Episode 6 - What Safety Feels like
Welcome back to Reconnection Moments, a space where we get real about intimacy disorders and healing from sexual compulsivity. Not through willpower or shame, but by gently rewiring the brain and body back into connection. I'm Dr. Michael Barta, creator of The Reconnection Model. In each episode, I'll be answering questions I hear most from clients and therapists, and I will also be sharing fresh insights from my ongoing work.
Host:Welcome back to the Reconnection Podcast. In our last episode, Dr. Michael Barta helped us understand how authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, and presence, the four pillars, work together to create connection. Today, we're taking that conversation a step deeper and asking the questions, what does safety actually feel like in the nervous system, and how can we tell when we shifted from connection into protection? Doctor Barta, welcome back to the podcast.
Dr. Barta:Thank you.
Host:So tell me why this resonates with you.
Dr. Barta:Well, what resonates with me is that we have to know what we need to be feeling inside of our body in order to be able to allow connection with ourselves or what we need to feel within ourselves so other people are are able to connect with us. So safety is the body signal that connection is possible. It's the social engagement state. Right? We've talked about that before.
Dr. Barta:It's what I call our green zone. And in that zone, you know, we have a slow heart rate, our breathing softens, our faces relax, and we naturally want to look at someone, not away. Okay? The brain says, I can rest here. I'm safe.
Dr. Barta:And this green zone is very different from the red zone, which is our sympathetic state. And in our sympathetic state, we're scanning for danger. And then our blue zone is where we're shut down. In safety, we don't have to perform, defend, or disappear. We're simply here.
Host:So safety isn't an idea. It's a body experience. Experience in the body.
Dr. Barta:Absolutely. So you can't think your way into safety. We have to feel our ways into safety. And this is done, you know, when we're in that social engagement system and all the things I just mentioned before are present, and we feel safe enough to finally relax and connect with another human being.
Host:So how can we tell when we're moved out of safety and into protection?
Dr. Barta:That's a great question. So, really, protection shows up when we're controlling others, when we're withdrawing, or when we're acting as if we're pretending to be something that we're not. We might interrupt other people. We could defend. We could blame.
Dr. Barta:We can go silent. And those are our nervous system strategies to manage threat. None of them mean failure. They mean our system is trying to survive. And so our key here is awareness.
Dr. Barta:Can I notice that I'm protecting myself or in a protective state rather than in a connective state? And once we notice, we can invite safety back in through our breath, through eye contact, through a grounding posture, or through a supportive voice.
Host:That's very compassionate. Instead of judging the response, we're interpreting it as information.
Dr. Barta:Yeah. The information, it's not indictment. Right? Every protective pattern once kept us safe. We're just learning that it's no longer needed.
Host:So what helps restore that safety once we've recognized protection?
Dr. Barta:Well, in the last episode, we talked about the four pillars. Right? So when we return to these four pillars, when we're authentic, it allows us to be real about what's happening. Vulnerability allows us to admit our fears. Transparency communicates it openly, and presence keeps us here instead of drifting into old stories.
Dr. Barta:And when these four align, the nervous system receives the message, I can relax. I'm not alone. And over time, repeated experiences of felt safety literally rewire pathways that once we're expecting danger.
Host:So I know there's a lot of talk about embodiment and embodying and being present, but this is really how healing becomes in the body and embodied.
Dr. Barta:Yes. So we can't look at safety as a destination. It's a practice that builds capacity for connection moment by moment.
Host:So when someone begins living more from that sense of safety than protection, what really changes?
Dr. Barta:So one of the things I tell clients in the Reconnection Intensive is there's nothing no better feeling on the planet than to live from my authentic self. I'm not pretending. I'm not hiding. I'm being me. Right?
Dr. Barta:And that me, I once rejected. Right? Because early on, I was told that my authenticity wasn't the right kind or should be better or something like that. So I learned to reject that myself. Well, coming forward, I'm allowing that person to be.
Dr. Barta:And other people can still tell me I'm doing things wrong, but I don't take it like a personal, indictment about my worth anymore. Right? I am just being me, and I can't tell you the relaxation that that feels. Right? So safety isn't the absence of danger.
Dr. Barta:It's the presence of being able to connect with other. And when we cultivate that present, our healing is gonna follow naturally.
Host:And when you're talking about relaxing part of it is it's your protection. Your shields can kinda come down. Those defenses we've got up, those can kinda come down. That feels like relief.
Dr. Barta:Yeah. Because, you know, I spoke a lot, and I do speak a lot about, you know, one of our greatest fears, if not the greatest fear of being human, is to face rejection because we're biologically wired to not be rejected. Because when we lived in groups, right, and you were rejected by that group, it meant death. Well, that wiring's still really present in our brain. Right?
Dr. Barta:And we just don't pay much attention to it. But that may be one of our biggest fears. Right? So how do I not be rejected? Well, I form patterns to not be rejected.
Dr. Barta:I become who you want me to be. Right? Or I put on a mask. I put on you know, I elicit a a certain role that's gonna be really hard for other people to reject. And even if they do reject it, my brain is knowing that that's not the real me, so it doesn't hurt as much.
Dr. Barta:Right? But coming back in to being who I was when I came to this planet, that's the answer. It's cultivating what I came to the planet with. Right? Innocence, lovable, present.
Dr. Barta:You know, I was definitely transparent. I would ask for my needs to be met without shame. These are all things little babies do. Right? So that's what I have to practice in my adult life.
Dr. Barta:And it doesn't mean my needs are gonna be met every time, but what it means is I'm asking for them to be met. I'm using these four pillars that are within all of us that we're born with to become human again, right, to become authentic, to express my authenticity, which is expressing myself. And that's what I've avoided my entire life because I thought if I was me, people wouldn't like me. They would tell me to change or tell me that I was doing something wrong or tell me, you know, they don't wanna be around me. And I gotta tell you something.
Dr. Barta:I've had a lot more people wanna be around me when I'm living in my authenticity than I ever did when I was running one of my programs, when I was being a chameleon and changing to be what other people wanted me to be because they knew somewhere, probably unconsciously, that I was manipulating. You know? Their nervous system knew, hey. This guy's not authentic. And if you've ever been around someone who's authentic, who's vulnerable, who's transparent, and they're present, you wanna be close to them.
Dr. Barta:You get drawn in because your nervous system is saying, "Hey, this guy is safe. This woman's safe. Right? I can be myself around this person."
Dr. Barta:It's the greatest gift we can give others is to express our authenticity. So, you know, that's why this works so well.
Host:You know, Dr. Barta, I've read your books. We've talked extensively over the years. But when I read safety, I think about external threat. But it seems like you're really talking about the internal sense of I am safe to just be me, to not hide, to not do those protective things. Am I on base there?
Dr. Barta:You're a 100% on base. Right? And so, you know, my work goes back and it explores, you know, how our early environment supported our the nervous system's ability to find stability. Right? People can't trust anything if there's not a stable environment.
Dr. Barta:I mean, we're just not gonna relax. You know? We're being yanked out. We're moving around all the time. Mom and dad, maybe there sometimes, maybe not.
Dr. Barta:And it's not about having bad parents. Right? It's about maybe they were too busy, but there wasn't stability. And then there wasn't also you know, what we really needed was that attunement. We needed someone to understand us emotionally and respond to our emotions in appropriate manner, but more importantly, allow us to express our emotions.
Dr. Barta:Right? So that would be called emotional safety. Right? And then psychological safety is the other need we really have. And the psychological safety is being allowed to express this authenticity in every avenue of our life.
Dr. Barta:Right? So we were validated for who we were, not being validated for what we did. Right? So all these together, when these needs are met, add up to an internal sense of what I call internal regulation. Simply put, they give us an internal sense of safety.
Dr. Barta:It's safe to be me. The world is safe. I can move forward in this. And by the way, even if we didn't get that, we can still meet these for ourselves now in healthy ways. Right?
Dr. Barta:We can keep ourselves stable, not through control, but by using our frontal lobe to make decisions. We can attune to ourselves. I can listen to my emotions. I can validate my emotions, and I can express my emotions. But we're terrified.
Dr. Barta:Right? We're terrified to do all these things. But the only way we're gonna get better is to keep practicing them. In psychological safety, I get to express myself, my authentic self in everything I do. And, you know, it's hard at the beginning because we have a hair trigger of rejection.
Dr. Barta:You know, one of these three things, hits a roadblock, and we wanna immediately, you know, put all our defenses up and go running. Right? Or put all our defenses up, escape our fear through acting out, right, in some form or another. But when we can learn to settle into these, right, where what we're doing is we're retraining the nervous system, and we're retraining it to be a healthy functioning system rather than what it's doing right now. It's functioning on its own underneath our conscious awareness, and it's gonna continue to do that until we're aware of how it's functioning and make changes in our lives using, you know, the four pillars to meet these three important needs so that we can become healthy and able to connect and be, you know, really a part of life.
Host:So if I get this right, you know, in childhood, we're responding to the environment outside in, and then those voices, beliefs, you know, feelings, and we start telling ourselves, "I cannot be authentic. I cannot be transparent. I cannot be vulnerable, and I cannot be present as myself." And that are things we needed. When you say attunement, now it's kinda shifted in my mind, Dr. Barta, because now it's retraining that voice ourselves inside to go, "What is happening inside, attuning inside to ourselves?"
Host:That's pretty big. And like I said, I've been reading. I've read your books. We've had extensive conversations, and I think that shift just helped me understand these four pillars way better.
Dr. Barta:Thank you. Yeah. Because, I mean, what we're doing, is we're restoring agency. You know? Or we may be building agency because we never had it.
