The Safety To Speak

Data Collectors,Have you ever stopped to think about the every day ways we don’t see how we place ourselves in the line of fire? Every time we resist the nuance to humanity. The messiness, the free will of individuality and in doing so we miss ourselves. We miss the moments that can bond us, unite us, imprint us with more core memories. But, as long as we stay distracted by the VECNA energy, the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) of our minds it will continue to infiltrate our perception. That’s why having access to very superficial forms of dopamine, such as validation by someone else vibrating at the same frequency as you in the comment section, or a video with millions of views that discusses the same trauma wound, man/woman bashing, and that made us feel seen. This is the sickness, we don’t realize how dangerous having something in own hands where instead of sitting with the very thoughts we are in an endless loops of processing—everything. Is that not like the bell Pavlov used to condition the dogs? Over time that consistent behavior of allowing what’s in our minds to essentially choke hold ourselves. Many of us are talking to ourselves in our own heads more than we are with other people. We sit with the same mental images of a story. Your version. Nuance to a nervous system that vulnerable will see anything that is different as a dismissal of their version. The more I observe human behavior, the more I see how drowning in our suffering story serves no one— not even ourselves. We keep ourselves in a prison needing everyone to validate our version of the pain not seeing the selfishness behind how that robs others of their version—now another loops begins. Yet, many don’t see it. You can’t when you are in it. That’s the point of Napoleons Hills Book “Outwitting The Devil.” When you are drifting you are lost to the path of getting back in alignment with yourself. Many of us know what we need to do. It’s the doing of it that gets really hard. So we start listing all the disorders, chronic issues, and systemic injustices to fill the gap of the doing not realizing that listing them all keeps the wounds fresh in your mind and just becomes yet (insert DJ Khaled voice) another loop of justifications for our behavior or lack of. We get in our own way and we know it. Remember, we all individually make up the people. If the world is a mess—well, it’s made up of—the people. The systems that have caused harm we the people are also apart of. Think about it…It’s your legal counsel and their team, the micro aggressions that live between the jury and the judge or even the judge and the lawyer working your case. The professor and the student. The veteran employee and the new hire with fresh knowledge and a highly supported approach. We are afraid of being “left behind”or “replaced” so anyone that feels like a threat to us is then automatically projected onto as if they are. Despite the amygdala forgetting we are at work (it doesn’t have eyes so it is counting on us and our differentiation to guide it to truth), we do not see the repercussions of our beef with people at work and how it impacts our work performance and how that performance can impact customer, client, patient, students, etc.Let’s play with an example here ok. I want us to look at how we—the people—actually build the "broken systems" we complain about. It doesn’t always look like a big, formal policy that causes harm; usually, it’s just unaddressed human leakage that no one feels safe to name or even address. Characters: Violet the customer, client, patient, what ever floats your boat.Staff member: AStaff member: BNotice how you know nothing about A & B, not their roles, job description, backgrounds, gender, age, none of it—because it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about those identities and labels it’s about the relational space and what happens within it when emotional energy arises. Let’s pretend this case with violet really triggers some thing inside staff member A, and Staff member B is taking that emotional leakage from A, personal and as a result their beef essentially causes Violet to lose out on intentional effort and the outcome she needed for the services these staff members are suppose to provide her. Ever had work stress that caused insomnia, anxiety, xyz? Ever look at how your work performance gets neglected? In Violet’s case she loses out, due to a dynamic that has nothing to do with Violet at all. So forms get bypassed, deadlines get missed, because the staff are in a stress response due to each other. Their unhealed, unaddressed dynamics costs violet her custody situation, or her health situation, or xyz. This is how we the people make up the very systems we complain about or deem as “not good.” Look at the reenactments that show up in the workplaces. Look how personal bias, workplace conflicts, spill into the work itself often causing death in some environments. It has nothing to do with what our nervous system is perceiving. Yet our perception dictates how we move through the world. We take it out on the call line workers, the custodians that keep our environments clean, the truck drivers we cut off on the highway because we are impatient but forget they are the ones that deliver our goods. ....How many of you thought immediately after reading that “well the truck drivers…"?” See, as if whatever we say within the rebuttal justifies. We have become a society of graspers. Grasping for what we can to justify harm done to us or others in our “tribe.”We do it even in the smallest ways. Especially under stress, especially towards our loved ones. Let’s look close in the micro. Maybe we are in a streak of not getting good sleep, maybe our back is hurting, we are on our menstrual cycle, we are stretched thin because of outside demands, kids, finances, xyz. Whatever it is. We each get pulled emotionally into emotional states that leave us feeling moody, irritable, apathetic, angry, etc. The safety to speak is about having the safety to be in moods other than moods that are deemed “socially polite” that customer service effort gets to come off like a bra after a long day. 🤭That type of relief but with emotions, we get to come as we are where we are. We can have RBF without our partner thinking we are mad at them. We don’t have to walk on eggshells with our emotional hygiene especially on dirty days. We all have dirty days. That’s the point isn’t it? We must be accountable of those dirty days and own them, name them, give grace to ourselves, our partners, our family for being in an emotionally dirty day.. When I work with couples. We always have compassion for the children when they cry, are moody, have tantrums, even when they hit. We can excuse it because “they are tired, hungry, sick, etc. However, when are partner is cranky, snappy, or in mood we deem that as unacceptable. We don’t come with the same grace. Remember the child in us didn’t just vanish, it got taller, and hidden under the stress of adulthood. That child comes out effortlessly when we give ourselves moments of joy. But that’s a different topic. Can you see how we have the ability to give the patience, yet choose not to because “well he’s an adult, she is grown, I shouldn’t have to.”Who said? Humanity is messy, moody, and irritating at times— scratch that— most of the time. We all have an emotional battery that starts to die and the emotional frequency shifts. We forget that shift is felt externally. Often times discharged on the kids or our partner. People around us. We can see this at scale in the macro, especially online. I have been making it a point to get back on track with my spiritual routine. Prayer, meditation, gratitude. Most important— physical movement and mobility. I think maybe as I almost enter my 35th level of life in exactly 2 months today actually (July 3rd baby) 🥳The importance of body movement though is something I can’t take for granted. It’s very easy to as well. Anyways, my point. I don’t know about any of y’all but these last few months have draaaagggggeeeeeed my ass. 😮‍💨 Tested me in ways that were severely uncomfortable. I also feel a shift on social media. More people are waking up to the upside down reversal. We can clearly see how many are prioritizing follow count over professional ethics, accountability, sequential structure, but please honeybees. Zoom out farther than that. The cognitive conditioning to our neural pathways. We are already a sick and mentally unwell society. We are plugged in like VECNA’s tentacle things — to the screens. We drink and drink what the algorithm tells us as well as the news outlets. We believe anything we see even if we didn’t see it with our own eyes, and even if we know that Ai exists. Differentiation is not just a necessary skill it may just end up becoming a survival skill necessary for navigating the new world that is trying to develop. Cognitve shortcuts straight to labeling, diagnosing, and bypassing— to justify ourselves or at least distract attention from the truth. Our inability to allow others outside of ourselves their truths because we aren’t secure in our own. We can label ourselves experts just because we decided to and we have the “followers” to justify it. Can’t we see though. The farther we get away from community. The farther we stay othering everyone around us to protect ourselves from — ourselves. The more we get in our own way. Think about it, in reality when true crisis occurs, natural disasters, etc, I have seen people jump into help, rescue, xyz. Regardless of the very things we use to divide. Doesn’t that show you how it’s all ego noise? Over time the work gets more clear. The ability to differentiate, hold nuance and still stay rooted in yourself. Exposing self to differences allows you the ability to get closer to your own values. You get to disagree and still—be.Wild concept am I right? Don’t worry, I am in practice with you all too! This month we explore concepts that we can actually try. Start putting into practice strategies to really work on pause. If we don’t know where to begin then let’s just start with the art of doing and saying nothing at all. Something I know I too can work on🤭Till next time data collectors. The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Thanks for reading The Safety to Speak™ ! This post is public so feel free to share it.The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Enjoy 🫶🏽 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

As a clinician, I spend a lot of time teaching people how to find their voice. For people-pleasers, over-functioners, and chronic “shrinkers,” this work is necessary, a part of the life mission we must face; otherwise we risk being a drifter in the loop. Many of us were conditioned to make ourselves smaller in order to maintain peace in relationships. As a result, learning how to speak up, set boundaries, and advocate for ourselves becomes a crucial developmental step in reclaiming agency.But—big but… there is a side of this conversation that rarely gets explored.Sometimes the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. The person who once struggled to speak at all can move into a state where they feel the need to respond to everything. Every interaction becomes something to analyze, challenge, or defend against. At that point, speaking up stops being an act of sovereignty and starts becoming a symptom of an unregulated nervous system. Think rescue dog that is afraid of a bag blowing in the wind. It’s not scared of a bag? It just has to learn the rhythm of the wind. When the nervous system is stuck in what I call the Activated Survival Self (ASS), it stops behaving like a calm observer of reality and starts acting more like a narrative architect. It begins scanning the environment for threats the same way a safari guide scans the horizon for lions or the way a sniper stays locked in searching for the target. The problem is that when the nervous system has been trained to expect danger everywhere, it will often begin painting lions onto the faces of people who were simply walking through the grass. In other words, if the brain expects danger and cannot find it, it may start inventing it. Creating it out of thin air because, sitting in the truth that it was just a mirage created by their own internal world. That would require self-ownership, accountability of the untrained stallion of the mind and nervous system. Work that belongs to them that they have neglected.This is how the reactivity trap forms. People move from people-pleasing into advocating, but the shift overshoots the mark and lands in hyper-defensiveness. When every bag blowing in the wind feels like a threat, you are no longer practicing advocacy—you are living as a hostage to hyper-vigilance. A large part of this process happens through the lenses we wear in our minds. Psychology calls these lenses schemas. Schemas are mental templates built through past experiences that shape how we interpret the present moment. They help the brain make quick sense of the world, but they also have a powerful bias built into them.If you are wearing red glasses, everything looks red.If someone enters a workplace already carrying the schema that “people here are judging me,” their brain will automatically filter the environment through that expectation. The colleague who admires their work becomes invisible. The neutral facial expression becomes suspicious. The person who didn’t hold the elevator suddenly becomes proof that the environment is hostile. What we are witnessing in those moments is confirmation bias amplified by the amygdala. The brain’s threat detection system is wired to notice anything that confirms its predictions while ignoring evidence that contradicts them. Neuroscientists call this predictive processing, where the brain constantly uses past experiences to guess what is happening in the present moment (Barrett, 2017). So basically, in Sav language. We are sitting in the hippocampus archives projecting the collection of events we find in there onto the environment and people in it. Painting the faces onto the lions.When the nervous system is activated, the brain doesn’t just observe reality. It begins directing a movie about it. Our committee in our minds (think inside out) They are up there directing each scene. This is where energy begins to leak into the environment in ways people rarely realize. Human beings are extremely sensitive to emotional signals. Research on emotional contagion shows that we unconsciously mirror one another’s physiological states through subtle cues like posture, tone, and facial expression. If someone enters a room carrying the energy of suspicion or defense, other nervous systems pick up on it immediately.You cannot emit the frequency of “stay away from me” and then feel confused when people keep their distance.When others sense that guarded energy, they often respond by giving space. But here is the painful irony of our human behavior. The ASS interprets that distance not as respect for a boundary, but as confirmation of rejection or prejudice. In that moment a feedback loop is created (schema). The person’s hyper-vigilance pushes people away, and the resulting distance becomes proof that their fears were justified. What started as a protective strategy ends up creating the very isolation the person was afraid of.I see this dynamic appear it’s pesky head across cultural lines as well. Whether the narrative is built around race, gender, class, or social status, there is a human tendency to turn entire groups into symbolic stand-ins for personal insecurity. It is far easier for the mind to say, “They are the problem,” than it is to acknowledge that the nervous system itself may be overwhelmed. True psychological resilience involves the ability to pause long enough to question the story the mind is telling. Sometimes the person in front of you is simply another human being with their own internal world. Sometimes the reaction you are feeling is less about the present moment and more about a memory archive your nervous system has not yet processed.The hippocampus is basically the archive center. It stores past experiences that the amygdala then uses to detect potential threats in the environment. Imagine opening a memory box of picture all holding the image of painful events “imprints” from your time line. We basically throw those events onto the present moment. When those memories are unresolved, the brain can begin projecting old pain onto new situations. What feels like an immediate reaction to the present moment is often the nervous system sitting inside of that memory box. In psychology, this process is closely related to projection and cognitive distortions. Mind-reading, for example, occurs when we assume we know what another person is thinking without actual evidence. Labeling occurs when we assign a global negative trait to someone or an entire group based on limited information. Both distortions simplify the world into easy categories so the brain can feel more in control of uncertainty.Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory also helps explain this phenomenon through the concept of neuroception, the nervous system’s unconscious ability to detect safety or threat. When someone has experienced repeated trauma or exclusion, their safety meter can become miscalibrated. A neutral glance can register as hostility. A moment of silence can feel like rejection.Pause for a moment.As a multicultural woman, the situation I see A LOT is the concept of white people being unsafe. Since being back in California visiting. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “ugh they are so racist.” It drives me bonkers because how the hell do you know that simply by walking past a person who looks different than you? It’s such a statement of ignorance and reveals your ASS. White people have become the scapegoat for many people and their own unhealed and unacknowledged fears. Fears that quite frankly are being perpetuated by the media. How will you feel safe with people who do not look like you if all you ever do is hang around sameness? How are we so entitled to demand grace for our fear of coming out of our comfort zone. Yet, do not extend that grace outwardly? How can you come in with an energy of judgment, emit that outwardly than snap at people for becoming tense around you? Feels like waking on eggshell energy and I wonder how many of use feel that way. If the ASS inside say “yeah but white people—-” shhhhhhh inner child, what has a white person done to you that you are not already doing to yourself? The nervous system reacts before the thinking mind has time to investigate.Over time, if someone only spends time with people who reinforce their existing worldview, this hyper-vigilance never gets challenged. Social psychologists refer to this as the absence of intergroup contact, a concept first studied by Gordon Allport. His research showed that meaningful interactions between different groups significantly reduce prejudice and fear. When we remain in self-segregated environments, the nervous system never has the opportunity