Season 1, Episode 7: Creating Safe Havens as an Abuse Survivor

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Do you long for hope amid mental, emotional, or relational struggles?

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Join life coach,

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author,

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and trauma survivor Tammy Kennington on From Hardship to Hope,

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the podcast for Christian women navigating the intersection of motherhood,

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mental health,

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and matters of faith.

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If you need biblical support, encouragement, and actionable tips, this show is for you.

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Welcome.

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On today's episode, we will consider safe spaces.

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creating a place of safety as we heal.

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In the previous episode,

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when I met with special guest Sally Miller,

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we introduced the idea of inner healing prayer as an effective means of counseling

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and therapeutic recovery.

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And during that episode, Sally told us that

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When a person begins that journey at the beginning of each session,

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he or she will be invited to imagine a place that feels very safe to them.

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Some people will imagine maybe a place in the mountains.

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Perhaps they think of the beach.

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Maybe they think of their favorite chair in their home.

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Whatever that safe space might be.

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can represent a wonderful opportunity to step into and further healing.

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So why is imagining a safe place so useful?

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Why do trauma survivors benefit from this?

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Well, most trauma survivors have experienced a lack of either physical and or emotional healing.

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situations that were not safe.

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And many of these have been ongoing over a period of years.

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So what happens is that a person's limbic system is impacted.

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And the limbic system is the part of the body that involves our flight and fight reaction, our response.

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It releases stress hormones that flow throughout our body.

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It increases blood flow to our muscles.

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It makes us ready to respond to a threat.

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But trauma like this can really impact the amygdala and hippocampus that are key

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components of that limb extraction.

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What happens is that those areas of the brain actually act as though they are an alarm system.

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that is constantly going off.

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It's hard to turn those parts of the limbic system off when one has experienced

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chronic and ongoing stress or trauma.

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So our goal then is to teach our own selves and to rewire our own neurobiology in

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such a way that we create personal safety.

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It can be really challenging because if we're feeling triggered by an event

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at home or at work or any other place,

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we may just respond with high levels of anxiety,

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panic attacks,

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a variety of different responses.

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But we can learn to create that safety for ourselves.

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So a couple of ways we can do this are to, first of all, say aloud to ourselves, I am safe.

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In this moment, I am safe.

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It helps us to think about the present moment,

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even though our body is being triggered in such a way we're reminded,

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even involuntarily or unconsciously,

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of the past.

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And of course, there's a lot of information and research that supports breathing techniques.

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And some of the simple ways to incorporate this

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I even teach to little children.

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One of them is called flower candle breathing.

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You inhale, imagining your favorite scented flower for a count of four.

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Hold that breath for that four count and then blow it out gently as though you're

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blowing out a birthday candle for another count of four and repeat this four times.

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Pretty simple.

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Some people,

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rather than envisioning or pretending that they're smelling a flower,

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imagine their favorite drink or coffee that they might enjoy.

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So flower candle breathing is one easy technique, and another is called 5-4-3-2-1.

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Many counselors will share these if you're in session with them.

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But the 5-4-3-2-1 breathing technique involves looking around the room and noticing

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five specific things that you can see,

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hearing four different noises,

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smelling three different items or environmental scents,

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touching two specific items,

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Maybe it's the chair you're sitting in.

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Maybe it's a blanket on the couch or petting the dog.

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And then one is tasting something.

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So taste is very powerful.

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And maybe you want to grab a mint.

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Maybe you take a sip of your Perrier or something like that.

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So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is also a very simple way

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to work on that safe space, teaching your brain to rewire itself.

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Beyond that, we can also invite Jesus into our safe space.

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And if you feel comfortable doing that, then he can provide so much comfort for us in that moment.

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If not, and you're still growing in that area, you can do like Sally suggested and think about

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representing and introducing maybe a lamb into that safe space, a lamb representing Jesus.

