Spend some time in your safe place
Imagine that you’re in a place that feels safe, secure at ease to be in. This forms the foundation of safe place imagery, a place that you craft and strengthen using the power of your mind. In this post, I discuss the uses of this powerful technique and how you can do it for yourself.
It is a staple of hypnotherapy sessions. It is also found in other evidence-based therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR), and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). And for good reasons!
As the name suggests, safe place imagery promotes feelings of safety and security. Establishing (or re-establishing) an experience of feeling safe and secure at the moment can help you in many ways:
Switching off the amygdala (the part of the brain typically associated with fear)
Reducing hypervigilance
Stress reduction
Regaining self-soothing capacity
Enhanced wellbeing
Make changes
In-depth learning
The above benefits have been cited by several researchers including Krystal (1988), Ruysschaert (2014), and Gerge (2018).
Within the research, it has been used in the treatment of anxiety, stress, sleep disturbance, trauma, pain, eating disorders, and conversion, somatisation and dissociative disorders. (Barnier, 2008; Rhue, Lynn & Kirsch, 1993; Lynn & Kirsch, 2005; Mckay, Wood & Brantley, 2007)
The basic safe place
Before you get down to imagining being in your safe place, just think of the safe place first. What kind of environment would make you feel safe? Where might you feel secure? What would put you at ease? Thinking of a safe place should make you feel safe. Then once you feel like you’ve found a place that fits the bill, you can strengthen and explore it further by imagining it.
As I said on the first line of this post, imagine that you’re in a place that feels safe, secure at ease to be in. Imagine it as if you are there, seeing it through your own eyes. Make it seem real. It can be a place that you’ve visited at some point in your life, somewhere that you’ve always wanted to go, a complete figment of your imagination, or a combination of all of those. You can be as creative as you like and do not have to be confined to the realms of reality! I would recommend that you avoid using places with strong emotional attachments. It can be inside or outside. Ideally, it’s best if you are by yourself as this is about self-soothing and support and other people can be unreliable and may invoke emotions that are not conducive to a safe and secure experience. However, this is something you can work towards and if having a loved one or your pet present would make you feel safer when you first start, then go with it. There is no right or wrong with this process per se and comes mainly down to personal preference. What makes me feel safe will be very different from what makes you feel safe! It doesn’t have to be perfect first off. If you decide you don’t like something, change it. Make it a perfect haven for you.
Taking it a step further…
There are many ways that you can strengthen the imagery and feelings of safety and security in your safe place.
Use all of your senses. Notice what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell there in your safe place. Things you can see might include the ground beneath you, the scenery around you, the horizon, what the weather is like, the décor and furnishings (if you’re inside). Things you can hear might include the sound of birds singing, running water, quiet, the sound of your footsteps, relaxing music, your cat purring. Things you can taste is a difficult one for creating feelings of safety, maybe chocolate?!? Things you can touch might include the texture of things that you might come into contact with, the weight of your feet on the ground or your body on a chair, the breeze blowing against your skin, the temperature of the place. Things you can smell might include flowers, the sea, rain, home cooking or warm bread.
Connect with the feelings of safety. Get a sense of what it’s like to be there in that safe place. The details are important in creating this place in your mind but the most important thing is the feeling of safety. Imagine feeling safe, secure at ease. What shows you you feel safe? How do you know you feel secure? Do you feel it in your mind? Do you feel it in your body? Notice and imagine those things happening. Imagine and feel yourself feeling more and more safe.
Add additional feelings. The main feelings you want to be imagining and experiencing in this place are safety, security, comfort and being at ease. You may associate these feelings with other positive feelings too that you might wish to imagine in your safe place such as calmness, relaxation, tranquillity, and freedom, to name just a few.
Draw on previous instances of feeling safe. As you imagine being in your safe place, bring to mind a time in the past where you felt safe. It can be a recent memory or a time much further back. It doesn’t matter how fleeting the moment was. Reconnect with that memory. Notice where you were, what you were doing and who you were with. But most importantly, notice the feelings of safety and how you knew you were safe. Recreate that feeling of safety and bring it back with you to the safe place that you have created.
Draw on what you think it would be like to feel safe. If you are struggling to think of times where you felt safe, think about what being safe means to you and what it would feel like. Create that feeling of safety and bring it back with you to the safe place that you have created.
Be ‘safe enough’. Some people struggled to imagine what it would be like to feel safe. If this is you, start by imagining what feeling ‘safe enough’ or feeling just ever so slightly more safe than you do right now. Then slowly but surely, you’ll become more familiar with the feeling and find it easier to imagine and experience.
Use your breath. As you breathe in and out, let yourself feel even more safe and secure.
Feel the support and safety of your chair. Periodically, you can also check in with the chair that you are sitting in notice how it supports you, the comfort and safety it provides you with.
Add in safety aids. Imagine there’s a lighthouse or watchtower that looks out for dangers so that you don’t have to, keeping you even more safe and secure. You might add a lock to the door of your safe room/house or put up a wall or force field of some kind around your safe garden. Or maybe your safe place is password protected!
Lock the negative thoughts in a drawer. If you find that negative thoughts or memories keep popping into your mind, imagine placing them in a lockable drawer for the time that you are in your safe place. They will still be there after but for now, they can be stored away out of sight, out of mind. If you don’t like the locked drawer, you could imagine sending them up into a cloud which floats away or a barrier around you (like a bubble) which these things bounce off and away from so that they do not interfere with the feelings of safety.
Give it a name. Name your safe place. It can be just one word or even a phrase. You repeat the word or phrase in your mind to yourself to develop the feelings of safety. You can also use it as a trigger to create that image and feeling of safety when you need it.
Solidify it in your mind. Once you’ve spent some time creating and then exploring your safe place, just before you are about to open your eyes and get on with the rest of your day, take a final look around to remember what it looks like so that you will find it easy to return there again.
Practise. Practise strengthens the safe place imagery allowing you to feel the feelings of safety much stronger. It becomes familiar and predictable, enhancing the feeling of safety even more. It provides you with the opportunity to have influence over your environment and help yourself feel differently, both skills which can be mapped across into your daily life. Practise will also make it easier for you to recreate your safe place in the future when you need it and feel the full effect.
There we have it! How to create a safe place to help you support yourself. So go create, imagine and explore your safe place and let me know how you get on.
References:
Barnier, A. (2008) The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research and Practice. Oxford University Press
Gerge, A. (2018). Revisiting the safe place:Method and Regulatory Aspects in Psychotherapy when Easing Allostatic Overload in Traumatized Patients. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 66(2)
Krystal, H., & Krystal, J. H. (1988). Integration and self-healing: Affect, trauma, alexithymia. Analytic Press, Inc.
Lynn, S.J. & Kirsch, I. (2005) Essentials of Clinical Hynosis: An Evidence Based Approach. APA Books
McKay, M., Wood, J.C., & Brantley, J. (2007). The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. New Harbinger Publications
Rhue. J.W., Lynn, S.J. & Kirsch, I. (1993). Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis. APA Books
Ruysschaert, N. (2014).The use of hypnosis in therapy to increase happiness. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 56(3)