to retrain itself to feel safe around difference. This contagion even impacts people within the white community. As someone who is white, black, and Native America (Muscogee 🥰) I have seen it with my family. Those who are white no longer feel safe around people who look like them. This is due to the need to feel belonging with their family and if they have family that are POC they choose to belong there and adopt the schema of that group whatever that is. Many times I believe, the judgment we feel is really just the vulnerability of feeling naked— being in a different environment and around difference. That naked feeling goes away the more we practice and train the nervous system to learn there is no threat around difference. Avoidance keeps the schema alive.This is why developing discernment is so important in psychological growth. Advocacy and awareness are essential, but they must be balanced with curiosity and self-reflection. Otherwise, the brain’s survival system can quietly transform into a narrative machine that interprets every ambiguous interaction as confirmation of danger. That’s exhausting for you. When that happens, the world begins to look like a field full of lions—even when most of the people walking through it are just trying to get through their day. A simple practice can help interrupt this pattern. Before reacting or “calling something out,” pause long enough to perform what I call a reality audit. First, notice what is happening in your body. Are your shoulders tight? Is your chest constricted? Is your mind racing ahead of the evidence? Naming the sensation helps bring the nervous system back into awareness. You can name it… “Ahh the ASS is online…”Next, identify the story your brain is telling. What assumption are you making about the other person’s intentions? Once the story is clear, challenge it by imagining at least three alternative explanations for the situation. (if your mind rejects those truths, note that down, you just discovered the entrance into your limiting belief realm. Understanding that perhaps the person is curious rather than judgmental. Perhaps they are distracted by something happening in their own life. Perhaps they admire you and simply feel intimidated. There are so many other possibilities besides… “they’re a racist, they're phobic, they are jealous.” Finally, take a slow breath and consciously soften the defensive posture your body may be holding. Allow yourself to make brief eye contact without the shield of assumption. This is softening the field allowing yourself to be seen as the softer you and not the hypervigilent ASS. Often the “lion” that seemed so threatening disappears once the nervous system stops projecting the content of the hippocampus archives onto the people in the environment. None of this means ignoring real prejudice or injustice. Those realities exist and deserve to be addressed with clarity and courage. But psychological maturity requires the ability to differentiate between what is happening in the present moment and what the nervous system is replaying from the past. What is real injustice, and what’s truly you creating injustice for yourself by disconnecting you from connection. If we never learn to question the stories our survival system tells us, we risk becoming people who judge others before we truly know them. In that moment, the lion we were so certain was standing in front of us may have been something we painted there ourselves.Let me know what came up for you with this time. I love seeing your comments, your shares of what was challenging. Thank you all for sitting in the muck with me. My heart is so full 🥰Till next time. Come as you are where you are. The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.References & Further ReadingFor readers who want to explore the psychology and neuroscience concepts referenced in this essay, the following works provide foundational research and accessible explanations of how the nervous system, perception, and social cognition shape human behavior.Predictive Processing & Constructed EmotionBarrett, Lisa Feldman. (2017).How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Barrett’s work explains how the brain constantly predicts what is happening in the present moment using past experiences stored in memory. Rather than reacting purely to the external world, the brain constructs emotional experiences based on prior learning, which helps explain why unresolved memories can shape how we interpret people and situations.Extended ReadingBarrett, Lisa Feldman. (2020).Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.A shorter and very accessible explanation of predictive brain theory and how perception is shaped by prior experience.Polyvagal Theory & NeuroceptionPorges, Stephen W. (2011).The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation.W. W. Norton & Company.Porges introduces the concept of neuroception, the nervous system’s unconscious process of detecting safety or danger. When this system becomes dysregulated due to trauma or chronic stress, neutral interactions can be perceived as threats.Extended ReadingPorges, Stephen W. & Dana, Deb. (2018).Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory.W. W. Norton & Company.Provides practical applications of polyvagal theory in therapy, trauma recovery, and nervous system regulation.Cognitive Distortions & Schema TheoryYoung, Jeffrey E., Klosko, Janet S., & Weishaar, Marjorie E. (2003).Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide.Guilford Press.This book outlines how early life experiences create schemas, or mental templates that shape how individuals interpret relationships, safety, and belonging. Schemas influence perception, often operating outside of conscious awareness.Extended ReadingBeck, Aaron T. (1976).Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.Penguin Books.Beck’s foundational work on cognitive distortions explains mechanisms such as mind-reading, labeling, and confirmation bias, which influence how people interpret social interactions.Emotional Contagion & Social Signal TransmissionHatfield, Elaine, Cacioppo, John T., & Rapson, Richard L. (1993).Emotional Contagion.Cambridge University Press.This research explores how human beings unconsciously mirror each other’s emotional and physiological states through facial expression, posture, tone, and subtle cues. Emotional states can spread through social environments without conscious awareness.Intergroup Contact TheoryAllport, Gordon W. (1954).The Nature of Prejudice.Addison-Wesley.Allport’s work introduced Intergroup Contact Theory, which demonstrates that meaningful interaction between members of different groups significantly reduces prejudice and fear. Avoidance and social segregation tend to reinforce stereotypes and perceived threat.Extended ReadingPettigrew, Thomas F., & Tropp, Linda R. (2006).A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.This large-scale study confirms that intergroup contact consistently reduces prejudice across cultures and social contexts.Fear Learning & the Threat Detection SystemLeDoux, Joseph. (1996).The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life.Simon & Schuster.LeDoux’s work explains how the amygdala processes threat and fear, often reacting before conscious thought has time to evaluate a situation.Extended ReadingSapolsky, Robert M. (2017).Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.Penguin Press.A comprehensive look at how biology, culture, and environment shape human behavior, including threat perception, bias, and group dynamics.Trauma, Perception & Nervous System ConditioningMaté, Gabor. (2022).The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.Avery.Maté explores how trauma and social environments shape nervous system responses, influencing perception, health, and relational behavior.Extended Readingvan der Kolk, Bessel. (2014).The Body Keeps the Score.Penguin Books.Explains how trauma becomes encoded in the nervous system and body, affecting perception, emotional regulation, and interpersonal relationships.Additional Psychological FoundationsKahneman, Daniel. (2011).Thinking, Fast and Slow.Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Kahneman’s work explains cognitive shortcuts and biases that shape human decision-making and perception.If You Want to Explore This Topic FurtherIf this essay resonated with you, the areas of psychology worth exploring include:* Predictive Brain Theory* Polyvagal Theory* Schema Therapy* Cognitive Distortions* Intergroup Contact Theory* Trauma and Nervous System Regulation* Social Signal Transmission and Emotional ContagionEach of these frameworks contributes to understanding how the human brain interprets safety, threat, and social relationships.The key takeaway across all of them is simple but profound: The brain does not simply observe reality. It interprets it through memory, expectation, and nervous system state. Sometimes, the lions we see in the field are not actually there.Sometimes they are projections from the archive we carry within us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

In this episode, we unpack the difference between externalized blame and pattern recognition.For those who need clarity. Here is a goat head. Not fun to step on 🥲Blame feels sharp. Sticky. Painful. Like stepping on a goat head in the desert — it hooks into you and won’t let go. The mind tells us the only way to get relief is to throw it at someone else.But relief through projection isn’t freedom.It’s transfer.We explore:* Why blame is neurologically easier than self-examination* How egocentric loops protect identity at the expense of growth* The illusion that “giving blame away” equals liberation* Why alchemizing blame requires dissection, not dischargeInstead of flinging the goat head, we smash it.We examine it.We ask: What’s inside this?Under blame, there is usually:* Unmet need* Boundary violation* Fear of loss* Ego injury* Attachment panic* ShameBlame protects the nervous system from collapse.Pattern recognition builds the nervous system’s capacity to evolve.We also introduce the Pendulum Visualization:Right now, many conversations swing wildly between extremes because nuance has disappeared. Without nuance, there are no “pause slots” along the spectrum — no places for reflection, only reaction.Nuance creates micro-pauses.Micro-pauses create choice.Choice interrupts loops.But before we can interrupt the loop, we have to see it.Key Concepts* Blame is a protective reflex, not a solution* Pattern recognition requires ego tolerance* Externalizing blame reinforces neural loops* Naming a loop is the first act of agency* Nuance slows the pendulumReflective Questions* When I feel blame rise, where do I feel it in my body?* Do I want relief or do I want understanding?* What does it cost me to keep holding onto this blame?* If I smashed this “goat head,” what might I discover underneath it?* Is this a one-time offense, or is this a pattern?* What part of me feels threatened if I let go of blame?* What boundary needs reinforcement without character assassination?What to Listen For in the Next ConversationIn the next episode, we’ll move from recognition to interruption.We’ll explore:* How to train the ability to see loops in real time* Techniques for slowing down reactivity* How to interrupt narcissistic and egocentric loops in family systems* Boundary reinforcement without escalation* What to do when someone refuses accountabilityThis isn’t about becoming passive.It’s about becoming precise.You can’t interrupt what you can’t see.Invitation to EngageI’d love to know:What loops are you noticing in your own life right now?Where does blame feel hardest to release?What would you like me to unpack next — boundaries, family dynamics, narcissism, nervous system regulation, or something else entirely?Drop a comment and let me know what you want this podcast space to explore.We’re building this together. 