safe enough to be yourself.
The Invitation This Week
Last week, you practiced returning. This week, we’re going deeper: creating the conditions of safety where your true Self can emerge.
This is not quick work. Your nervous system has been in vigilance mode for years, maybe decades. It won’t trust instantly that it’s safe to rest.
But every time you practice—every time you respond to yourself with compassion instead of criticism, every time you teach your body “you’re safe now”—you are building sanctuary.
Neuron by neuron. Breath by breath. Moment by moment.
Trust the process. Trust your body’s wisdom. Trust that when the conditions are right, emergence happens spontaneously.
You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to become someone you’re not.
You just have to create sanctuary. And then wait. And trust.
Next week, we’ll explore what it means to tend that sanctuary—the practices, the boundaries, the daily choices that nourish the space you’re creating.
But for now, for this week: teach your body it’s safe. Again and again.
The protectors are listening. And they’re beginning to believe you.
P.S. If you’re recognizing that your nervous system has been in threat mode for a very long time—if you’re realizing that creating internal sanctuary is exactly what you need but you’re not sure how to do it alone—this is the work I do.
Through the C.O.A.C.H. Method and my clinical practice, I help women create the conditions for spontaneous emergence. Not by fixing you. Not by giving you something you don’t have. But by witnessing you as you teach your own body it’s finally safe.
I have a few spots available for 1:1 intensive work. If this resonates, let’s talk. Email me and we’ll schedule a conversation for curiosity. For now: practice creating safety. Your protectors are listening. And when they trust you, the Self will spontaneously emerge. Just like van der Kolk promises.
“A sanctuary is a place that restores us, replenishes us, nourishes us.
In this renewal, we are reminded, once again,
of what really is important.”
~~ Terry Hershey
Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash
