One Nervous System at a Time: Why Safety Matters in Therapy and Emotional Healing; by Psychologist Lena Johnston

Sometimes safety arrives in very small ways.

A quiet room. A calm voice. A moment where the body realises it can soften.

Recently I had the pleasure of being part of a question and answer session with Deb Dana as part of my training. We spoke about the nervous system, about safety, and about how we move through our different internal states. I left the conversation with a quiet sense of fascination about how something so biological can also feel deeply philosophical.

One of the ideas that stayed with me was this.

Healing can only happen from a place of safety.

Not perfect calm, and not the absence of challenge, but a feeling in the body that things are safe enough.

When our nervous system senses safety, something opens. We become curious. We can reflect, learn, connect, and integrate experiences.

When the nervous system senses threat, however, it shifts into survival. We move into fight, flight, or sometimes a kind of shutdown.

None of this is a personal failure. It is simply the way our biology protects us.

A healthy nervous system is not one that is always calm. A healthy nervous system is one that can move. It can become activated when needed, and it can return again to safety.

Flexibility is what creates resilience.

During the conversation we spoke about something very simple that can reveal a lot about our nervous system, the word 'should'. Whenever we hear a 'should', whether from someone else or from our own inner voice, there is often a subtle pressure in the body. A small tightening. A sense of having to perform or do something correctly.

In that moment the nervous system is no longer simply present. It has moved slightly into alertness. The invitation is not to judge that, but to pause and notice it.

Is this expectation actually necessary right now? Is this something I truly want to do? Or is this an old rule speaking?

I see this even in small moments. In a quiet yoga class, for example, my mind sometimes wanders and reflects on the day. For a long time I thought I was doing the practice 'wrong' because we are often told to quiet the mind.

But perhaps the wandering mind is simply the nervous system processing and releasing what it has been carrying.

The moment we criticise ourselves for thinking, the body tightens again. The nervous system becomes more activated. The irony is that the pressure to calm down can actually prevent the body from calming down.

Sometimes gentleness is the real doorway back to safety.

Our nervous system is constantly scanning the world around us for cues of safety or danger. Often this happens long before we consciously think about it.

Researchers sometimes use the word neuroception to describe this process, the nervous system’s ability to detect safety or threat automatically.

We notice it in someone’s eyes, in their tone of voice, in the expression on their face. A kind face can soften us. A harsh tone can make the body tense. All of this can happen within seconds.

Many of us have experienced something similar when a door suddenly slams nearby. Even when we know nothing dangerous has happened, the body can react before the mind has time to catch up.

Shoulders lift. Muscles tighten. The body braces itself for a moment.

This is the nervous system doing exactly what it is designed to do, preparing us to respond to possible danger.

Part of the reason for this is a small structure in the brain often compared to a smoke detector, the amygdala. Its job is to detect potential threat and activate protection.

It does not always distinguish perfectly between past, imagined, and present danger.

When we remember something painful, read distressing news, or imagine a frightening scenario, the body can respond as if something is happening right now. The heart beats faster, muscles tighten, and breathing changes.

And yet this same mechanism also reveals something hopeful.

Safety is not only something we understand with the thinking mind. It is something the brain learns through experience.

In other words, safety is something the nervous system learns through lived moments.

Through tone of voice. Through presence. Through bodies that remain calm in the presence of one another.

This is why imagination and memory can also influence the nervous system.

A memory of a safe person, a calm place, or a supportive relationship can help the body experience safety again.

This understanding also shapes the way I work in therapy.

Over the years I have trained in several therapeutic approaches, including EMDR, ego state therapy, clinical hypnosis, somatic therapy, and cognitive behavioural therapy.

These approaches provide different ways of working with trauma, emotional regulation, and patterns of thinking or behaviour.

What I return to more and more, however, is something quite simple, listening carefully to what each individual person needs in that moment.

For some people, safety comes through structure, clear questions, or exploring thoughts and patterns together. For others, safety comes from having space to speak freely, without pressure or expectation.

Sometimes people arrive with clear goals for therapy. At other times the work begins by exploring what feels difficult, or by discovering that it is safe to have needs, emotions, and desires in the first place.

In that sense, therapy becomes less about applying a fixed method and more about creating an environment where each person can move at their own rhythm.

Everything that arises is treated as information rather than something that needs to be corrected.

There is also growing curiosity in research about the connection between the nervous system and the body’s connective tissue, the fascia.

When the nervous system settles, the body itself can soften. Muscles release, breathing deepens, and even the connective tissues of the body may loosen.

The more we learn, the more it seems that the body’s systems are deeply interwoven.

At one point during the discussion, a social worker spoke about feeling overwhelmed because she works in systems that constantly operate in threat.

She wondered whether the real solution would be to redesign those systems so people are not living in such chronic stress.

The response was both realistic and hopeful.

Of course systems matter. Of course environments that feel safer and more supportive are important.

But we also live in a world where uncertainty and pressure exist.

Waiting for the entire system to change before healing can begin may leave us waiting for a very long time.

Instead, change can begin closer to home, within our own nervous systems.

When we learn to recognise our internal states and gently return to steadiness, something subtle begins to shift in the way we move through the world.

Our faces soften. Our voices become calmer. Our responses become less reactive.

And other nervous systems notice.

Human beings are constantly influencing one another in this quiet way.

A calm presence can soften a tense moment. A patient response can interrupt a cycle of escalation. A person who remains steady can make it easier for another to settle.

Like a stone dropped into water, the effect spreads outward in ripples.

Perhaps this is how change moves through the world.

Little by little, those moments accumulate.

And sometimes they travel further than we realise.

One nervous system at a time.