🫶🏽The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Tell me what comes up for you when you hear these words. Everyone’s experience will be different. What mental movies show up for you. Till next time. The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Being personal online… let alone publicly is scary for me and yet, just like in my clinical practice, I believe some transparency builds rapport. Not oversharing. Not emotional dumping, but intentional visibility. Irving Yalom speaks about the healing power of authentic presence. Carl Rogers emphasized genuineness as a condition for growth. Carl Jung wrote about integrating the self rather than performing a version of it. Those ideas live in me.There’s something I call “therapeutic code switching.” It’s the discernment of who you are with, how much you share, and when. It isn’t about being fake, no no. This is a skill. It’s about being attuned. It’s knowing that safety and intimacy are built gradually and in a therapeutic setting. Not every client can handle a therapist’s transparency moments. That rings true for out in the world. Not every friend is the one you should turn to just because they are a friend. Not every family member is safe. I think many of us are still learning that skill especially in friendships, and almost always in romantic relationships. I want to be more personal here. Writing this. Letting you see that this work as much as it is for my dendrites, yes 🤗lol — it is also for you. And that is vulnerable. Having this many eyes on me gives me the eww feelings, but also shows me just how much we all share in what we carry silently. But being seen enough for someone to invest consistently, inwardly, presses on an old wound. The part of me and maybe the part of many of us, that learned lovability is measured by performance. By productivity. By what we can do, provide, or prove. So yes, I’m public and yes, I offer education. But humanity doesn’t bridge gaps without relatability. We are relational beings. I know societal conditioning has another agenda about that. But, We regulate through…connection. When it comes to love, I think many of us struggle not with whether we want it, but with how to receive it without turning it into something we must earn or lose ourselves for. Now, for my love letter to you all I am skipping the edits and obsessive proof reading and seeing what happens to my nervous system when I hit send and say “bugger off with it.” Perfectionism is a trap I have found myself looping in since being online and its annoying to say the least. My writing, my recordings. It. Must. Be. Perfect. Ew Sav, why?The old script of people pleaser perfectionist wanted to poke it’s head out and audition for it’s role again. Doing what you love is one thing, when it becomes all you think about is a completely different thing. The exposure therapy of my data revealed how lost we can get searching for answers, the why… This month not only marks the anniversary of getting online. Something my dear friend would be proud of. It also marks the 10th year of her passing. At the young age of 26 we lost her. This month is always a reminder of that loss. This work is a reminder of how hard it has been to let people in as close as we were. 11 years old, making flower crowns and talking about life. Little did she know she saved me during those moments. Losing a friend to suicide is …confusing.As an intuitive though— I knew… This isn’t Minority Report, as much as I wished it was.. Wondering what life would be like to have that friend that has known you since you were a kid. I have watched many have that in their life and always wondered what it felt like. Then I zoom out.And I look at how the world can get divided by a vote in a system that’s universally corrupt no matter what side you think is the morally “correct side”and yet we will burn nervous system calories defending our chosen side, as if that is going to save us from something. We will mobilize.We will argue.We will subtweet.We will rehearse conversations that never happened.We will gaslight each other.The energy expenditure is impressive, but wasted on the wrong things.The same emotional energy expense we use to divide, to prove, to defend could be redirected inward. We could use that energy to walk away from dynamics that drain us.To move on.To lift something heavy.To build something steady.To sit in therapy and actually tell the truth.To log off.To go for a walk.To eat better.To rest.But we don’t.We stay activated.We choose the familiar distress over the unfamiliar quiet, despite saying — we want peace.So we suffer.And that contradiction… fascinates me.Even as a little kid I noticed tat about adults. Always “maybe” with everything, caught up in their own emotional mind movies. I was always the little milkdud kid that pointed and asked why. Curious. Nosey…I am the block watch captain of the neighborhood…😂 Archie, Charles, and I… (2 out of the three of us are dogs by the way🤭) I observe never from judgement. I know that’s hard for some to believe. I use to do Uber throughout college in SF-Sacramento area. I met a lot of humans. Humans are like library books we can check out and listen to. There is a story in each of us. Do we listen though? 1 year of being online and I faced many emotions. Each one a somatic time capsule catapulting me through memories that were sedimented deep deep in the hippocampus archives. Memories, wounds, I thought I had sorted through. Resurfacing through this work and what I teach. Epiphanies, is what some clients call them. Sharing these moments with clients is probably one of the best parts of the job. Just two humans experiencing a moment. but together. I have such huge vision for this corner of the internet, but a border collie level of ADHD that was masked by the years of college, now suddenly surfacing when it’s time to pour fully into myself. Executive freeze. Yup— I experience it too. It’s bullocks if you ask me, but I have to check myself. We all do. I see it in my clients, I see it online, I see it in myself. We are loading our plates to the brim then wondering why it’s too heavy to carry…Symptoms start showing up. One of the common themes I see across the board with us all. The pressure comes from within. Literally, it’s like someone is pushing on the internal suffering button but it’s really us stuck on it. Choosing suffering because the ideal alternative would be too painful to lose.See, Lose.Already thinking of the worst. *Can we Squirrel real quick. I was watching the Love is Blind new season… I know I know.. I talk my shit throughout it okay…😂 One of the women was saying how her dream is to be “The Super Bowl house.” How many of us right now are the Super Bowl house and the Super Bowl house comes with its own sets of emotions. Struggles. Challenges. Where did we get this idea that being an image meant joy comes with that image? What would being the embodiment of that image look and feel like? Homestead dreamers? Do you just want the chickens and the land or do you want the discipline to maintain the chickens and the land? Do we want the husband, the wife, the house. Or do we want the safety, regulated nervous system, and the ability to rest and not feel the need to jump up and “be productive” in our marriage and in our house?What if the external image is what many of us already have, but the feeling we thought we would feel hasn’t showed up yet. Or it did— but it was fleeting. What if instead of wishing for the image of the person you can laugh and chill with. You also imagined an image where you were both chilling and regulated, calm, at peace. Nothing is unspoken, no emotional debt is in the tank. People feel heard. What would that feel like? What if we didn’t have to fill our plates to the brim because we could actually surrender into relaxation time, or self-care time. We can take off the mom or dad role for a day or two and take care of (insert name). Yeah… Remember her? Remember him? What are they up to? When was the last time you check in with them? That’s what this work is for me. A check in. I am excited to see where we take this corner of the internet. I am learning a lot about myself in the process. Sometimes I just want to write without the expectation (I place on myself.) Just to show up as this version —Sav. I created the Chasing Milligrams Free community so we can all see the world through each other’s eyes. What brings us dopamine and joy. What can we motivate each other to do for ourselves. I hope to see you all over there. So we can get a bit more personal and remind ourselves. Despite the noise. There are humans who still want to connect with each other. —Till next timeCome as you are Where you are.The Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Happy Valentine’s Day Loves!As this month marks my 1 year anniversary of being online publicly, sharing my brain and heart with you all. I thought this might be a treat for us to come back to when we need it. Sometimes we forget we have access to breath. Breath is the one tool that moves with us through joy, grief, confusion, and noise.It’s the simplest form of co-regulation we can practice — together.—With loveThe Safety to Speak™ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Data Collectors, How are you doing today? How has the year so far been treating you? This is our first Trail Talks episode and I want to be honest. I have no idea what I am doing. I don’t have a team or anything like that, I am figuring all of this out on my own while carrying a caseload, transitioning fully into my own practice, building out my practice and our nervous system playground. Sanctuary members, stay tuned. I will announce when part of the playground becomes available to you. The playground lives off substack and you all will get the secret key that gives you access to the Dare Den, Mirror Meadow, and more! Hidden in our little sanctuary corner. Now, This episode. I want to remind you all this is not a professional podcast. It’s me. Walking. Thinking. Feeling. Unpacking.I operate my corner of the Internet this way to highlight how we humans are versatile in the way we show up. Just because I'm online and I happen to have this career of a licensed therapist doesn't mean that I don't get to have fun and play online too are you kidding me? I think some of y'all are forgetting that this is an Internet world where people fondle fruit are half naked any cornstarch for likes OK I'm not taking it that seriously. I’d rather hike and stretch my brain than sit at home consuming content that clogs my clarity. So here we are. Welcome to Trail Talks — a Nervous System Safari for anyone trying to break old cycles, think deeper, and live a little freer.In this first episode, we talk about what it really feels like to adjust to healthy dynamics after surviving dysfunction. I riff on nervous system loops, how fear masks as truth, why conflict isn’t the problem avoidance is and why your amygdala AKA (A.M.I.E.) keeps showing up to protect you... even when you’re safe now.🧠 Download the AMIE Worksheet for a quick-check tool you can use the next time your nervous system tries to write your relationship script.🎧 Grab your shoes, or just your headphones. You don’t need to know where you’re going. You just need to be willing to walk with me for a bit.If You want to feel like you are going with me I dropped the pics I numbered below. #1 First Picture of the Trail 🤗#2 The Fork In The Road#3 Getting Taller…in elevation 🤭#4 A Very Muted— Beauty…😫#5Just a couple Bonus Picture… because why not🥰 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Share this with someone who needs it.Enjoy 🫶🏽 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Enjoy 🫶🏽 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Data Collectors, The Algorithm is loud but there’s a particular kind of silence I’ve been noticing. A silence that shows up when harm doesn’t match the usual narrative. Society today is quick to name harm when it’s a man harming a woman. We’re fast to diagnose, expose, and react often with moral clarity as if we saw the dynamic first hand. But.. What happens when harm flows in the other direction? Now what?When the woman is the one silencing, stonewalling, manipulating, infantilizing…When the father becomes the scapegoat or disappears out of fear or shame…Suddenly the volume drops.The curiosity fades.The story changes.And I think we need to talk about that.Kristy Scott & Desmond Scott: The Cultural Case StudyAs a clinician it’s been my due diligence to make sure I keep this noise from infiltrating my own perception. Once I am the session room, or placing my attention on the lives of other’s situations—what I think seizes to exist. I am a hunter, like a veloceiraptior hunting prey, except I hunt for the patterns that go unnoticed, unspoken, or completely bypassed. I’m interested in how we respond to these narratives to these patterns. So lets collect the data:A woman files.Says he cheated. (This is very important data) but what is more fascinating is how quick the internet believes her. Full stop. Later, Desmond releases a statement—not denying the infidelity, but revealing that he asked for separation first. A subtle SOS embedded in his admission, one that of course gets bypassed but in the most invalidating way, this level of invalidation is mockery. Remember, we are a society that screams “Mental Health Awareness” just remember that… So, because the narrative was already set he cheated, she was betrayed—there’s no space left for complexity or even nuance. We say “believe victims” without vetting facts.We say “create safe