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Or maybe you consider the cross,

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something that invites him into that sacred place of safety can be very healing and

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comforting for many of us.

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So creating safety for oneself is

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very important, learning how to live in that place of safety.

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The second thing that I recommend is building that safe community.

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And we've talked about this before.

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That was one area that was a real struggle for me.

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While I often would see a counselor throughout the years or meet with somebody beyond that,

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I didn't really have a safe community.

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And this is so helpful for those of us who have lived through trauma and were

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surviving and learning to heal.

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Because when others understand our experience and reflect back empathetically their

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just willingness to listen to our hearts and walk with us through that,

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can prove to us that there are people we can trust.

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And trusting people is often not our strong suit.

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So where do we find groups like this?

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I've mentioned before Journey to Heal by Crystal Sutherland.

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It's a wonderful program that has even online groups that will meet with women,

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And I believe they've even started groups for men now.

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And so you can look up Journey to Heal and find a group either locally in your area or online.

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You might also be able to find an inner healing prayer counselor or small group,

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whether that's at church or in one of the resources we mentioned in the previous episode.

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And

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You can also start a group of your own.

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You can create a meetup.

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You can start a study in your own church that's for women who need healing.

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And some basic tips for creating that sort of group involve creating a space for sharing information.

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by establishing norms that encourage open communication,

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honest communication,

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and emphasizing respectful dialogue and active participation with the expectation

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that the information shared in that group will remain confidential.

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So, of course, the active participation is really important.

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And that ensures everybody has an opportunity to be heard because so many of us have not been heard.

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And we don't have practice oftentimes in even being heard,

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of even speaking out and using our voices to share the heart of our lives.

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So we want to create that environment where everyone feels comfortable speaking up.

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And beyond that, we know that

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We'll need to look for people in our everyday lives.

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We'll need to turn to people in our everyday lives who we can trust and who will

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respect what we've been through.

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So one of the books I recommend that we all read,

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regardless of whether we've experienced trauma or not,

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would be a book called Safe People by Dr.

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Henry Cloud and Dr.

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John Townsend.

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They're well known for their work in areas like this.

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And they actually have a list of unsafe people and safe people on their website.

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And this list actually includes specific characteristics of each of those types of people.

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Now, none of us fit either category completely.

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And I'm sure we've all been unsafe.

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for somebody at one point or safe in another.

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But here are in general some of the characteristics that really stand out to me.

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An unsafe person is going to apologize but keeps repeating the same mistakes.

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They won't work on their problems.

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They demand trust.

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They blame others.

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They lie.

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They avoid closeness.

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They're not sympathetic.

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They can't respect boundaries or set boundaries.

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and they confront with guilt or shame or not at all.

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They might be condemning.

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They might be envious or self-sufficient or entitled, and they may be insecure with their attachments.

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Safe people tend to admit their weaknesses.

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They are spiritual but not religious, meaning they don't

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live in law or judgment.

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They're more open to feedback.

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They apologize and change behavior.

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They deal with their problems.

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They try to connect with people.

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They tell the truth.

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And they're concerned about the needs of others.

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In addition, they allow people to say no and they'll respect it.

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They can set boundaries and they can respect boundaries.

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And

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They forgive.

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Those are just a few of the characteristics that you'll find in this book,

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Safe People,

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again by Dr.

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Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

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So safety was often a rare commodity for children who are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

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but it is attainable.

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You can create safety for yourself.

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You can find safety in Christ.

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You can develop and foster safe relationships in community within and without of

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church and in your own family and circle of friends.

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I hope this is helpful to you and an encouragement to you.

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I will provide links and reads and resources

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at the end of the post on substack.com, TammyKennington.substack.com.

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And I want to thank you for listening to From Hardship to Hope.

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You'll find the show notes in today's episode.

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And in addition to that,

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if this episode was helpful to you,

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I would love it if you would leave a review for me at From Hardship to Hope on

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Apple Podcasts.

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Reads and Resources

Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend