So I bought The Courage to Heal book and the workbook. I am crabby and a bit flustered about the FIRST exercise. Well, the first exercise for me was actually opening the packages, in reality. I have been keeping the books in the packages so no one can see the covers, even after I finally opened them. I am not usually this big of a coward. I hate that feeling of being exposed. I don't want to have to explain to someone in my real life why I have this book and workbook.

Anyway, the first exercise is about exploring times you have felt safe in your life. Is this exercise SUPPOSED to be this hard? I have a few times in my life where I felt "safe" for a few fleeting moments. Then reality would set back in.

Do you guys feel 'safe'? Am I attaching some weird meaning to it that I don't feel safe? What does it mean to you? When do you feel it? When am I supposed to be feeling it? I am feeling pretty stupid right now.

[mixedup_emotions]

Getting the books was a great step! I hope you're able to give yourself some credit for that....

I have an incredibly difficult time feeling safe anywhere - even my own home. So, I can imagine how difficult it is to try to come up with times when you've felt safe in your life.

I think it would take me a long time to come up with even one answer. And there's so many different aspects of safety - physical safety, emotional safety, etc. Yes, it's a hard exercise!

[stopdog]

I can feel mostly safe in myself when alone and in certain situations I can feel somewhat safe with about three other very close friends. Other than that, I always have a wariness of being wrong or of leaving myself open for being mocked in a way I have not orchestrated. Or just how terrible and clueless I am at interacting with others and so am unsafe as I will do something wrong and not know it. I do not usually feel physically unsafe and can usually fix that when it does occur.

[SoupDragon]

Hi MKAC, thanks for sharing this book on here - think I may pop off to amazon to have a look.

Well done for opening it - but OMG that would be such a challenge for me to think about times when I have felt safe - I think I only ever used to feel safe when I was with my Grandmother (she died when I was 13) - for me feeling safe, would be feeling not anxious or not feeling I have to keep on the look out for some sort of threat- maybe it is feeling totally relaxed.....or maybe not

Sorry to hear you are feeling stupid, we just don't know what we don't know though do we? It is not a case of being stupid (although if I made that statement to my T, he would want to know how it is to feel stupid, where do I feel it , blah, blah, blah ) - I think you are being brave in looking at something so hard.

Soup

[unaluna]

I never felt safe until the first time I asked T to do the backwards hug, years before the absent mother book. and that was the moment I realized I never felt safe before, cos then I finally did feel safe. for like the first.time.ever. now I also feel save when I use my cpap machine. something about putting that mask on is very comforting. I guess I like being cared for in the hospital. makes sense, I got fed breakfast and lunch and dinner and a snack, and I didn't get yelled at.

hankster, do you ever go to the Y? At ours, they have this "safe place" sign, and it shows what is supposed to be an adult doing the backwards hug on a kid. To me, it looks like an adult grabbing the kid's breast area from behind, and it totally creeps me out. Just the thought of the backwards hug makes me short of breath.

I am so, so glad it works for you and I hope I find something that makes me feel that way. The closest I think I have come is when my husband hugs me and I can tuck my face into his neck and hide my eyes. Most of the fleeting moments of safety I have felt have been doing that (or sitting in therapy with my T between me and door - god knows what boogerman I think is going to be trying to get in that door, but it makes me feel better when T is between me and the door).

[Asiablue]

I mostly feel safe in my house, but i can't think of a "safe space" i can go to in my mind. i don't remember ever feeling safe as a child. I wasn't aware of feeling unsafe but def didn't feel safe either if that makes sense.

[WikidPissah]

I took in a moment last night that felt safe. My step daughter (who I raised) is here with her spouse/children. My two younger ones stayed home this weekend to enjoy time with them. We all sat at the table last night and played the board game life. It felt safe and secure to have all the kids in my sight, to listen to them laugh and tease each other, and to see their genuine care for each other. I felt loved and peaceful.

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

You can paste something over the cover of the books, brown paper, wrapping paper, whatever, to hide their fronts. You can put them backwards on the book shelf. I also think there might be an actual product that has a "fake" book cover that you can insert your book into, a bookstore might have such a thing.

I interpret "safe" in a few different ways-- physical safety (i.e. I don't think anyone is going to attack me), emotional safety (probably the same, but with the idea of an emotional attack), and as being "without worry."

I usually feel safe sleeping in my own bed, my wife beside me. Sometimes I don't feel safe because I have worries on my mind, and I can't fall asleep.

I feel safe in my own house, especially with the dog curled up nearby, unless it is dark and the doors are unlocked.

I feel safe in T's office. Sometimes I think about sitting there when I can't fall asleep, and then I do. But I also feel safe with her, because I feel like I can say anything and she won't get mad at me.

I feel safe in conversations with my wife, unless I am bringing up something I need her to change or something I need her to do. She can bristle at these things and even though she is far from mean, it can be unpleasant for me and the idea of not pleasing her can cause me anxiety. I really love her, and I want to make her happy, but I am also not a doormat.

I feel safe with my kids, at least at the stages they are at now. Although they can sometimes tease in ways that don't feel good, they are such good-hearted people that I know they never intend to wound, and they always apologize if they step over the line, and they are in general so fun and loving that I greet interacting with them as joy. But a year or two ago, the youngest had a pretty angry period where he would get pissed at himself during homework and call himself stupid and hit himself in the head. Even though he wasn't directing that at anybody else, it did not make me feel safe for him. And if my kids don't feel safe, neither do I.

I feel safe when I walk my dog through our neighborhood. Our neighborhood has like no crime, and my dog is BIG (newfoundland) although she would probably be a giant marshmallow if I actually needed protecting.

