Finding Safety Within Yourself | First Solo Episode | S2E43

In this first solo episode of Igniting Inspired Inquiry, I share a personal reflection on internal safety, self-trust, grief, nervous system awareness, and the relationship we have with ourselves.

Recorded just two days before my birthday, this conversation became a gift to myself — an opportunity to reflect on where I've been, what I've learned, and the journey from looking outside of myself for safety to learning how to create it within.

Together we explore what safety actually feels like in the body, why so many of us live in judgment, comparison, and hypervigilance, and how awareness can become a pathway back to trust, presence, and connection.

We are here to open the door to reflection, resonance, and revelation.

This is a space for truth, trust, and the kind of insight that comes from simply being human — raw, alive, and transformative.

Season 2 of Igniting Inspired Inquiry is a courageous return to what is real — amplifying honest voices, sharing human stories, and exploring the journey toward inner peace.

If something in this conversation resonated and you'd like to explore it more deeply, reach out.

Whether that's through a message, a conversation, a retreat, or one-to-one support, I'd be honoured to walk alongside you.

Connect with me on Instagram: @jaeenergy

For now, thank you for being here.

If this episode resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Share your reflections, your questions, or what safety means to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Igniting Inspired Inquiry, a space for real conversations with incredible humans. I'm your host, Jay, and I'm here to open the door to reflection, resonance, and revelation. If you have a moment to like, share, subscribe, or review, I would deeply appreciate you sharing the love. This is a space for truth, trust, and the kind of insight that comes from simply being human. Thank you for being here. Let's begin. This is an episode I'm recording for myself. Firstly, this is an intuitive arrival. This is something that's been coming through for me that I don't completely understand yet, but I'm following it because that is the nature of my work. It's also how I've really learned to live in the last few years is to really be in the listening of myself, in the listening of what's coming through for me. And what that means is things that I think a lot about, things that drive me or come clear to me, or aha moments that drop in, and then there's reflections or conversations that arise, and following the threads of what is alive. And that's why I'm here. I've known for a little while that there will be solo episodes. I've known for a little while that some people have been wanting to hear from me, just me. And that's cool. It is two days before my birthday. So what I wanted to do was to give this gift to myself. I have no idea where it's going to go. I just know that it's time to start really sharing some of the things that are alive for me, some of the things that I feel are needing to be shared, or that I've learnt, or that I am deeply aware of that potentially others may not be. And that is not coming from a place of me knowing better. I am not in any way perfect, nor do I have it all figured out. I am still someone who gets triggered. I am still someone who doesn't say the right thing. I am still someone who doesn't behave in a way that I like. And that's human. And life got easier when I started to understand that. Life got easier when I accepted that there isn't a place that I'm trying to get to apart from feeling safe within myself. And when I say a place I'm trying to get to, there isn't this perfect, pivotal, successful self that I will get to and stay at. It's all a part of the journey. But one thing that I am really learning within myself is a place of deep and honest authentic communication. And when I get there, I really am in the listening of life, and things really do get easier. So getting clearer on what's true for me has been very healing. And that truth for me isn't the same as the truth for you. But it is like a a North Star, like a way to self-align. And if some of this doesn't make sense for you, that's okay. What I wanted to share today, and being that I'm recording this for me for my birthday, was actually around birthdays and and what I'm feeling. It's interesting, there's a lot to learn even just when I reflect around birthdays. So this being my second third birthday without my sister. I miss the idea of being able to spend my birthday with her. I miss how we would always celebrate birthdays and that birthdays are important to us. Well, maybe they were for her because they were for me. I'm not sure. But yeah, I just I I really miss my sister thinking about my birthday. And my birthday's always been a big deal for me. And what I mean by that is I make it a big deal for me. I always think about what I want to be doing, what I would like, not necessarily in a present kind of way, but in a what would I like to do, what brings me joy, who do I want to be around, and how do I want to spend it. And just I make it about the you know, the things, my favorite things, and I love that. And I love celebrating other people's birthdays. I think that it should be the same. I think that I want to make it all about them and and make them feel special, and that's really cool. It hasn't always been that way. I know that I've always felt that way, but there's times where I've felt really unwell and disconnected from self and actually really deep in depression. That I actually, even one birthday, I went and took myself away because I didn't want to be disappointed, I didn't want to be let down, I didn't want, and and and that wasn't actually anyone else's fault, it was just because I was in so much pain and so much hurt. And the only way I can control control me feeling anyway good was by not having anyone around me. That that was really unhealthy. And to be fair, and it hurts to admit