When Safety Comes From Within

Anxiety screams; your body often whispers the truth. We dive into what self-trust actually feels like and how to build it, not with slogans, but with embodied proof. From navigating doom-laden news cycles to parenting without over-rescuing, we map a practical path from fear to grounded action. You’ll learn how to tune in when your brain spins stories, how to sense real-time safety through your body, and how small, deliberate challenges teach your nervous system that you can do hard things and still be okay.

We unpack the cost of constant information overload and why young people and adults alike benefit from a reset that centres sensation over speculation. Naomi shares a simple 3-3-3 tool to return to the present: name three things you feel, three you see, and three you hear. Add a hand to your heart or solar plexus and you’ll amplify the message of safety to your system. With that foundation, even stretch experiences like trust falls or public speaking become labs for resilience rather than panic tests. Success and stumbles both count, because either way your body learns, “I remained safe.”

We also explore a mindset shift for parents, carers, and teams: hold the discomfort, don’t steal the lesson. Resisting the urge to fix builds confidence on both sides and creates a culture where action springs from clarity, love, and a regulated nervous system. By pairing daily sensory check-ins with micro-challenges just beyond your comfort zone, you gather the only evidence that matters: lived experience. The takeaway is simple and powerful—your body is not broken, and your resilience is already present. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it today, and leave a review to help more people find their way back to their own inner guidance.

