If you have the desire to improve the way you manage anxiety, or even to overcome it, there is a key concept that once understood and developed in a consistent way, can greatly accelerate your progress. I call it “Safety Net”.

Although I benefited immensely from professional help to heal from trauma and overcome deep-rooted fears that fueled my anxiety, a lot of my progress was due to daily practices done on my own. I believe a healthy combination of both strategies is the best for most of us and neglecting any of them can lead us to get stuck.

The concept of a “Safety Net” came to me because when I started challenging myself to face triggering situations, I felt I was walking on a tightrope 100 meters above the ground. In the beginning, the slightest wind would make me lose my balance, so after a few falls, I realised I would be better off building a safety net: a robust and reliable process that would allow me to reset my state whenever I went too far.

Therefore, a safety net is not a thing, it is a step-by-step process that you can rely on to calm yourself down, reset your stress response, safely reprogram your nervous system, heal and progressively expand your comfort zone.

I made a lot of mistakes when I decided to try to overcome anxiety. One of the biggest mistakes was forcing myself to be in situations that would trigger me badly. On top of that, I would repeat it over and over again, which caused me suffering, not only because of the immediate negative consequences but also because of the self-hatred talk that would follow up in my head.

Every time I felt I had failed at something, I would punish myself and it would take me days or weeks to get back to “normal”, causing my anxiety to worsen and making it harder to face the same challenge next time. It was a vicious destructive cycle that felt like a trap I couldn’t escape.

It might sound like self-punishment but I did it for a reason. I was split inside. On one hand, I deeply desired to overcome anxiety, I wanted to be “normal”, I wanted to be free. On the other, I wanted to stay away from any triggering scenario. For instance, a part of me wanted to be able to be social and talk to people, but another part was deeply scared, stressed and just wanted to run away. Therefore, for quite a while I put myself in social situations that I wasn’t able to handle and that often caused me to have visceral revolting reactions, some of which were likely re-traumatizing.

Eventually, it became clear that I needed to be able to deal with my stress response and heal a deeper wound. At the time, I did not call it that, it was just the “thing” I felt inside and I had no control over. Although I was unaware of the connection between anxiety and trauma, I started to work towards being able to recover from being triggered. That’s when the concept of “Safety Net” was born.

I needed a process that allowed me to calm myself down and reset my state. By state I mean my stress response plus the way I felt about myself. In a nutshell: my general state of wellbeing. If I was able to do that, it would mean that I could step into challenging, potentially triggering, situations and at any time I could step back into safety. Therefore, every time I bit more than I could chew, I could get out of the situation and reset. It meant that I could finally start trying new things and gain control. With time, it allowed me to take risks on my own terms.

To build my safety net, I started practicing calming myself down in the safest environment I knew: my room. I remember thinking that if I wasn’t able to calm myself down in the safety of my room, I wouldn't be able to manage it in challenging environments.

In my case, it all started with reframing perspectives, doing mindful meditations, and changing my inner self-talk. Then, I was introduced to techniques to attune directly to certain states or emotions without relying on thoughts, so everything became easier, safer and more direct. Attuning directly to love and gratitude are some of the most effective ways to find the feeling of safety.

Although I am presenting here these strategies as a shortlist, developing this process wasn’t neither easy nor straightforward. Building our safety net requires us more than acquiring effective skills, it also requires us to change our attitude towards our struggles, our behaviours and our relationship with our past.

Moreover, building a safety net involves implementing daily practices and cultivating qualities that might be missing in us. In my case, courage was lacking, so I cultivated it with the appropriate practices.

If you are curious about the concept of safety net and would like to build your own, I suggest you start with strategies that rely only on your focus and build it up from there. These can be extremely effective to calm yourself down and even the most simple ones can be healing when done the appropriate way for long periods of time. I am going to give you some suggestions on how to do that. Bear in mind that even when it comes to building a safety net, safety should be your priority. If at any point you feel strong body reactions or the beginning of a stress response, you should either stop or proceed with caution.

I suggest that one should start with approaches that rely on our attention, our ability to control our focus because these approaches are usually safe if you choose carefully what you are focusing on. If your anxiety is deeply rooted in trauma and focusing on the inside (breath, emotions, etc) is too overwhelming, try focusing outside instead. In practical terms, it means that you sit down for 20 minutes and focus on sounds, or you observe a simple object, or you do colouring, or you focus on the tactile sensation of a blanket or a warm bath.

There are many examples, the important thing is that you pick one that is not triggering for you and helps you connect with the feeling of safety. Once you reach the state of safety you need to familiarize yourself with it, imprint it in your mind, register it, memorize it. Then, you need to give it a genuine try by practicing consistently. Keep in mind that eventually, you should progress to shift your attention to the inside but that should be done gently if you experience any resistance.

After that, you should switch to grounding techniques and eventually work towards attuning directly to certain emotions or inner states. As I mentioned before, this whole work should be complemented with changes in attitude, mindsets and perspectives. The more effective tools you are able to use to your advantage, the more robust will be the safety net and the faster you will be able to feel safe after being triggered.

"Safety net" is a concept that applies to therapy too. There are therapy methods that, although effective, can lead to chaotic thoughts and emotional dysregulation. Having a safety net really makes a huge difference in such scenarios. In my own experience, I have found that for instance, certain types of shadow work can be very destabilizing, and having a safety net really helped me get back on my feet and regain an inner sense of balance.

This process should be personlised to yourself, so in the words of Bruce Lee: “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”.

I strongly believe that a safety net is a must-have for anyone struggling with anxiety. If you have any questions, I am glad to give specific suggestions on the practices you can include in your own process.

Best wishes,

Sérgio