I feel safe when I take my computer to the coffee shop to get some work done or even just to write or surf the internet. I plug in my headphones and enjoy my drink. Sometimes a friend pops by to say hello but I am soon blissfully alone and in the flow of what I'm doing.

I think there are more examples, but this is probably already way TMI, but I hoped it helped. I remember working with the CTH and it was really useful to me. I would sometimes take exercises into therapy and there were times when my group decided to work on specific pieces as well. I think that's part of the beauty of the book, that you can pick it up and put it down, start in the middle, end at the beginning, skip stuff. Some stuff I found incredibly useful, others not so much. Whatever you do, though, it's way great that you are working on it directly. I don't think you can find anything not right about that.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

I took in a moment last night that felt safe. My step daughter (who I raised) is here with her spouse/children. My two younger ones stayed home this weekend to enjoy time with them. We all sat at the table last night and played the board game life. It felt safe and secure to have all the kids in my sight, to listen to them laugh and tease each other, and to see their genuine care for each other. I felt loved and peaceful.

that is so lovely!

[pachyderm]

I wonder sometimes when asked to imagine a safe place -- and I cannot. There never was a safe place for me. At those times I think there must be something wrong with me if I cannot imagine such a place!

I found those books REALLY difficult. And actually ended up throwing them away

It's super hard for me to feel safe. I've felt safe on vacation with my family - camping, in our tent, at night, or all together in a hotel room or on the beach. I'm not sure why it's different from my own house...maybe it's the extra connection we have with each other when it's just the 5 of us out of our normal environment.

I feel safe with T, sometimes. Yesterday near the end of session he did an exercise with me to help me calm down and get out of the hypervigilant place I was in, and while we did it, I slowly started to feel safe. We sat on the couch for a few minutes and he wrapped me up in his arms and told me to breathe and I felt SUPER SAFE....like I could just drift off to sleep and everything would be okay.

I love, love, love the feeling of being safe. I wish I could find more ways to feel that in my day to day life.

Originally Posted by nightsky

I found those books REALLY difficult. And actually ended up throwing them away

Same here.

What are you defining the word "safe"to mean? Does it give a definition... I for one read into things way too much.

[geez]

(((MKAC))) The only time I've ever felt 100% truly safe was with T1 and a few fleeting moments with my grandmother when I was a child.

[stopdog]

Me too on the grandmother - I adored her and even better, she liked me.

I did not like the book, but more because I thought it went a bit to far into forcing someone into a victim/childish mentality. I am not saying that is how it should be for anyone but me and I am very glad the book has helped all the people it seems to have touched. I think it is worth a shot to work with it and see how it feels to you.

You can paste something over the cover of the books, brown paper, wrapping paper, whatever, to hide their fronts. You can put them backwards on the book shelf. I also think there might be an actual product that has a "fake" book cover that you can insert your book into, a bookstore might have such a thing.

this is exactly what i did with both books. I had some clear packing tape and i went and found some images from a magazine i liked (an eagle with a flag in the backround) and taped the entire books up. that way i could bring them out whenever i wanted to work in them. I think it takes alot of courage to work in those books. I got to certain chapter, and never could go any further.

thinking of you!!!!! and sending safe hugs

The workbook did not define 'safe.' Maybe I should look at the main book and see if it defines it. The workbook seemed to assume that everyone knows what 'safe' means.

I define safe to mean a feeling that nothing catastrophic is imminent. No one is going to hurt me physically or emotionally.

[minefield]

wow ironic coincident i was going to post this very same question. I bought the workbook and was determined to really make an effort with it whilst I am waiting for therapy to start. Faced with this question it has thrown a huge blockage and I can't get passed it. Each time I take up the book and think of an answer I wonder away my brain refuses to stay on topic. I can not think of a single time I felt safe, I hate the authors for putting this as the first question it is crewl.

[Sunne]

It is such a hard book to work through! I'm doing it now (although taking a bit of a break) with a survivor group I attended a few months ago. We kept in touch and are working through the book together.

The feeling safe part is hard. It does say that some survivors have never felt safe before.

I feel safe in my bed, under the covers. Or in the middle of a lake on a boat. Weird right?

It's hard to feel safe internally when you have never felt safe.

I've never really felt "safe". I'm not paranoid and thinking I'm going to be attacked at any moment, I don't feel physically threatened normally, except maybe walking down a dark street at night by myself, etc. But I think in an emotional sense, I have never felt safe and secure and loved and protected. It must be a nice feeling ...

[athena.agathon]

I don't think I've ever felt that way about relationships, either. And the more emotional intimacy with people I have, the less physically safe I feel with them, which I think is kind of backwards from the way it's supposed to be? Why do so many people like physical contact with their therapists? Yick, the idea gives me the heeby-jeebies.

For your entertainment, here is a kinda funny video about The Courage To Heal and not being able to take it out of the package/out from under the bed:

http://angelashelton.com/the-courage-to-heal

I normally feel safe in a situation where I can be in control. As far as a safe place in my mind-sometimes I am able to just escape thru meditation and guided imagery. And that is very safe. But as for general safety. No. I want to live in a bubble.

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

I define safe to mean a feeling that nothing catastrophic is imminent. No one is going to hurt me physically or emotionally.

Well based on that definition, I would says when I am home alone. or in the woods alone. Alone is the key for me.

[Bmee2]

The subject of safety has a weird reaction in me. It makes me want to fight, and throw up, and cry all at the same time. i would cover the book too. No one needs to know anything.