FINDING A SAFETY ZONE

I kept them in the drawer, four cassettes, together with a recorder, a small one, easy to carry around. It was similar to the one I used in the workplace in the '90s to dictate patient encounters. The one in my drawer had a different purpose. It was used in 2004 when I visited my family back in Serbia, for the first time since I went to America in 1988. With it, I recorded conversations with my mother about her life circumstances before I was born, my birth, and an introduction to this life. It was one of the many things I did on that historic voyage of my life to try to fill the gap in time, 16 earthly years.

The voice from the tape

I decided, now was the right time to hear from the source, my mother, about the events that took place 68 years earlier. Her recognizable voice filled the room in which I was seated with the notebook and pen ready to write bits of information conveyed by the words from the tape. She described her arrival at Koran, a small settlement in the wilderness of Bosnia. The wife of the officer who was transferred from Karlovac, the city in Croatia that my mother loved. She recalled with nostalgia its many parks, four rivers, history of five centuries, organized urban life, and other attributes to which she was accustomed. From there she came to the wooden barracks with a small kitchen and a room, croaking frogs under the elevated floor and howling wolves in the distance. From her description, it was like the Wild West in the 19th century. Pioneers inhabiting a new territory occupied by the natives. With a little child in her arms, she was terrified. I heard her say on the tape in desperation, "I asked your father, why did you bring me here?!" Apparently, a safety zone was not in the cards for her, at least for a year. Coming into the middle of nowhere was a rude awakening to the reality of the life of a military officer’s wife. She had to learn from other “settlers’ women” how to adjust to this trailer-style primitive living. Not an easy task for a 22-year-old girl with a 2-years old son on her back and the husband frequently absent due to his military duties.

Despite all odds, she demonstrated resilience honed through previous life experiences filled with trauma. Her emotions varied from frustration, demoralization, and dissatisfaction, to waiting, hoping, and excitement. Her husband was promised a modern, well-equipped apartment, occupied by the colonel, who was about to retire. The apartment had two bedrooms, two balconies, two furnaces, a kitchen, and a bathroom. This was a true luxury, she thought. Finally, it happened. The big transition to decent housing, accompanied by other necessary social ingredients for the establishment of the safety zone. Life was good. And around that happy time, I started to dutifully grow inside my mother’s womb.

My mother had a traumatic first pregnancy three years before. With no family around and the husband often away, she was frightened. When the water broke, the only person there was the landlady who knew what was happening and took her to the hospital. Soon after prolonged and difficult childbirth, her breast became infected, and she could no longer breastfeed. Instead, as a result of the abscess, she had to undergo a surgical procedure.

Bumpy arrival

That was why she decided to experience something different when she was pregnant with me. My father was at school in a distant city, so she packed her bags up and went to Slavonski Brod, Croatia to be with her family. There, she felt supported and cared for. “I didn’t have any fear,” I heard her say on the tape. The labor was easy. However, she was disappointed when she saw me for the first time because I was a boy, and she wanted a girl. Strike number one. She thought that I was an ugly baby. Strike number two. My brother didn’t want me and tried to get rid of me. Strike number three. The third strike was a major threat to my survival. He pinched and choked me to the point that I needed to be kept in a locked room, to be protected from his violent attacks. He was screaming, "I don't need a brother! I want to be alone!" Thus, in spite of my name chosen by my brother (Željko means a long desired for), his welcome greeting didn't match it.

My brother's aggression continued openly and covertly in his mind. It poisoned him so much that it formed a nucleus of guilt-ridden conscience and suffering. When we got together in 2004, he had an urgent need to unburden himself. I had no knowledge of his mental state because of the presence of amnesia for the first five years of my life. It is a known fact that recollections of the events (episodic memory) during the time of early childhood could only be brought back under special circumstances, such as hypnosis, in dreams, and during psychoanalytic therapy. But their fingerprints are always present and form so-called core beliefs (semantic memory), deeply held assumptions about the world and others related to feeling safe or threatened.

