LEAVING IS NOT ALWAYS THE SAFEST OPTION + WHY WE STAY
Fleeing a dangerous situation is not the only way to safely survive it. Or, why we shouldn't ask: "why didn't you just leave?"
When people ask "why didn't you leave sooner?" or "why did you stay?" they often want to make sense of an awful situation.
But these questions are not that supportive. And when we learn about the nervous system, we discover:
LEAVING IS NOT ALWAYS THE SAFEST OPTION and I wish more people understood that.
Our nervous system is always reaching for our safety and survival. By any means necessary. Sometimes that’s fleeing. Sometimes it’s fighting. Sometimes it’s collapsing.
However you survived is brilliant, and I am sorry if you have experienced people questioning your survival.
Questions like: why didn’t you just leave? if it was that bad, why did you stay so long? . . .
. . . they’re just not helpful.
I get why people ask them; often want to find the rhyme or reason in an awful and hard-to-digest or fathom experience.
But they’re not the most supportive questions.
And. The more we know about the nervous system, the more we’ll realize that there are better questions to ask. And that, what’s more, there might be other WORDS we can offer. Not questions, just validation and support.
Because when we learn more about how our physiology is always taking the actions that help us to survive, is always doing its absolute best to get us through a challenging situation (sometimes we can get out, sometimes we find ways to stay until it ends because we can’t flee yet) . . . we know that some of the choices are a bit choiceless, and not a reflection of someone’s lack of willpower (ew, not a great take, right?), but relative to circumstance.
Seeing you in your survival, whatever it looked or looks like.
Jess
Resource, resilience and collective trauma
Nervous system regulation happens when we’re resourced. THIS is why healing is collective and trauma is systemic. THIS is why as we heal I hope we heal these systems that leave so many underresourced.
Resourcing is about what is outside of us, too.
It’s about the systems we live in.
It’s about the people in our lives.
It’s about .. what or who or where can we turn to when shit is hard?
It’s about .. are the helpers actually helping or retraumatizing or further oppressing us?
Resourcing can be this beautiful piece of nervous system regulation where we hold our own hearts or sway back and forth or tune into our breath and feel more grounded and present.
Yes. And.
Resourcing can also be about OUR RESOURCES.
Affluence. Proximity. Access. Privilege. Support. And/or lack thereof.
It can also be about the protective factors that help us to be resilient through traumatic experiences.
In this world, not everyone is resourced equally.
And not all resources come from the inside (although yes, those practices are powerful, too, and if they feel supportive please keep doing them!).
I hope that as we heal, as we hold our own hearts and nourish our own nervous systems, we can also hold that our systems need healing, too.
More to come on nervous system nourishment that doesn’t erase trauma (and healing) as a systemic and collective phenomenon soon.
XO Jess
Image description: an open window into a lush dark green forest and a tweet that reads: Nervous system regulation happens when we’re resourced. THIS is why healing is collective and trauma is systemic. THIS is why as we heal I hope we heal these systems that leave so many underresourced.