By: Joy Stephenson-Laws, Holistic Coach, J.D., Founder

When you hear the word “safety,” you probably think about locking your doors or wearing your seatbelt. Physical safety. Keeping yourself from getting hurt.

But when we talk about healing from trauma, chronic stress, or emotional pain, we’re talking about a different kind of safety. We’re talking about “emotional safety” — and it’s not what most people think.

Emotional safety means you can feel your feelings without being afraid. You can be sad, angry, scared, or lonely — and you don’t have to hide it or apologize for it.

Let me explain what I mean.

You Were Taught That Some Feelings Are “Bad”

Think back to when you were a kid. Maybe you cried and someone said, “Stop crying, it’s not that bad.” Or you got angry and heard, “Don’t be angry.” Or maybe you were scared and someone told you, “Be brave. Don’t be such a baby.”

Those words seem harmless, right? But here’s what they actually taught you:

Some of your feelings are wrong.

So you learned to hide them. You smiled when you wanted to cry. You went quiet when you wanted to scream. You acted fine when you felt broken inside.

And here’s the thing — that pattern doesn’t just disappear when you grow up.

Maybe you’re at work now and your boss criticizes your project in front of the whole team. Your stomach drops. Your face gets hot. You want to say, “That felt unfair,” but instead you smile and say, “Thanks for the feedback.” Or your partner does something hurtful, and instead of saying, “That hurt me,” you just go quiet and pretend everything’s fine.

That’s what happens when emotional safety is missing. Even as an adult. You still hide what you feel because somewhere deep down, your body remembers: showing emotions isn’t safe.

Your Body Still Thinks Feelings Are Dangerous

Let’s say nobody’s yelling at you anymore. Nobody’s punishing you for crying. You’re safe now, right?

But your body? Your body still remembers what happened when you showed those emotions years ago. It remembers the rejection. The shame. The fear.

So when you start to feel something big — grief, anger, loneliness — your body tenses up. Your throat tightens. You shut down.

That’s your nervous system saying, “Wait. Is it safe to feel this?”

And until your body learns the answer is yes, you can’t fully heal.

So What Does “Feeling Safe” Actually Mean?

It means your body finally believes this:

“I can feel this emotion and still be okay. I won’t be rejected. I won’t be punished. I’m allowed to feel.”

When that happens, everything changes. Your breathing slows down. Your muscles relax. Your mind gets clearer.

You stop hiding who you are. You stop pretending you’re fine when you’re not. You stop apologizing for having feelings.

That’s emotional safety. And it’s not just some feel-good idea. It’s biology.

Here’s What Happens Inside Your Body When You Feel Safe

This part is important, so stay with me. I’m going to explain exactly what’s happening in your body when you feel safe — and why it matters for healing.

First, your brain has an alarm system.

There’s a tiny part of your brain called the **amygdala**. Its job is to scan for danger. All day, every day, it’s asking: “Are we safe right now?”

If it thinks you’re in danger — maybe someone raises their voice, or you remember something painful — it hits the alarm. Your heart races. Your muscles tighten. Stress hormones flood your system. You go into fight, flight, or freeze mode.

But if your amygdala says, “We’re safe,” something beautiful happens next.

A calming nerve kicks in.

Okay, so your brain decided you’re safe. Now what? Well, there’s a nerve called the vagus nerve that runs from your brain down through your heart, lungs, and stomach. When your brain says “we’re safe,” this nerve activates your body’s natural calming system.

Think of it like flipping a switch from “emergency mode” to “everything’s okay mode.”

Your breathing slows. Your heart rate drops. Your body shifts out of survival mode and into “rest and repair” mode.

Then your heart sends a message back to your brain.

Here’s where it gets interesting. When that vagus nerve kicks in, your heartbeat becomes more flexible. We call this heart rate variability, or HRV. It sounds technical, but all it means is this: your heart can speed up or slow down easily, depending on what you need.

A flexible heartbeat tells your brain: “There’s no threat here. We can relax.”

When your heart is stuck in one stressed rhythm, your brain thinks: “We’re still in danger. Stay alert.”

Your thinking brain comes back online.

And here’s the really important part. When you’re stressed or triggered, the thinking part of your brain — the prefrontal cortex — shuts down. That’s the part that helps you think clearly, control your impulses, and make good choices.

But when you feel safe? That part comes back online. You can notice your feelings without being hijacked by them. You can pause before you react. You can choose how to respond instead of just reacting automatically.

Finally, your whole body relaxes.

Once your system knows you’re safe, everything starts to calm down:

- Your breathing deepens

- Your muscles let go

- Your digestion starts working again

- Your stress hormones drop

- Your bonding hormones (like oxytocin) rise

This is called ventral vagal activation. It’s a fancy name for something simple: it’s the state where healing can actually happen. Your body is calm enough to process memories, release tension, and repair itself.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s your biology.