Let’s return to my brother again. He recounted the specific event which, in his mind, illustrated the "sign of Cain", his murderous fraternal aspiration toward me. He was 7 and I was 4 years old when he enticed me into a dangerous game. He convinced me to place a plastic bag over my head and hold my breath for as long as possible. I followed his lead, but unlike him, when the game was over, I couldn't remove the bag, so I began to suffocate. He didn’t do anything to help me. Lucky for me, our first cousin was there, and she saved my life. I had no conscious memory of that event, and neither did my cousin when I asked her years later. So there is no corroborating evidence for my brother’s story. I will never know whether it was his imagination or whether it actually happened, but perhaps it is not relevant. The important thing is that it created a complex of pathological guilt in my brother. The possible imprint of his actions upon me was the caution and ambivalence I bear toward him, which has spread to all men to a lesser or greater degree.

Safety was found

That was not the case with my mother. I felt safe with her. After the initial shock of her expectations not being fulfilled, she embraced me. My feminine vital energy was most likely enhanced by this early life experience with my mother. The river of intuition, imagination, creativity and sensitivity to the needs of others flowed through my veins. I was a caregiver in making. What I received from her heart enabled my capacity for empathic listening and compassionate action to become settled in the motivational core of my personality.

Responsive mode

The basic trust I have experienced with my mother has helped me to successfully navigate through my life with its ups and downs. Fears and anxieties rooted in the existential fabric of life have been subdued by the presence of this anchor which has imbued me with optimism and confidence. Having read the literature on the subject of safety, I have come to realize that a sense of safety is an essential ingredient for life to grow and flourish. It manifests as a desire which is imprinted as a “code of conduct” in each cell of our body. The home we reside in and come into. Rick Hanson called it the Responsive mode of being. He writes:

Because the body and mind are inclined toward the Responsive mode, any sense of ease in the body or feeling of calm, contentment, or caring in the mind will start activating related Responsive “circuits” in your brain. Your body and mind want to come home: that’s where energy is conserved for the marathon of life, where learning is consolidated, where resources are built rather than expended, and where pains and traumas are healed. (1)

Basically, in this inner state, we experience a calm, contented, and connected existence. A life force that propels us into the world of opportunity. When we are safe, our body is in an optimal condition that fosters health, growth, and restoration. According to Maslow, safety needs are a reflection of our desire for a predictable and orderly world that is somehow within our control. (2) Stephen Porges eloquently outlines the importance of the “science of safety” with these words:

I arrived at a concise and intuitive principle that humans, as social mammals, are on an enduring lifelong quest to feel safe. This quest appears to be embedded in our DNA and serves as a profound motivator throughout our life. The need to feel safe is functionally our body speaking through our autonomic nervous system - influencing our mental and physical health, social relationships, cognitive processes, behavioral repertoire, and serving as a neurophysiological substrate upon which societal institutions dependent on cooperation and trust function are based. (3)

Polyvagal theory

A sense of safety is a “felt sense” not a mental event, but a physical experience. (4) It is a “gut” feeling, the brainstem's interpretation of the state of our body when the environment is assessed to be safe. Our "lizard brain" is charged from day one to sustain this state of existence, creating the nucleus from where maturation, health, and sociality emerge. (3) To expand on this notion, I briefly present the aspects of the polyvagal theory, conceptualized by the aforementioned Stephen Porges. Our brainstem (the primitive part of the brain) is innately prepared to evaluate safety without conscious awareness. Porges has labeled this kind of preparation, the neuroception. (5) Neuroception is the process that continually monitors risk in the environment using sensory organs and dedicated parts of the brain. This ongoing activity determines whether a situation is safe, dangerous, or life-threatening. Based on this assessment, a designated branch of the autonomic nervous system is put into motion to provide the body with a suitable survival strategy. All of this is happening automatically, outside of conscious awareness and volitional decision-making.