Dr. Barta:And what that means is that I'm able to respond to life in healthy ways. That's all agency means. Right? I'm not taking everything personally. I'm not trying to fix, manage, and control people, places, or things so I feel okay.
Dr. Barta:I'm me, and I get to start accepting life as life is, instead of wanting it to be different so that I feel okay. That's peace for me. That's freedom. That's peace of mind. Right?
Dr. Barta:I'm not getting hung up on every little thing that I used to get hung up on because, you know, life isn't following the script in my head of how it should be.
Host:Well, I think part of me thought this is what we do to help others, but I'm getting this sense that it's starting first within us, giving ourselves the authenticity, the presence, the vulnerability. And that's pretty mind boggling. And for me and going, okay. This is attuning to myself instead of the voice going outward necessarily. And I think there is huge benefit for practicing for ourselves that radiates outwards.
Host:But when you said building agency is coming back and doing those things we didn't get for ourselves now.
Dr. Barta:Yeah. Because there's no one there to do it for us anymore. They're long gone. Okay? So it falls back on me.
Dr. Barta:And the thing is, and I'm really glad you brought this up because we cannot give what we do not have. So if I don't feel safe internally, there's no way I'm gonna be able to have other people feel safe internally without running some kind of show. Right? I want them to feel safe, but I'm manipulating them to feel safe. Right?
Dr. Barta:I'm becoming what they want so they can feel safe. Their nervous system recognizes that, not consciously, but there's always gonna be this little one off. Right? Am I really safe in this relationship? So, you know, it's said over and over again, we can't give what we don't have.
Dr. Barta:So all starts all begins within. Is my nervous system capable of being able to authentically connect, and we've talked about that word, coregulation, with my partner or any other human being on the planet. And at that point, that's when I'm really ready, you know, to have these relationships that are based on mutual trust and coregulation rather than using another person as my regulation. Right?
Host:Yeah. I love that. It's giving ourselves first for ourselves. And when I go back to what you said earlier, it really resonates. Authenticity is about let's be real about what's happening now.
Host:Vulnerability is admitting fear, communicating openly. That's transparency. That starts and ends with us, ourselves. Am I...
Dr. Barta:I have to yeah. I have to be authentic with myself. I have to be vulnerable with myself. I have to be transparent with myself. And most importantly, maybe of all, I need to be present with myself.
Dr. Barta:Because addiction is just an absolute lack of being able to be present with myself. Right? I tell people all the time in my life, we are running around, slow down. Right? Sit with yourself.
Dr. Barta:You don't have to be doing things all the time. You're just trying to drown out the noise of dysregulation or lack of safety within you. Right? So it's all about that. So I know it's cliche, but I like this saying.
Dr. Barta:Right? And when we're talking about how we need to heal ourselves first, I look at what they tell you on the airplane. And they tell you that if there's a drop in pressure, that oxygen mask will drop down. Every time they instruct you, put this on yourself first before you put it on anybody else. And, you know, what that means is you've gotta give yourself oxygen before you can help other people, and this is across the board.
Dr. Barta:So, you know, a lot of guys that come in, they're like, "Oh my god. How am I gonna fix my relationship? You know, that's my most important thing. I gotta fix my marriage." And I tell them over and over and over again, "You can't fix anything till you fix yourself."
Dr. Barta:And I hate that word fix. So I actually say, "You can't heal anything until you healed yourself first." So the cart is before the horse, and I admonish people who come in the first day, and they say, "I'm here to heal or fix my marriage." And I'm like, "Well, that's a great goal, but let's start with healing you so that there's a possibility that your marriage can heal." Because when they're saying, "I gotta fix my marriage," they're still telling me, "I'm gonna try to control things to make things work out."
Dr. Barta:And I don't know about you, but if I'm a betrayed partner and some guy's trying to control things to make it work out the way they want it to work out, that's not gonna go well with my nervous system. Right? There's no coregulation in that. There's a "I'm gonna tell you this is how we're gonna regulate. So that's a big thing that we have to learn.
Dr. Barta:Right? We have to go within first, give ourselves this internal sense of safety that we've been talking about, and then others can feel safe around us. We don't give them safety. Our body, our nervous system, and who we are when we're authentic allows them to feel safe when they're with us.
Host:It's an excellent way to wrap this episode up. Thanks so much for Dr. Barta for sharing the four pillars and really internalizing those, practicing those. And thank you all for joining us on the Reconnection Podcast. In the next episode, we're gonna talk about how to move from survival to connection and practical ways to guide your nervous system from chaos or shut down back into safety and engagement.
Host:Until then, thanks for listening to the Reconnection Podcast.
Dr. Barta:Thank you, guys.
Dr. Barta:Thanks for joining me today. If you want to learn more about how this healing happens, visit doctor michael barda dot com. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Until next time, keep reconnecting.