Finding Safety in Unsafe Places: Supporting Nervous System Regulation

Regulate & Rewire Podcast

Episode 113: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
View transcript on Buzzsprout

There are moments in life—sometimes seasons—when safety isn’t guaranteed. Maybe it’s a toxic home, a job that drains you, or trauma that lingers long after the danger has passed. When the environment around you feels unsafe, how do you regulate? How do you find even a flicker of calm, groundedness, or connection?

In this episode, Amanda tackles one of the hardest but most essential nervous system questions: how do we support regulation when we can’t guarantee safety? This episode is for anyone living in hard, unsafe circumstances—or supporting someone who is.

What We Cover in This Episode

  • What it means to find “safe enough” moments in unsafe places
  • Why protective nervous system states are valid, not pathological
  • Tools for creating safety anchors in stressful environments
  • How practitioners can support clients with regulation, even without safety

The Myth of Constant Safety

We often say nervous system healing requires safety—but for many, that’s not a reality. Amanda names this tension with compassion and clarity. Whether you’re in an abusive home, navigating housing insecurity, or just living with a nervous system shaped by trauma, complete safety might feel out of reach.

That doesn’t mean regulation is impossible. It just means we need to shift the goal: from staying regulated all the time to finding moments of regulation, even when things are hard.

Why the Body Reacts the Way It Does

Protective states like fight, flight, or freeze aren’t bad—they’re functional. They exist to help us survive. In unsafe situations, these responses often make perfect sense.

The goal isn’t to override them, but to acknowledge them, and begin weaving in micro-moments of relief. Even the smallest signs of safety—a photo, a memory, a breath—can be powerful. These are what Amanda calls regulating anchors or safety touchstones.

“These anchors don’t calm the ocean, but they give you a life raft.”

Building Your Safety Anchors

Amanda walks listeners through several types of regulating anchors:

  • Physical objects: A piece of jewelry, a soft texture, a grounding stone
  • People: Real, remembered, or imagined supportive relationships
  • Places: A corner of your room, or a memory of nature
  • Sensory tools: A favorite smell, the feel of sunlight, a weighted blanket
  • Spirituality: Connection to something greater than yourself

These don’t have to be big or dramatic. Often, it’s the smallest things—sunlight on your face, a favorite quote, the sound of a pet’s breath—that carry the most regulating power.

Tools for Practitioners & Supporters

If you’re a therapist, coach, or even just someone walking alongside a loved one in pain, Amanda offers six strategies to guide your support:

  1. Validate their reality. Skip the fix-it response. Start with: “This is hard. And it makes sense.”
  2. Name the protective function. Show how anxiety, shutdown, or vigilance are helping, not failing.
  3. Collaborate on anchors. Ask: When do you feel even slightly safer?
  4. Savor safe moments. Help stretch them—two breaths longer, a little deeper.
  5. Create a nervous system emergency kit. Make it tangible. Make it personal.
  6. Be realistic. The goal isn’t constant calm—it’s small flickers of relief.

Inside the Regulated Living Membership, these same ideas form the foundation for clients navigating intense life situations—and learning to regulate anyway.

Support When You’re In It

Amanda shifts gears and speaks directly to listeners still in unsafe environments. Her message is clear: your nervous system is doing exactly what it was built to do. That’s not weakness. That’s protection.

Six tools she shares for getting through:

  • Let go of perfect regulation. Focus on tiny moments of “a little more okay”
  • Identify your personal anchors—even one or two
  • When you feel a shift, slow down and stretch it
  • Validate your response: “This is how my body protects me.”
  • Build micro-practices: breath, touch, ritual
  • Create safety rituals: closing a door, making tea, morning breath

These Moments Matter

“Even micro moments of regulation can interrupt trauma patterns and build resilience.”

Healing doesn’t require perfect conditions. It requires repetition. Noticing. Nurturing. And the willingness to claim small moments of safety—even when everything around you says otherwise. It’s a process of building safety not just externally, but internally, even in the midst of chaos.

Three Tangible Takeaways

  1. Safety anchors are essential. Physical objects, practices, or memories can regulate—even briefly—in unsafe circumstances.
  2. Validate your protective states. Anxiety and shutdown are the body’s way of keeping you safe, not signs of failure.
  3. Repeat small moments. Regulation doesn’t require big shifts—just tiny, meaningful ones that build over time.

Resources/Citations:

  • National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
  • “Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection” by Deb Dana
  • “Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory” by Deb Dana
  • Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books.
  • Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
  • Kearney, D. J., McDermott, K., Malte, C., Martinez, M., & Simpson, T. L. (2012). Association of participation in a mindfulness program with measures of PTSD, depression and quality of life in a veteran sample. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68(1), 101-116.
  • Price, M., Spinazzola, J., Musicaro, R., Turner, J., Suvak, M., Emerson, D., & van der Kolk, B. (2017). Effectiveness of an 8-week yoga program for women with chronic PTSD. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 30(2), 173-180.
  • West, J., Liang, B., & Spinazzola, J. (2017). Trauma sensitive yoga as a complementary treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A qualitative descriptive analysis. International Journal of Stress Management, 24(2), 173–195.
  • Brom, D., Stokar, Y., Lawi, C., Nuriel-Porat, V., Ziv, Y., Lerner, K., & Ross, G. (2017). Somatic Experiencing for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Outcome Study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 30(3), 304-312.
  • Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.
  • Perry, B. D. (2006). The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics: Applying principles of neuroscience to clinical work with traumatized and maltreated children. In N. B. Webb (Ed.), Working with traumatized youth in child welfare (pp. 27–52). The Guilford Press.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

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