If everything is working properly, this innate wisdom of the body, using the gravitational force of the specialized part of the parasympathetic nervous system (“smart vagus”), guides the way to safety. When the environment is determined to be safe the so-called social engagement system gets in charge. It is represented by the ventral branch of the vagus which keeps the body in a state of calmness and enables it to take part in communication with the social environment. The orientation toward social connection is a core biological imperative for humans. Natural selection has enabled this system because our survival is dependent on our capacity to cooperate, connect, and to co-regulate neurophysiological states in each other. It is hard-wired into our genes and expressed throughout our lifespan starting from the moment of birth. The social engagement system creates a safe inner state when in proximity to another person. It disseminates and receives safety cues that mitigate threat responses and promote accessibility and cooperation.

Secure attachment

In the case of the infant, the social engagement system is manifested through facial expressions and vocalizations aimed at obtaining a response from the caregiver in fostering a secure attachment bond. The infant uses vocalizations and facial expressions to alert the caregiver of its inner state. There is a fine-tuned dance, “rhythmic reciprocity,” (6) between the mother and the infant during periods of engagement, disengagement, and reengagement, which leads to the optimal balance between attachment (safety) and exploration (curiosity).

My mother said that I was easy to take care of. I slept through the night and woke up only when hungry. She said that I was nice to look at with my light silky hair. If distressed, I was readily soothed by coming to her. I was cuddly, which invoked a strong motherly feeling in her. She was a good match for my easygoing temperament and provided me with nurturance that allowed me to grow in the bubble of the safety zone. I felt loved and connected to my mother with a secure attachment bond. The greatest gift she could possibly give me. She was my protector against the inevitable hurts and harms of the world. I knew that I could count on her.

In my essay Life, Love, and Healing Bonds, I described in a poetic way this process of finding the safety zone in the connection with the trusted other.

We are born to love and to be loved. Love is the strongest force in the universe, a lifeline because our lives depend on it. Nature has given us the ability to look for loving bonds. So we do, almost immediately following our birth. We have a hard-wired system in place. We were born not to be wild, as the lyrics of the popular song indicate, but to be attached, that is our “true nature’s child.” We crave connection with the caregiver, a willing participant who is physically nearby, accessible, and responsive to our “baby needs.” We are the seeker of proximity. We want to get closer to the “radiator of love” and stand up to any separation. We protest “loud and clear” when that happens. If we are scared, or upset for any reason, we cry for help, look for a safe haven, and turn to our savior for comfort, support, and reassurance. Later on, when we feel grounded and secure that our “love radiator” will stay around, we venture to explore the world. Our curiosity awakens. We want to play with toys or experience “comfortable solitude” in order to learn to tune in to our true inner selves. (7)

Secure attachment is associated with an internalized feeling of love, of being worthy of care, of being effective at getting care when needed, and of managing most stressors autonomously. This state of affairs is embodied (internal) and embedded (relational) with a tendency to persist throughout the life of an individual. It creates a safety net from which the arrow of love can be easily catapulted toward others. The presence of the secure bond within the fabric of the mental garment we wear makes it easy to get close to others and to feel comfortable being mutually dependent upon each other without the presence of fear of abandonment or engulfment.

Healthy development requires a secure connection with a caregiver coupled with an age-appropriate separation-individuation process. The establishment of a sense of safety is the primary, critical step for the exploration of the world to flourish. This is enhanced by the caregiver’s capacity to maintain a loving presence (intimacy) as well as to support autonomy when requested by the child.

The felt freedom to explore both my external and internal worlds was the benefit that I readily connect with the establishment of the secure base in my mother. Her words from the tape resonated with me. She clearly stated: “You were a restless little boy. You enjoyed running, climbing trees, and making up games. There were times when you were mischievous and driving me crazy.” Apparently, openness to new experiences, to the unknown and the unfamiliar, has made me inquisitive and curious. My rich imagination was fueled by reading fairy tales and myths from people all over the world that my mother dutifully provided to me. I even believe that my ability and willingness to share deeply personal experiences, accept persons of different cultures and worldviews, and hold seemingly incompatible ideas of science and spirituality, derives from these early times.