it, like all I did was kind of watch TV and sit by myself. And I think I may have done some journaling. I may have taken myself up for a coffee, but even the the guy that's would have been both Airbnb host that I wanted to stay with, he wanted to chat, and I did not want that. Lovely human. I just there was a time where I didn't feel safe around anyone else. And I thought that what would be better if I was alone, it would be if I was alone. However, the way I felt about myself, the the level of judgment and comparison and measure and just not good enough that I felt really meant that I wasn't safe on my own either. But even more than that, and what makes me sad is just because of that that was the world I was living in, judgment comparison, just all the look constantly looking for the reasons where I wasn't safe and I wasn't good enough. There was absolutely no room for presence, for joy, for acceptance or acknowledgement. There was no safety in being with myself. And I say that you know, it sounds so contradicting because I was like, I wanted to be away from everybody so that I could feel safe, but I I wasn't even in that space. So yeah, it was it was a it was a hard place to be in, just so confusing and discombobulating and disconnected, and so just searching for for anything that would make me feel better because I couldn't for myself, that was really hard. So, and and I actually going back even further, I remember a few birthdays where things went wrong. So when I was young, I had my I think mum had made a roast dinner. And what was going on in the house at that point, no blame, but I I went in to sit and eat that by myself. I think in front of the TV. Yeah, but I dropped the plate anyway on my big toe. It's so much so that this massive like blood blister came up under the toe. And and it was so sore, I remember that they took me to the hospital or the doctor, and the doctor said you're gonna need to get a hot needle and let the pressure out. And so I came home and dad had to do that on my birthday. And so obviously I never forgot that. And I think there was a couple of other things, random things that happened to me on my birthday, and so I'd then decided that that that's what you know that's what happened. Things go wrong on my birthday. I think another time I might have like I was really young, and I cut my fringe and I cut a big chunk out of my fringe, and I'd won like birthday dinner at some restaurant, but I mum wouldn't let me go because I'd cut a gaping hole out of my friend. I was in trouble. Just reflecting on how that really drove me in the later years to want to celebrate birthdays and to want to make them good and to yeah, really just kind of curate it in a way. And so, I mean, it's become a really beautiful gift for myself and for others because I like to celebrate them. It's really important to me. And I share this because this episode's for me and not to not be shared, planning on sharing all of this, but for it to maybe ignite an inquiry within yourself. And so I guess as I share that, what would be of service is to is to really reflect on what makes you feel safe and safe. Well what I mean by safe is there's there's like literally environment safe, which I am completely environment safe, but then there's the internal lack of safety, so not so feeling as though you're at threat. So feeling as though potentially everyone is judging you, feeling as though you're being compared, feeling as though you're not good enough, feeling as though things are gonna go wrong, feeling as though you can't control the environment, feeling as though you're not good enough to speak, or you're not good enough to share, or thinking that people don't want you around, all of that is a lack of safety. It's a lack of feeling as though you belong, it's a lack of feeling as though you are okay. And I believe that feeling safe and feeling secure and feeling reassured by self is a birthright and it is accessible. I said birthright really quick, but it's true. It is your birthright to feel safe and secure within yourself. And I remember a time where I thought the external circumstances were the influence of my safety, and it's not true. The influence of how I feel within myself is myself. I am who can create that safety. I am my trust, my surrender, my resource, my resilience. I am my source of safety. And when we start to realize that that comes from a place within yourself that is not the amygdala, that is not the threat detector, that is not the rational brain or the overthink of the hyper-vigilance, that the safety comes from in here. Safety comes from a knowing that is more than the brain. It's not something that you decide, it's something that you step into and that you feel and that you embody within you. And that when you are in that, which is also some people call a regulated nervous system, when you feel relaxed and at ease, where you at rest and digest, that's safety. When you're in fight or flight, lack of safety. So not always, but most common, you know, and so rest and digest means that your body is at ease, which also means that it can heal, that it can digest, that it can take a deep breath, that it can be present and aware, that it can process information. You feel the difference there? So that's what I'm sharing is I've asked you, where do you feel safe? What makes you feel safe? And there will be things. Maybe it's meditation. Some of that, maybe it's being in nature, maybe it's having a combo with the right person, maybe it's putting your feet up and looking into the fire, the cup of tea, maybe it's up in the mountains. You know, and maybe you have never ever considered that. And safety is something that is essential. It's essential for healing, it's essential for being present, it's essential for connection, for growth, for allowing things to move through you. And what I mean by that is pain or triggers or challenges. And and to find safety is required for us to find new solutions and new awarenesses so that we can shift