How to Find Safety in Your Body Before Solving Any Problem, According to Sami Clarke

By Sami Clarke, as told to Dear Media.

Wellness founder and coach Sami Clarke has a toolkit—and like any good practice, it’s always evolving. On a recent episode Transform, she walked through the rituals currently anchoring her.

Below, Clarke shares a step-by-step practice for creating safety in your body—and why it’s one of the most important to her. This essay is excerpted from an episode of the Transform podcast.

On Learning to Hold Space for Your Fear

I want to start with the biggest thing that I talk a lot about, and that is the somatic experiencing that I’ve been diving into. There’s many resources that you can hear and listen to of how to understand somatic work or the nervous system, but I want to share less about the education of that and more about what resources and tools I can share with you that you can tap into right now.

What I have learned more than anything with somatic work is the only way that we can move forward is by actually finding true safety in our bodies. When I say the word safety, I want you to think about a time that you actually felt really safe. For me, that’s the ocean. When I’m by the ocean, how I can tell I’m feeling safer in my body is my neck is more open. I feel warmth in my body. Maybe I feel some nice tingling. I am feeling like I can move my toes in the sand. There’s warmth. That’s me recognizing that my body feels safe.

Without safety, without actually feeling this safety in our bodies, it is very challenging as I have come to find. It is very challenging to actually take steps forward. It’s very challenging to get your mind right when your body is in straight survival.

Safety has to come before a solution

Think about this. If I was not feeling safe and I was trying to solve a solution, I was trying to do my workday, I was trying to get a lot of things done, I was having thoughts of, What if this all goes wrong? Don’t take that step. You’re going to mess it up. Don’t send in that email. That’s a terrible email. Like, what if my mind was just ongoing? Really negative, really self-critical. I am not centered in my body. I’m also definitely not safe in my body.

What those thoughts are alerting is something in you. It could be an emotion—fear, sadness coming through. Your self needs to be there for that part. Right now, your self needs to provide that safety. Like a little kid that’s running around saying, I’m scared—you wouldn’t be like, go do more things. You would pause and you would be with that child.

So this is a practice where you’re going to invite in this conversation of safety. A beautiful example that I can give in my life is when my mind is doing the chatter, I do exactly what I just did right there. I take a really big breath and instead of judging that I’m having so much chatter—because that just makes the chatter louder because now we’re bringing in a judger, which is just never fun—I’m going to actually give myself that safety like I would a kid.

The practice

My favorite way to do this is to literally take that breath, put my hand over my heart (personal touch), and allow myself to actually be with this moment, be in the present moment, be with my body, be with this scared part that’s coming through. I like to look at these thoughts in my head, the ones that are running in circles, and look at them as a part. Look at a little kid running around in my head, hand over heart, and just look at them and say, It’s all okay, it’s all okay. When you tell someone that it’s all going to be okay, there’s already a relaxation in the shoulders.

It’s being the adult to that inner critic. From there you can dive into a little bit of parts work and ask what it needs. That’s one of my favorite things. What do you need right now? The part might say love. It might say a pause. It might say for you to calm it down.

This is important for you to not be more scared of your fear. Because when we’re scared of our fear, it gets bigger. And that’s why when we ignore it, it just keeps coming back. This is a pause and a moment that you’re having with yourself saying, we are okay. We are actually so safe. We are so held. Whatever you need right now, I’m going to give that to you. And then we’re going to actually be able from a more regulated place go and do those things. You’re coming from not survival. You’re coming from a safe place to actually solve the problems in your life.

Let me just walk you through this. If I close my eyes and invite a part, right now fear comes through. I would say, Okay, what is this thought saying? This thought is saying, You’re doing such a bad job, you probably should stop. No one’s listening. While my hand’s over my heart, I’m going to ask this part, How long have you been here? And this part’s going to say, “A really long time.” And then I’m going to ask, Where are you living in my body? And it’s living in my chest, which I can feel. It’s a little bit tight. And I can just breathe into it, hold space for knowing that it’s living in my body—and that’s okay—but just how can I just be with it?

Then I’m going to ask it, What do you need right now? And what it just shared with me is it needs reassurance and love. This is a moment where I can say to it, I know you’re scared. I know you feel like you don’t want to be judged or you don’t want to do things wrong, but we are here for a specific purpose and we are here to share our hearts, and that’s the best we can do. And may this reach everyone it needs to.

That is the practice of reparenting and being there for our parts that just need to be held and validated. If there’s more that comes through, this will be the practice. It’s not going to be one and done. It is an ongoing process, but you start to actually feel those parts ease way quicker. Right now already my body is calmer. My body is more in itself that I can actually speak my truth and I could solve a problem if I needed to.

This is a practice, so give yourself the most grace, prioritize it, see what works, but you be your own parent to you and create that safety within yourself.

For the full toolkit including her GAD walk practice, expression journaling, and meditation recommendations, listen to the complete episode.

Read More

• Sami Spalter Is Pregnant! Here’s Her Realistic First-Trimester Survival Guide, Now on ‘Transform’
• Mindset Tools That Make Hard Days Easier, from ‘Transform’
• How the Hoffman Process Helped ‘Transform’ Hosts Sami Clarke and Sami Spalter Step Into Adulthood