Formation of the template and its revision

The formation of the beliefs about self and others from the earliest experiences with the caregiver (within the first three years of life) is carried forward in time as a prediction instrument calibrated for certainty. This unconscious programming becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the biased perceptions (expectations) of what is to come. We are guided by the system of fundamental beliefs which has become a reference point for all our experiences, especially when they relate to close and intimate relationships.

I was lucky to form the template with my primary caregiver (mother) in which I “learned” that she was available when I needed her. She truly cared about my safety and was consistently there, present, responsive, and engaged with me. She was sensitive and empathic, so I was able to form a felt sense that I was encircled by the protective shield that I carried throughout my life. In essence, my world was good, predictable, safe, and loving. So what was inside of me, I projected to others, especially if they were females. It was “natural” and easy to feel safe in their presence and later on establish loving intimate bonds. On the other hand, my relationship with men was more complicated due to the inconsistent presence of my father and the ambivalence of my brother. My template’s center of gravity in this case was tilted toward caution, avoidance, unfulfilled expectation, and lack of intimacy.

The experiential learning that constitutes the model of self, others, and the world is encoded on a physiological, visceral level and is unconsciously re-enacted later in life in an involuntary compulsive way when set in motion. This “template for expectation” may be revised despite built-in resistance to changing the model as it becomes routine and automated. As they say, if there is a will, there is a way. But this is not an easy process. It can occur spontaneously later in life in "remedial" experiences with people who assume the role of the “smoother” of the rough edges that have prevented the formation of the inner circle of safety. In my own life, I have had many “corrective” experiences with my own father, other male family members, teachers, mentors, and friends. So over time, my template of guardedness toward males has relaxed, softened, and allowed me to be significantly less influenced by my early life programming.

This transformation may ensue “out of the blue” in near-death, mystical, and other spiritual experiences. (8) I had this kind of experience which affected my deep-seated mistrust and over-reliance on myself. My core beliefs have been transformed by the one-time use of the psychedelic substance mescaline. I gave a very detailed description in the book Reflections of a Psychiatrist. (9) Here I cite the most pertinent part when I was in the midst of my “psychedelia” to illustrate the reprogramming that occurred.

I went out on the balcony and saw dark clouds and lightning nearby. I sat and watched the celestial spectacle in fascination. I interpreted it as a struggle of evil forces over my soul. There was nothing I could do, so I said, ‘I don’t care what happens, you fight it out.’ I returned to my room, closed my eyes again, and saw an arrow breaking the chains of mistrust, pride, and control. Apparently, I was not comfortable with my earlier decision that evil forces could take my soul, so I sat in a meditation pose on the bed with my arms in a position of prayer. For the first time in my life, I sincerely prayed, in the Serbian language, a simple prayer asking God to save my soul. I repeated it over and over, crying. I bent down and suddenly experienced an indescribable light descending on me, and I knew that the prayer had been answered and my soul saved. I felt immense peace and calm. I knew that nobody could harm my soul anymore and that the birth of my spiritual self had occurred. Then I went to the bathroom. I took off my clothes and had a cold shower for a few minutes. That was my baptism. I felt even calmer. I went to the balcony again. The dark clouds parted, and a clear sky appeared. (9)

This experience left a great impression on me, both spiritually and relationally. I became connected with the spiritual community and comfortable sharing and participating. I even joined a group of men as another indicator of my getting out of my comfort zone when it comes to men.

Bravery is called for when intentionally attempting to reprogram a pattern of unsafe or disorganized attachment. One self-guided method I recently learned about at the conference consists of using recorded messages that are listened to during induction to sleep (hypnagogia) when access to programs of the unconscious mind is the easiest. My wife decided to try it out. She wished to squash the ANTS (automatic negative thoughts) that at times, keep her up or wake her mind early in the morning. She recorded the new positive messages she wanted to spread in her mental space that would salute her in the morning welcoming the new day. She succeeded in using this method by playing the recording after taking a shower and before going to sleep. The “twilight zone” of sleep surged into action as her mind gradually faded giving her subconscious mind a chance to be filled with new automatic thoughts. Her ANTS were almost gone after multiple repetitions. She now recommends this approach to her patients because of the benefits she has received.