Feeling vs. Acting — This Is Where People Get Confused

Let me clear something up, because people hear “emotional safety” and think it means acting on every feeling.

It doesn’t.

You can feel angry without yelling at someone. You can feel hurt without shutting people out. You can feel scared and still show up.

All feelings are allowed. Not all actions are.

Emotional safety gives you space to feel your feelings fully — and then choose how you respond. That pause between feeling and acting? That’s called regulation. And it only happens when you feel safe enough to slow down.

Why You Can’t Heal Without Safety First

Here’s the truth: you can’t heal what you’re still afraid to feel.

If your body believes that feeling sad will make people leave you, or feeling angry will get you in trouble, it will shut those feelings down automatically. Even if you want to change. Even if you’re trying hard.

That’s why “just think positive” doesn’t work. That’s why “calm down” makes things worse.

Your body can’t learn new patterns until it feels safe enough to let its guard down.

Why This Matters — Especially for Kids

And this idea doesn’t just matter for adults — it starts early.

The way we help kids feel safe with their emotions lays the foundation for how they’ll handle them later in life.

This is where Secrets That Sparkle and Secrets That Sting comes in.

Kids aren’t born knowing how to calm down or talk through their emotions. Their brains aren’t ready for that yet — they’re wired to feel.

So Secrets That Sparkle teaches the very first step of emotional safety: it’s okay to feel.

Once kids know that, we can start helping them tell the difference between feelings that sparkle — the fun, light ones — and feelings that sting — the ones that don’t feel good or safe.

In other words, they begin to learn what real safety feels like by talking about the moments that don’t feel safe. The book gives kids words for those harder feelings instead of leaving them bottled up.

When children can share both kinds of secrets — the sparkling ones and the stinging ones — they start to trust their own bodies and build genuine emotional safety from the inside out.

And that’s really the heart of emotional healing — no matter your age.
Safety isn’t about never feeling anything hard; it’s about knowing you can feel it and still be okay.

Once your body believes that, your mind follows.
That’s where true healing and freedom begins.

How You Build Emotional Safety

The good news? You can teach your body that it’s safe to feel. You do it one small moment at a time.

Here’s how:

Notice what you’re feeling without judging it. Instead of saying “I shouldn’t feel this way,” try saying, “I feel anxious right now, and that’s okay.”

Name the emotion. Just labeling what you feel — “I’m angry” or “I’m sad” — actually calms your brain down.

Pause before you react. Take one slow breath. Feel your feet on the floor. Then choose how you want to respond.

Find safe people. Be around people who listen without trying to fix you or judge you. People who can sit with your feelings without making you feel bad for having them.

Ground yourself. When you feel overwhelmed, touch something solid. Feel your feet on the ground. Hold something warm in your hands. It reminds your body: “I’m here. I’m okay.”

Every time you do one of these things, you’re teaching your body a new message: It’s safe to feel. It’s safe to stay. It’s safe to choose.

Physical Safety vs. Emotional Safety

Let me say this clearly: both kinds of safety matter.

Physical safety means nobody is hurting you. You’re not in danger. Your environment is secure.

Emotional safety means nobody is judging you or rejecting you for how you feel. You can express your emotions in healthy ways without being punished for it.

If you don’t have physical safety, your body can’t relax.

If you don’t have emotional safety, your mind can’t heal.

You need both.

What Changes When Safety Returns

When you start to feel emotionally safe — really safe — here’s what happens:

You stop apologizing for your feelings.
You stop pretending you’re fine when you’re not.
You can pause before you react.
You think more clearly.
You feel calmer, even when life isn’t calm.

That’s what safety actually means in healing. It’s not about never feeling anything hard. It’s about finally having permission to feel everything — and still being okay.

One Last Thing

Healing doesn’t mean you stop having hard emotions. It means you stop being afraid of them.

Think of emotional safety like finally being able to put down a heavy backpack you’ve been carrying for years. You didn’t even realize how much it weighed until you felt what it’s like without it.

When your body knows it’s safe to feel, you can finally choose who you want to be — instead of just reacting from fear.

That’s emotional safety. And that’s where healing begins.

Joy Stephenson-Laws, J.D., is a healthcare attorney with over 40 years of experience championing fairness in the healthcare system. She is the founder of Proactive Health Labs (pH Labs), a national non-profit that now embraces a holistic approach to well-being—body, mind, heart, and spirit. As a certified holistic wellness coach, she helps individuals and families create practical, lasting health strategies. Her own experiences as a mother inspired her to write resources that spark important conversations about safety and wellness.

She is the author of Minerals – The Forgotten Nutrient: Your Secret Weapon for Getting and Staying Healthy.Her children’s book, Secrets That Sparkle (and Secrets That Sting), empowers kids to recognize safe vs. unsafe secrets in a gentle, age-appropriate way.

Her latest book, From Chains to Wings, offers compassionate tools for resilience, healing, and emotional freedom.

What Emotional Safety Really Means