The cost of not feeling safe enough to follow through

How can I enjoy my life if I am always trying to escape it?

When I was 32, I wrote a letter to myself called 'Anywhere But Here'.

It came from years of unprocessed trauma.

From a nervous system that did not feel safe in the present moment.

I was not in immediate danger but internally my nervous system was still organised around past events.

That was the first time I consciously recognised the impact of what I had lived through.

The way a body can live in a time it has not forgotten.

The way it will do almost anything to avoid being in the present moment.

Sometimes escape would look obvious:

• Overworking

• Watching TV

• Getting lost in our phones.

Other times it is far more subtle:

• Being social even though we are tired.

• Overextending ourselves for our friends, who only call when they need something.

• Always saying yes and keeping our calendars full.

Even refusing the small pleasure of rest.

Because how would anything get done if I allowed myself to rest?

So we stay busy.

We avoid.

We check out.

Because busyness feels safer than stillness.

Over time, I began to see the pattern more clearly.

We feel the pull.

The quiet nudge.

That something in us wants to move forward.

And yet, there is another part of us that freezes.

Not because we are lazy or not trying hard enough.

We resist because to truly know what we want is to risk being changed by it.

Avoidance is safer than being changed.

Busyness is safer than stillness.

Longing is safer than risk.

Because longing, waiting, asks nothing of us.

Becoming does.

So we delay.

We tell ourselves we'll start when the timing is right.

When things calm down.

When we feel ready.

Except that day rarely comes, and resistance slowly drains your vitality and the life from you.

We resist because our body remembers a time when it was not safe to want.

The nervous system will always choose safety over expansion.

Until safety is rebuilt internally.

Only then does movement happen.

No force.

No urgency.

Just a choice.

This is the work I care about most.

Not pushing you towards your goals.

Not motivating you into action.

But restoring enough internal safety that you can inhabit your own life without needing to escape it.

If something keeps returning to you, it is for you.

First, the body must feel safe enough to hold it.

That is the work.

When safety is present, moving with what you want becomes your next step.