What if some of the behaviors you’ve always considered part of your personality aren’t actually fixed parts of who you are?
Maybe you’ve always called yourself a perfectionist.
Maybe you procrastinate when something feels overwhelming. Perhaps you shut down during conflict, push yourself toward constant achievement, or feel deeply afraid of making mistakes.
It’s easy to think, “That’s just who I am.”
But sometimes, these behaviors are better understood as safety strategies, patterns your mind and body learned because, at some point, they helped you feel protected.
And if a behavior was learned, there may also be an opportunity to create a new response.
Not by judging or fighting yourself, but by understanding why the pattern exists in the first place.
What Are Safety Strategies?
Safety strategies are behaviors and patterns that can develop in response to challenging or traumatic experiences, particularly during childhood.
When something makes us feel unsafe, our minds and bodies naturally look for ways to restore a sense of safety.
For one person, that might look like perfectionism and trying to get everything right. For another, it might mean becoming a high achiever, avoiding failure, procrastinating, or shutting down when life becomes overwhelming.
At one point, these strategies may have been useful.
If being perfect helped you receive approval or avoid criticism, your mind learned that perfection could help keep you safe.
If shutting down helped you get through conflict, your nervous system may have learned to return to that response whenever a similar situation arises.
Because these strategies can be repeated for years, eventually they may begin to feel less like something you do and more like who you are.
But there’s an important distinction:
A pattern you developed to feel safe does not have to define you forever.
How Do You Recognize Your Safety Strategies?
Awareness is the first step toward changing any long-standing behavior.
Instead of immediately trying to eliminate the behavior, begin by becoming curious about it.
Two questions can be particularly helpful:
- How does this present experience remind me of something from my past?
Consider whether the situation touches an earlier wound, fear, or challenging experience.
- How is this behavior serving me?
In other words, what is the payoff?
Maybe perfectionism gives you a temporary sense of control.
Maybe procrastination protects you from the possibility of failure.
Maybe shutting down helps you avoid the discomfort of conflict.
This isn’t about excusing behaviors that are causing suffering. It’s about understanding them.
When we stop treating our patterns as evidence that something is wrong with us, we can create more space for curiosity, compassion, and meaningful change.
Awareness Is Important, But Your Body Is Part of the Process
Understanding where a pattern came from can be powerful, but insight alone may not always create a new response.
As Sara explains in the practice, the body remembers what the mind forgets.
You may not have a clear memory of why a particular safety strategy began. Your nervous system, however, may continue responding through familiar patterns.
Imagine that your response to stress is to freeze or shut down.
That might appear as procrastinating when your to-do list feels overwhelming. It could mean withdrawing during an argument. Or it might look like wanting to escape everything and spend the day watching television when life feels like too much.
Changing the pattern involves more than telling yourself to “stop procrastinating” or “communicate better.”
You can begin practicing a new response by helping your body experience safety in the present.
How to Re-Establish a Sense of Safety
Suppose you notice yourself shutting down during a difficult conversation.
Instead of criticizing yourself, pause.
Take a few long, slow breaths. You might gently extend your exhale.
Then look around the space you’re in and notice what is actually here.
This is a chair.
This is the ground beneath me.
There is the door.
This simple act of orienting yourself to your surroundings can help bring your attention back to the present moment.
You’re giving yourself an opportunity to recognize: I am here, now.
From that place, you may have more space to choose how you want to respond rather than automatically returning to an old strategy.
Create Your Own Nervous System Map
You don’t have to wait until you’re in a stressful situation to begin understanding your patterns.
During meditation, quiet reflection, or another calm moment, start noticing the signals your body gives you when stress begins to rise.
Does your heart beat faster?
Does your breathing become shallow?
Do your shoulders tighten?
Does your body temperature change?
Do you feel tension in your neck, jaw, or stomach?
Then become curious about the opposite experience.
What happens when your body begins settling?
Maybe your shoulders soften. Your breathing becomes fuller. Your heart rate begins slowing. Perhaps you simply feel more present.
Everyone’s patterns and bodily responses are different.
Learning your own signals can help you notice stress earlier, giving you more opportunity to respond intentionally when those patterns appear in everyday life.
You Are More Than the Strategies That Protected You
One of the most meaningful shifts you can make is moving from:
“Why am I like this?”
to:
“How has this pattern been trying to help me?”
Your perfectionism, procrastination, shutdown, or fear of failure may have served a purpose.
You don’t have to shame yourself for developing strategies that once helped you feel safe.
And you don’t have to keep using them when they’re creating burnout, suffering, or keeping you from living the way you want to live.
Awareness creates an opening.
Compassion allows you to stay with what you discover.
Practice gives you an opportunity to choose something new.
You are not simply your patterns. And you are not limited to the responses you learned in the past.
Ready to Explore These Patterns More Deeply?
If you recognize yourself in some of these safety strategies, I want you to know that you don’t have to navigate these patterns alone. Understanding why they developed, how they’ve served you, and what you need now can be a powerful part of creating meaningful change.
Explore My Book, You Are Not Broken
A compassionate guide to uncovering inner wisdom and transforming your life with hypnotherapy.
I wrote You Are Not Broken to help you understand yourself with greater curiosity and compassion, rather than approaching your patterns as problems that need to be fixed. It’s an invitation to reconnect with the wisdom already within you and begin creating change from a place of understanding.
Work With Me 1:1
If you’re ready for more personalized support, I’d be honored to work with you through 1:1 hypnotherapy and transformational coaching.
Together, we can explore the patterns that may be keeping you stuck, understand how they’ve been trying to protect or serve you, and begin creating new ways of responding that feel more aligned with who you are today.
Learn More About Working With Me 1:1
You don’t have to become someone new.
Sometimes transformation begins by understanding the parts of you that have been working so hard to keep you safe, meeting them with compassion, and showing yourself that another way is possible.
What if some of the behaviors youā€™ve always considered part of your personality arenā€™t actually fixe...
Thereā€™s something tender about the first few moments of the morning.
Your body is waking up. Your m...
Stress has become such a common part of modern life that many of us have forgotten what it feels lik...
Sitting with your feelings is hard because you likely learned a long time ago that it wasn't safe to...
If you have done years of inner work and something still feels out of reach, there is a reason for t...