Another top-down approach refers to a conscious decision to nourish prosocial emotions of compassion, kindness, and generosity. It is a form of mental fitness, the “practice makes perfect” strategy. Even when our default state is one of inner suffering, the principle “fake it until you make it” perfectly applies here and is supported by science. (10) Again, the intention, the repetition, and the quest for “the farther reaches of human nature” hold the key that opens the door for the feelings of safety to emerge as a result of this shift from self-absorption to other-oriented focus. By connecting with others, we tap into a powerful inner resource, the social engagement system that increases resilience and shifts our state of being from danger to safety. I have been a recipient and the propagator of this approach to life. First, I had to learn to be kind to myself so that I could radiate this beautiful state to others. I practice self-observation with the goal of becoming "My Best Friend." I recognize my negative thoughts and feelings and consciously keep them to myself, rather than react to them. I engage in loving-kindness meditation. Just as I wish to live with ease, to be happy, to be safe and in good health, I extend this wish to others too, repeating it:

May you live with ease

May you be happy

May you be safe and healthy

This practice cultivates peaceful and prosocial positive emotions (11) and enhancement of the safe “holding” environment. (12)

My wife is a qigong practitioner. With this practice, she has learned to enhance healing in self in others through the movement of “qi” our body’s vital force. In her recent blog, she wrote:

(Qigong practice) has transformed some of my old negative beliefs, healed body ailments and my psychotherapy work has never been better. I found out that being an expert is often subjective and I do not have to analyze everything. I can help by teaching what I know in my heart and let my brain be my helper. That creates an expanding focus, awareness of feeling, and the self-forgiveness for any perceived failures. (13)

Summary

In this essay, I presented the science of safety as an evolution-driven project based on secure connection with others. This "lifesaving" strategy is essential to help us not only survive, but also prosper and broaden our horizons. Our body has built-in neuro-physiological mechanisms to support our safety orientation through the presence of a social engagement system. Secure attachment with a caregiver during the first three years of our life forms the template that carries the energy of safety through our existence. This template is not set in stone and may be revised and modified by means of divergent strategies, if necessary. In this text, I have described many ways of self-improvement to this effect. I didn't mention those that are designed to be used solely by highly skilled clinicians. In doing this, I emphasized the perspective advanced by the master qigong teacher Chunyi Lin that we are all born healers, able to steer our lives towards safety, far from pain and suffering. “A healer in every home and a world without pain and suffering.” (14) Let it be that way!

1. https://www.rickhanson.net/be-home/

2. A theory of human motivation, by Abraham H. Maslow, Psychological Review, 50 (4): 370–396, 1943

3. Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety, by Stephen W. Porges, Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 16: 1-15, 2022

4. Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning: A Philosophical and Psychological Approach to the Subjective, by ET Gendlin, Northwestern University Press, 1997

5. The polyvagal theory: phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system, by Stephen W. Porges, International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42:123 -146, 2001

6. Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, by A.N, Schore, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1994

7. https://www.reflectionsofapsychiatrist.com/post/life-love-healing-bonds

8. Getting comfortable with near-death experiences. An overview of near-death experiences, by Bruce Greyson, Missouri medicine, vol. 110: 475-81, 2013

9. Reflections of a psychiatrist, by Zelko Leon, Independently published, 2022

10. A Deeper Wellness: Conquering Stress, Mood, Anxiety and Traumas, by Monica Vermani, Vita Odyssey, 2022

11. The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review, by Xianglong Zeng et al., Frontiers in psychology, Vol. 6: 1-14, 2015

12. Loving-kindness meditation and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder, by DJ Kearney et al., Medical Care, 52: S32-38, 2014

13. https://qigongwithtina.com/enlightenment-for-anyone/

14. https://www.springforestqigong.com/