The Power of Feeling Safe How Kindness Restores Resilience

[Music]

let’s start with a thought experiment

imagine romeo saying to juliet

oh juliet my soul calls out for you

the sound of lovers calling each other’s

name through the night is the sweetest

sound

lovers here what do you notice in your

body

now imagine romeo is saying exactly the

same thing

but with the voice of darth vader

oh julian

i saw ye is calling out

what are you noticing this time

isn’t it interesting that is not what

romeo said

but how romeo vocalized it that creates

such a difference in our internal

experience

as a former engineer i want to know why

and as a licensed psychotherapist i want

to know why this matters

one useful framework is the polyvagal

theory

with the original research by stephen

porges and clinical translations

by dave dana back in the days when we

were living among tigers in forest

we need a very fast way to make

decisions in order to survive

the thinking brain is a bit too slow for

this

imagine a person who needs to think what

is the probability

that this is a tiger and if it is

should i meditate should i run

or should i eat a strawberry pancake

these people usually get eaten and do

not live long enough

to pass on their genes we are here

because our ancestors

is in the top 1 of the most

anxious people dave dana

used the exquisite metaphor of the

ladder to illustrate this imagine a

ladder

with three heart-wise survival programs

at the top of the ladder is the

relational and engagement program

when we are here we feel safe and we are

relational

we still feel the full spectrum of

emotions

from sadness to joy yet there’s an inner

knowing

that we will be okay when we are here we

can be mindful

compassionate productive creative

vulnerable and we open our heart to

loving and being loved

in safe connections it’s like living in

a house

where you feel warm and secure and you

invite your friends over

for pepperoni pizza party or cow salad

party i do want to honor our dietary

preferences

and we play taboo and watch jurassic

park

we feel whole alive safe

so that’s what happened when we feel

safe in our body

but what happens when we don’t feel safe

it’s like when we run into a tiger in a

forest

when we don’t feel safe our bodies shut

down the relational zone

because it’s not safe to engage anymore

and trying to engage

my haste and our demise just ask anyone

who practice non-violent communication

with tigers

so we go to the middle of the ladder

fight-or-flight

program where the only relevant

questions are

can i run fast enough to escape from the

tiger

or am i strong enough to defeat the

tiger the body is on high

alert all the time the logic is

i would rather mistake every stick to be

a snake

than to miss one snake that i mistake as

a stick

just try saying that really fast 100

times before you go to bed tonight

we are scared we become selfish and

everybody is now on their own when we

are stuck in this fight or flight

program

we may feel fearful anxious restless

impulsive impatient irritable insomniac

inattentive

and hyperactive it’s like living in a

house where the alarm is blaring

24 7. we are not going to invite any

friends over and we are not going to be

enjoying

life here the prize for safety is

eternal

vigilance so that’s what happened

when we run into a tiger in the forest

but what if the tiger comes home with us

every day what if the tiger is your

parents who beat you

and you are a kid but you also need your

parents to survive

what if you are gay and get bullied at

school but you also need

to go to school to graduate what if you

are stuck in a meaningless job

with an unreasonable boss but you also

need that paycheck

for your rent what if the tiger is these

haunting memories

from your past that you cannot

unremember

what if you live in a society that

treats you as

less than because of how you look who

you love

what you believe or where you were born

what about that internal voice that has

been telling you

all your life that there is something

wrong with you

and you are not good enough and you are

not worthy to be loved

this last tiger by the way is a tiger

that has been living in my heart since

when i was a kid

these tigers are not so easy to escape

from

and when your body detects an

inescapable

threat is shut down the fight-or-flight

program

and go all the way down to the bottom of

the ladder

to freeze and shut down program

the survival value of freeze and

shutdown

can be found in a movie the jurassic

park when it’s too

late to run away from dinosaurs your

best chance for survival

is if you do not move

because dinosaurs detect delicious

edible human beings

through movement unfortunately when we

are stuck

in this program we may feel depressed

demotivated disillusioned dissociated

disconnected

disembodied fatigued with joint helpless

hopeless

we just try to numb ourselves through

life like a zombie

it’s like living in a house where all

utilities are turned off

and you are shivering along in a dark

room here the price for safety

is eternal aloneness

where we end up on the ladder depends on

how safe we feel

and how safe we feel depends in part

on the non-verbal relational signals

that we send to each other

when we look at each other with kindness

and love

the body moves up when we talk into to

each other

using the voice of darth vader the body

moves down

because in the wild a lot of our

predators

emit low frequency monotonic sounds

just like the sound of darth vader and

our body

responds accordingly how do we apply

this

three things think of a triangle

resilience

safety connection let’s start with

resilience

imagine there’s a rubber band at the top

of the ladder

when you have a stressful day the rubber

band moves down

when you go home and you are able to

relax and your cat jumps up

and purls on your stomach your rubber

band

goes up every day the rubber band swings

up and down the ladder as it navigates

through the stresses

of everyday life without losing its

natural elasticity

and this elasticity is a good analogy

to represent a physiologically based

resilience

that we all have as part of our

evolutionary

heritage it’s like the name of the song

it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got

that swing

there’s good news and bad news here so

think about which one you would like

first

the bad news is there’s an intrinsic

vulnerability of being human

and it’s impossible to go through life

unscathed

from pain or grief the best moments in

your life you cannot hold on to them

forever

and we all go down the ladder sometimes

but the good news is there’s an

intrinsic resilience

heart wide in the body and the worst

moments in your life

they too shall pass knowing this

fact allow us to go through life with a

certain kind of equanimity

to make the best moments livable

and the worst moments livable

we are all resilient but this resilience

is only fully activated when we are able

to feel

safe safety unlocks resilience

but what if we never feel safe

the rubber band may go down and get

stuck

for a long time and it may lose its

elasticity

and even when you release it it may not

go all the way back

up and when this happens symptoms like

anxiety and depression

may become part of our life isn’t it

interesting

that sometimes your mental health

struggles is because

you have something inside that you need

to take a look at but other times

you struggle because you live in a world

that is

messed up and your body is

only responding to what’s wrong in the

world

and there’s nothing wrong with you

i find that a very normalizing and

validating way

to look at our deepest struggles one of

my favorite quotes

is before you diagnose yourself with

depression

first look around and see how many jerks

you have in your life

because depression can be a natural

reaction

to being surrounded by jerkness

sometimes we live in a world that

resembles a zombie

movie a zombie attacks a human

a human becomes another zombie and this

zombie attacks another human

and zombies beget zombies

just like hurt people hurt other people

we start infecting each other with pain

fear anger cynicism indifference and in

humanity

and we start pulling each other down the

ladder

we can turn this around with kindness

and connection when we can be kind

towards ourselves

we create more safety inside and our

body moves up

and we can be kind with each other we

create more

safety with each other in the

relationship

in the connection and together we move

up the ladder

no human is an island and

we are all connected and our letters are

all connected

just like what somni451 said

from womb to tomb we are bound to others

past and present and by each crime and

each kindness

we birth our future every moment

how you treat every person has an echo

in

eternity when we can be kind towards

each other

kindness create connection connection

help us feel safe

and safety unlocks resilience and

resilience

moves our collective future one step up

yes each act of kindness may feel like

just a drop in the ocean but then

what what is an ocean but a multitude

of jobs thank you