time to reset the nervous system if we're going to thrive.
A Personal Agenda
Life keeps giving me opportunities to talk to people about feeling safe. Recently, in the magical setting of Ashridge Business School in the UK, I spoke to an international group of leaders about the nervous system and feeling safe. One of them, a successful businessman who leads a large international team in a well-known accountancy firm, came up to me afterwards and said that he hadn't realized that what he'd been feeling for years was ‘unsafe’ and that my words had been a ‘wake-up’ for him.
As I mentioned right at the beginning when I shared my ‘ingredients’, my work comes not only from the head but also from my heart and soul. Feeling safe matters to me. Maybe because for more than half of my life I haven't felt safe.
When you've grown up feeling fear every day of your life, the sensation of fear becomes normal. You habituate to it. In fact, it wasn't until I was 31 years old and a therapist in the psychiatric unit I'd just been admitted to asked me ‘How are you feeling?’ that I realized that I'd been afraid most of my life – not excited (what I'd told myself).
What was I afraid of? At the time I didn't know. All I know is that there was a bad feeling stuck in my body and I perpetually felt unsafe. Often it served me well – it drove me to run fast and I did – completing seven marathons and over 40 triathlons. Feeling unsafe drove me to achieve, to get stuff done, to win, to be the best. But I was afraid most of the time. My moods oscillated between high energy, verging on hyperactive, in which I was the life and soul of the party and then withdrawn, depressed, and exhausted – very few people saw me in this state but I was known for cancelling social engagements at short notice. Both states derive from living in the wrong part of the nervous system, from running on fear.
According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist and pioneer in near-death studies who introduced the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief:
There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety, and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They are opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we are in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.
When we feel unsafe, everything comes from FEAR. When we feel safe, everything stems from LOVE. So, we're either running away from life or running towards it. What are you doing? Do you know?
At the point of my ‘breakdown’ (for simplicity's sake, I'm going to call it that for now) I was running away from life not towards it. And fast.
There are several reasons why, up to this point, I was programmed to run on fear, for example, I have a high ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) score. Throughout my childhood I witnessed and experienced first-hand my father's rages. I watched and heard him beat my mother – sometimes in front of us, sometimes behind closed doors.
After one beating, my mother was forced to flee with my brother, leaving my sister and me at home with my dad. I was 10 years old and didn't know if I'd ever see my mother or brother again. For days we tiptoed around my father and then one day he went out in the car and, after a few hours, returned with them. No one spoke of this event again and I ‘forgot’ about it. It was decades later – in fact, while writing this book, that my brother reminded me of this incident. This was one of several significant turning points for me. One that enabled me to join several dots and understand why, for more than half of my life, I'd made the choices I'd made, including the following:
My first suicide attempt was when I was 17 years old. I attempted suicide another two times before my mid-30s.
I suffered from eating disorders until the age of 34.
I have been arrested for shoplifting. Charges were dropped when kind police officers realized I was mentally unstable.
Weeks later I had a breakdown. I was 31 and spent a month in a psychiatric clinic where, years later, I was headhunted to work for more than a decade.
My beloved sister who had, for most of my childhood, been my primary caregiver, died suddenly and traumatically in 2002.
Two marriages ended. The second one suddenly and traumatically.
In the past, I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
I no longer consider myself to have these or any other psychiatric labels nor to be a victim of my life.
I share my story not so that you can say ‘poor Nerina’. It is among my highest values to be authentic, real, and honest. I want you to know that I know how it feels to feel so profoundly unsafe that I don't want to go on anymore. When we hit rock bottom, one of the most common feelings is feeling so alone, as if no one else could possibly understand. Often this is also tinged with shame and guilt – ‘I shouldn't be feeling like this’. Or even ‘Have I brought this on myself? Is this what I deserve?’
I want you to know that you are not alone and that I do understand.
I do not consider myself to be a survivor but a thriver. I now run towards life – not away from it. Love sponsors my choices. I no longer want to leave this world, as I once did.
I have found safety in this world, in spite of the world.
Mostly, I share my story in the hope that it might inspire you to keep going and trust that if you are prepared to do the work, something will happen to you – you too will discover a deep inner safety even in the face of adversity – and in spite of the world.
I have written this book for all of you who are feeling as if for too long you've been running in survival mode and feeling afraid. At the time of writing this book, we seem to be emerging from a pandemic that has been traumatic for many. For some people, old wounds have been opened, some of which they inherited and didn't even know they were carrying. For others, the events of the past year in themselves have caused wounding and trauma. I offer you my words in the hope that you can all receive something good from them whether your lived experience is big T or little T. By this I mean, whether you have been through the big traumas of life – the severe life-threatening events – or the small traumas that are more subtle and personal but still affect your health and quality of life. My book is for anyone who wants to know what it means to feel safe. It is for anyone who truly wants to thrive.
Part One The Illusion of Safety
Habituation to Survival
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