Transcript

Welcome And Core Premise

Naomi Mills 0:01

Welcome to You Are the Answer, the podcast that helps you reconnect with the most powerful healer you know, your own body. I'm Naomi Mills, chiropractor, healthcare professional, and believer in the natural intelligence within us all. In this podcast, I explore what it means to trust your body, decode its signals, and take ownership of your well-being without quick fixes or health fads. Whether you're just beginning your journey or deep in transformation, I'm here to guide you back to the truth. You are not broken. You are the answer. Because the question I want to discuss with you is what does self-trust actually feel like? So can you answer that for yourself now? What does self-trust feel like for you? Because throughout this podcast, when I'm saying it's time to trust your body, here are all the different ways into hearing, understanding, and interpreting your body's signals. What I am trying to teach you is self-trust. And I want to talk today about why that is so valuable, who is missing this self-trust, and how you can go about building it. So a lot of the work I do is with young people who experience anxiety and worry. And I don't think that this is unique to any particular generation. We've all had it for various degrees and for various reasons. But we do have a group of young people that have grown up through a pandemic who have unprecedented access to information, to news, to social media, and all of that is really flooding their nervous systems and their brains with a lot of information. And because negative news gets more attention than positive news, a lot of that information is in the anxiety-evoking area. And that's not unique to them. So when I say, who needs this? You need it. I need it. We all need to be able to trust ourselves. And so I wonder what you would say now if I ask you, do you trust yourself? When the world is questioning or other people are questioning you, do you have a practice whereby you can really tune into your own inner wisdom and pick what is right for you, whether that goes with or against the cultural grain? And can you tune into your own inner wisdom when it's your brain that's doubting and worrying and questioning? As it will do to all of us at some time to protect us. So, what does it really mean to trust yourself? What does it feel like and why do we need it? And for me, self-trust is having that way of connecting into your body, deeply tuning in to check in whether the actions that you feel compelled to make and the thoughts that you're having really match your reality. And to put it simply, knowing that you can do something that's hard, that might even seem impossible, which is why we've talked about firewalking, glasswalking, and other challenges during this series arc on embodiment, because this is how we learn self-trust. Self-trust is not made in the easy moments, it's made in the challenges. And actually, if you are somebody, if you're a parent in your 30s and 40s right now, you might feel that your emotions weren't held terribly well as children. And you might be parenting children now and being really good at honoring their feelings. But are we also honoring allowing them to struggle? Because it's so common as a parent, it's completely natural to want to rescue our friends, our children, people that we care about from struggle. But this self-trust piece shows why it's so important to go through these difficult times and experience success where you overcome something and you're able to do something you never thought you could do, whether that's giving a presentation, whether that's having a difficult conversation, whether it's walking on burning hot coals. And also the lessons and the learning that comes from it not going as well as you hoped it would, but knowing that you're okay anyway, learning how to be okay anyway. And that to me is the essence of what self-trust actually feels like. It's about becoming so connected into your own self that you essentially learn to parent yourself, to soothe that inner child that we all have that fears getting it wrong, or fears being hurt, or fears being shown up in some way, and going, It's okay, you can do this, and it may turn out way better than you thought, in which case, that's amazing. Or it may not turn out how you wanted it to at all, and you will be okay whatever happens. And this is so important for nervous system health and regulation, because it's about self-regulating and self-soothing, which is an incredibly important skill for us to have at every age. And when I go back to some of the pieces I've said before about why this work is so important to me, it's because when you know that you can take care of yourself no matter what happens, you are going to be a lot more likely to take those scary steps that might just change the world, that might just change the culture in your office, it might just change the setup in your home, because you're tuning in and listening to a nervous system that isn't running from fear, but actually running from good intentions, from love from a place of safety. And those are very, very different intentions behind the action. So, how do you develop self-trust? And the answer to that can only be through practice, through boldness, and you can do it both with yourself and with young people that you're responsible for. It might be watching somebody else go through some struggle without you swooping in and actually watching how they come through, and you start to think, oh, I can start to sit through some of my own struggle without trying to run away or make it stop, and learn some resilience and some tools for myself. So it kind of comes through challenge, and it might be booking something that feels challenging, saying yes to something that feels challenging, pushing yourself a little bit beyond your comfort zone in a very small way during the day, looking for an opportunity to practice that self-trust. And it looks like practicing self-awareness. So I've spoken before about the nervous system journal and the cards that I'm developing because this is all the essence of self-trust. It's about tuning into your body more than you're tuning into the environment around you or what your brain is telling you. So the tool I would love for you to play with over the course of today and the next week, it's one we often give when somebody is in overwhelm. You might have heard this, for example, when somebody has a panic attack. And it's just a practice in checking in to reality and not the story that's going on in your head. So it's very simple, but you're going to catch yourself in several moments throughout the day, particularly moments where you might feel a bit stressed or overwhelmed, but any time is good, and say, What's three things that I can feel, three things that I can see, and three things that I can hear right now. And what you're doing is you are directing your conscious brain right into the present moment, right into your body, right into your present environment, rather than everything else that might be going on internally or externally. So I'm thinking, name now three things that I can see, name now three things that I can hear, and name now three things that I can feel. And that might be physically, like myself sitting on a seat or a cushion behind my back or the air on my skin and noticing the temperature. And when we start to tune in, particularly in the moments of stress, when we do feel overwhelmed or fearful, you might actually find, because what you're really asking your nervous system in that moment is, Am I truly in danger? Because my brain thinks I'm really in danger. But when I tune into my body, it's quite calm, it's quite relaxed, it's held, I can hear sounds, I can notice things, and what that does is it immediately calms everything in the nervous system. You can even place a hand on your body and notice how that feels across your heart is really powerful, or that solar plexus just below your ribs and bringing your attention into there. And so you begin to build self-trust when you consciously notice that what your brain is telling you doesn't necessarily match up with your reality. So by checking in with yourself physically rather than only emotionally and mentally, you can start to realize, oh, there's a difference here. And I'm gonna trust that part. I'm going to trust that I am okay in this moment, really. I'm not really at risk. And using that tool, I can go through something difficult. So for me, when I do this with people in workshops, it might be breaking an arrow on their throat or bending a piece of metal between two people, and you you put it on the soft part, fleshy part of your throat, and you walk together. It might be trust falls are a great one, falling backwards off of something just over a meter high and trusting other people to catch you. These are challenging physically, mentally, emotionally. It can bring up a lot of layers. But you tune in and you check in and you go, I'm doing this for a reason. I'm doing this because I want to build self-trust, because I want to be able to soothe and protect myself no matter what. And you do it and you realize I'm okay. And that's what self-trust feels like. Knowing that whether things are going, quote, bad or good, you are okay anyway. Because let's remember, you are not broken, you do not need to be fixed, you just need to be reminded of your own resilience. And the best way for us to do that is to practice it within ourselves and within the people that we have the responsibility for and the capacity to help do the same. And when we witness people that we care for also going through the difficult things and hold them rather than try and rescue them, that's building collective self-trust, and that's very powerful too. So your invitation for today is to practice that tuning in, both in times when you already feel relaxed, times when you feel slightly stressed or distracted. Anytime you'd pick up your phone, let's say, for a quick scroll or out of boredom, put it down and ask yourself what's three things I can feel, three things I can see, three things I can hear. And start getting that feedback so that you can use it going forward to help regulate your own nervous system. And if you get the opportunity to do something that feels uncomfortable, go for it. You've got this. Thank you for joining me on You Are the Answer. If today's episode sparks something in you, share it with someone you care about and leave a review to help others find their way back to their body too. For more tools, inspiration, and resources to support your journey, head to www.uareanswer.co.uk. And until next time, stay connected, stay curious, and remember, you are the answer, and you always have this.