On The Importance of Safety

The soil from which all creations spring.

August, 1979 and I played in the kitchen. I was 7 years old. The summer was a hot one and the ladybirds everywhere grossed me out too much to go outside. Bored in my two plaits, red corduroy dungaree shorts and daisy covered trainers, rolling a ball across the beige lino floor for Fred, our black and grey mongrel dog. I got tired of this game before he did. “Buzz off,” I said to the dog.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” My dad’s voice from the living room next door. I froze, my heart jumping up the back of my throat and pounding into my ears.

A mouse, in the middle of the kitchen floor, eyes skittering from one corner to another, which way to go to stay safe? That unanswerable question imprinted on the front of my mind for the next five decades.

I loved my dad and I feared my dad. I remember the feeling of being his favourite and snuggling up next to him on the brown sofa as we would watch Tomorrow’s World together and imagine our lives with cordless telephones and CD players in them. I remember closeness with him in a way I don’t remember having with my mum.

I was also afraid of him. Prone to fits of unpredictable anger, punishment was how my sisters and I were made to behave. Eggshells. Sudden raised voice. A smack. That’s just how it was. As a seven/eight/nine/ten/eleven/twelve year old, I lived in fear of doing the wrong thing. But what the wrong thing might be was unclear.

What followed was a lifetime of looking for the rules then trying to follow them, a searching for safety in all the wrong places and an anxiety about stepping out of line.

Over-achieving at school began at 12, migraines at 14, panic attacks at 20 and for the next twenty one years, a life spent cycling in and out of agoraphobia and claustrophobia (can’t stay in, can’t go out, no safety anywhere). 9/11 magnified it all.

At 41 I found myself entering a conversation with a mentor, Michael Neill, talking about the nature of life on his balcony in Los Angeles. Eight weeks later, my panic attacks had dissolved and we hadn’t even spoken about them. You can read about that in my book, A Little Peace of Mind, and the next seven years were ones of relative calm.

At 48, my children began to struggle with their mental health and I found myself in life or death situations on an almost weekly basis for the next five years. My nervous system was on high alert, day and night, a natural response to the very real danger we found ourselves in. I learned that it was not OK to feel safe, because the minute I did, the shit would hit the fan. So I kept myself revved up and on guard.

At 53, I found myself on ’s sofa, taking part in an immersive three day retreat. John is a long-time friend and colleague and I trust him with my whole heart. As one does on such retreats, he asked me to write a list of all the things I would love to have in my life. I did. He looked at the list.

“It strikes me that everything you’ve just listed is a desire for either freedom or safety. Go down the list and put an S or F next to each of them.” I wrote an S after every single one.

I was stunned. How had I not seen this?

John and his wife Linda took me through a gentle process over the next three days and for the first time in my life I felt not just an absence of anxious head chatter (which I had experienced before), but a presences of a profound feeling of safety in my body. Delicious is the best word I have to describe it. And they showed me how to have that feeling at any point, whenever I desired it

Me going through John and Linda’s process

I left the retreat, thanking them with all my heart, then went back to my life. A few changes happened in the first couple of weeks - the exact family BBQ I had imagined in my meditations with John, a blip of change in my marriage, a dropping away of a set of financial goals. Then it was back to real life, busy, busy and I forgot what we had talked about.

And yet….

For the past 12 months, I realised this week, everything I have done and spoken to people about since that retreat has been around this theme of feeling safety in my body. It showed up in my art course, my leadership training, my sessions with a therapist, the books I was reading, the TV shows I watched, my writing classes, conversations with friends, in quotes that happened across my path.

And in simple ways, my life has changed to prioritise being in that feeling. I swim for half an hour a couple of times a week; the feeling of water on my skin, no way for anyone to reach me. I took a dopamine sabbatical last summer. I take myself out to the greenhouse and pot on seedlings. I lose myself in my sketchbook. I don’t receive any emails about marketing or selling. My phone goes into private mode after 5pm so no one but my family can reach me.

As long as I’ve been guiding others through their Human Design, I have been asked ‘How do I go about the de-conditioning process to come into alignment with my unique design?’ and I realised that this is the answer:

Live in the feeling of safety more of the time, however you know to best do that.

The visual image I have is of my nerve endings, frazzled and jangling at the ends, healing over and becoming smooth and quiet as I bathe in birdsong for a few minutes each day.

.Over the past couple of weeks I feel as though I’ve hit a critical mass of safeness.

And with that, a stairway has appeared and I have climbed up through the doorway and entered a different level of the game. In the previous level, the rules were different (I wrote about that last week). In this one there’s a wide open space with stations set up; one has art materials, one has a journal and pen, one has a flower bed, one has a round table for friends, one has a yoga studio, one a social enterprise idea, one a chair and a book. And I get to wander round at my leisure, and for my pleasure, visiting each station as I choose. Safe. Minus the urgency.

(I notice that without the urgency, there’s no need to initiate, the way I most often move away from my Human Design strategy of waiting to respond.)

What’s available for me on this level was not accessible on the level before. It’s beautiful up here and miracles happen. Others catch safety from me and the impact of this is mind-blowing.

Then, my son comes home from university and as soon as I see him, the trap door opens and I fall back to the level before. We are not out of the woods yet. But this time it’s different because I’ve seen what’s on the next level and I know this is a temporary visitation. Somehow there’s a way to stay on the new level AND have kids that struggle; I’m not there yet.

Here’s what I know to do: Continue to make feeling ever more safe my only priority.

Everything else flows from there.

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By Nicola Bird

Shit List Day - Friday 5th June

With the energy of the full moon last Sunday still with us, with it’s gift of discernment, we are being called to release what is old and no longer serves us, so that we can move into new adventures with ease, honouring this Gate 35.

You’re invited to join me for Friday’s Shit List Day - the perfect time to clear the to-do clutter and release the old and stale.

You’ll find all the details here. I’d love to see you there.

One Woman Conference - 13th and 14th June, London

This is a conference held by Dr Joanna Martin with an opportunity to meet in person with around 400 other women. The promise of the day is to get unstuck and find clarity on your next chapter, without blowing everything up. Walk out lighter, clearer and excited again. I will be bringing my art and Human Design to the conference, so look out for me if you’re coming. Tickets are available here.

New Moon Intention Setting - Monday 16th June

Come join me for a simple evening of guided journalling and intention setting.

Learn more here.

CREATRIX - 12 week program starting 21st September

Bring your own project and travel with me between the Autumn equinox and the Winter solstice to explore the nature of creativity, embrace our feminine energy and understand how to align with our human design as we create together.

The waitlist is open here.

Until next time,

Nic x