the perspectives. Sometimes that's actually where the lack of safety comes from, is a very limited perspective of self or of life. And that all comes with time and and with patience and awareness, but just being with self. There was another piece I wanted to share that kind of floated out, so maybe it'll float back soon. But when I think about a lack of safety, it's also there's this rigidity in the body. And so that's why I'm inviting like what makes you feel safe. And you may not know the answer to that question, but the answer is in how your body feels and how your body responds. So when you think about certain situations, do you lift in the shoulders? Do you tense? Does your tummy go? You know, there's different ways there isn't a right or wrong, isn't the same for everybody? But what does your body do? And that will tell you whether you're safe. And then therefore, there may be other times that you think about, you know, relaxing back on the couch with a friend or lying in the sun or whatever, and you feel the softness in your body. So that is, you know, a direct reflection of what feels safe and what doesn't. And the reason I share that is because that is how you can find your safety, your tools, all your awareness around what's not. And I think that that's a powerful thing. And no matter whether I'm working one-on-one with a client, whether I'm offering a group, whether I'm speaking here on this podcast, I always want to leave people with tools, not just awareness of what could be, because that awareness could make you feel really uncomfortable and actually really unsafe. Holy shit, this is what's going on for me. What do I do with it? So the tools is that awareness, what feels safe in my body and what doesn't. And it doesn't mean that you won't ever feel unsafe or that you shouldn't ever. It's just really getting in tune with what does and what doesn't, and leaning more towards what does. And that might also help you determine what environments or what people are right for you. Because there may be some where you notice that that rigidity and that ooh. And in saying that, that doesn't mean that all you should cut all of those people off. Because sometimes they may not be unsafe. It's just what you perceive about them that has you've decided somewhere in there that you don't feel safe, maybe not safe to express, safe to, and that may not be directly in correlation with them. It may be just a piece of it. And this is a lot of the work I do, is really unfolding perspectives. Because what we perceive can become what we believe, but it's not the whole truth. And so a lot of the work I do is about really understanding what you perceive is that what's serving you, because often what we perceive, what we believe about something, is blocking us from the potential, from the growth, or it's it's not allowing us to move forward in a way. It might also even be blocking us from finding a solution that we really deeply desire. It might be blocking us from coming into a new connection with someone or moving through conflict or changing the situation. So, what does safety mean for you? And I'm gonna offer this in a comment box, or you can reach out to me if you want to talk more about that. Like, what does safety mean for you? Or maybe you're experiencing an awareness around what really isn't safe. And how do you find that? And sometimes you can do that on your own. It might even just be awareness of the body responding because the body responding may be old. It may not be that it's not un, it's not safe, it's not unsafe anymore. It may just be that it wasn't safe before, and the body's still reacting to that. So that's what I also mean about like you may be people around you who will your body tenses, but that you don't actually need to anymore because it's not still the same scenario, the same situation that triggered the unsafety in the body. So, one of the most powerful ways for you to build a better relationship with self and especially with the nervous system is to determine without judgment, without making a huge amount of change yet, but just determine what makes you feel safe and what doesn't. And inquire within. And sometimes, we just talked about this on a podcast, but when we get quiet and we start listening to self, it can get really noisy. And that's okay, that's actually necessary. So when you know that it will help, when you start to inquire within, when you start to listen to the thoughts in your head or become more aware of self with your behaviors or your reactions, it can get really uncomfortable, but know that that is a necessary part in order for you to move through it. You have to look at it in order for it to move. You can't move away from it. I laugh like that, not at you, at me, and how often I did that. I ran away, I resisted the change I wanted to make because I didn't want to look at the uncomfortable parts of myself. I didn't want to look at the behaviors that I didn't like. But we have to in order to move through them. And actually, the sooner we do, the easier it becomes. So I think that that is my first download for a solo podcast. And a happy birthday to me. And you might not really get why that feels like a happy birthday to me, but this is a process of reflection of where I've grown. Doesn't mean that I'm better than you, not in any way. I do not believe that anyone is better than anyone else. I believe that some people are doing better, choosing better. But that doesn't make me superior to you. It's just a reflection of where I've grown. And maybe if something resonates with you, you might want to do that too. But where is safety for you? What does it mean? I'm not talking about a physical violence, anything like that. Safety, I'm talking about safety in the body, what feels relaxed and at ease, what feels nourishing, present, and aware. And lean into a little more of that. And if you need some tips around that, you can message me about that too. So here we are. I'm signing off. Lots of love. Ciao for now.