spaces” while treating someone’s public humiliation as viral entertainment. We say “be kind” while stitching and stitching and stitching our way into psychological warfare—all in the name of justice.Now let’s really be honest:There are influencers, celebrities etc, who don’t care about the grief, the trauma, or the nervous system collapse they care about the reward of aligning with the “correct” side. And now we’re being algorithmically rewarded for blind loyalty. Say the “right” thing, support the “right” person, and boom—you get the clicks, the validation, the exposure. Even if you don’t know the person. Even if you don’t care about the truth.Just support the “side” and you’ll be included.This isn’t about taking sides. It’s about how fast we choose one before asking questions. Nuance, critical thinking, discernment. These are crucial mind muscles that are necessary for a healthy nervous system and healthy attachment. We must learn how to train these otherwise the polarity poison from the upside down pollutes us all!! The Somatic Safari BeginsThis series is my way of thinking out loud—my brain hunches that I gather from therapy rooms, cultural patterns, nervous system data, and lived observation. You’ll often hear me say this is a mental gym, but it’s also a somatic field trip a safari ride through human experience. Are you ready to begin?As always we’re going to have to call on Doc for this one…For the first stop on our Safari field trip, we have to go back in history. I don’t want to spend too much time in history because—well, we pull from historic wounds all the time in this generation. The sole reason for taking you this route is to refresh the memory. Many women, our mothers as children, grandmothers when they were children, so on had childhood experiences that didn’t have the safety to speak let alone held. Let your mind’s eye picture what it meant to be a woman in a prior generation—maybe the 1930s, 40s, 50s. Think about what it meant to have your worth directly tethered to how quiet you could be, how clean your home was, how compliant your children looked, how devoted you were to being small, selfless, sacrificial, and “seen but not heard.” Think about what it meant to have no bank account, no legal autonomy, no right to say no without consequence. Yes, these are historical facts.But more importantly they are psychological blueprints. In family systems terms (Bowen, 1978), this was role-based conditioning at its core. These women didn’t just accept their roles—they adapted to survive them. And survival adaptations, when repeated over time, become traits, coping mechanisms, patterns. Soon they develop into personality traits. From Silent Wives to Strategic MothersNow, I want you to take this further. Don’t just see those women. Feel into them. Imagine what it takes to stay married to someone abusive because there are no resources to leave. Imagine what it feels like to lose a child to war and still be expected to cook, smile, and serve dessert.Now ask yourself:What kind of adaptations does the nervous system develop in that environment?Fawning. People-pleasing. Emotional shutdown. Overfunctioning. Control masked as care, affection, love. Fragility that get’t masked as submission.All of these are classic trauma adaptations (Herman, Trauma and Recovery)and when weaponized over time, they become covert control tactics passed down through generations. In The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller explains how children of emotionally repressed parents often become “mirrors” for the adult’s unmet needs.That doesn’t go away just because the mother is “doing her best.” It gets coded into the emotional ecosystem of the home.Somatic Checkpoint: Pause & ScanSo before we leave this historical stop on our safari Tour, I want you to check in with your body. What are you noticing?Is there tension in your chest? A heaviness in the belly? A flutter in your throat?What memories are flashing? What sensations are surfacing?Pause.That’s data.We’re not judging it. We’re not labeling it.We’re collecting it because what we don’t metabolize what the generations before us couldn’t metabolize—we often end up reenacting.Back to the Now: The Inherited Survival PlaybookOkay, now we’re back. 2026. Present time. But are we really free from those patterns?Because here’s what I’m seeing:A whole generation of women raised under the unspoken rules of survival.Where emotions were manipulated for attention.Where silence was a form of protest.Where tears could be turned on to deflect accountability.Where shame was redirected before it was felt.Where “I’m just a bad mom” or “You always think I’m wrong” was a way to shut down the conversation instead of sitting in it.That’s the survival strategy being played out live!And it’s one many of us were raised under. Janina Fisher (in Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma) calls these “parts adaptations” — parts of the self that developed for protection, not connection. But when left unchecked, they become loops.They hijack intimacy. They sabotage repair. They hide in plain sight. I see them… Can you?Why Would That Stop at Motherhood?Now ask yourself:If those were the survival strategies modeled in the home…What makes us think they would magically stop once someone becomes a wife or a mother? If anything, the nervous system may feel more unsafe in marriage.More trapped. More visible. More needed. (Insert arranged marriage women)All of this means, more vulnerable. So, when a nervous system feels cornered, it doesn’t reach for self-reflection. It reaches for what worked:Covert control. Emotional redirection. Narrative flipping. Fragility. Defensiveness. Manipulative incompetence. These are not “toxic traits.” They are unmetabolized trauma loops we grasp for when we don’t have the crayons to use in that situational event. This is problematic because, when we fail to name them they become intergenerational inheritance.And that’s what we’re here to interrupt.Clinical Lens: Generational Injury Doesn’t Skip the Boys In Scattered Minds, Dr. Gabor Maté emphasizes that emotional availability and regulation are crucial in childhood—not just for girls, but for boys, too.Yet boys are often raised with a split experience:* Over-mothered (infantilized)* Under-fathered (neglected or absent)* Emotionally dismissed (“Man up”)* Emotionally smothered (“He’s my whole world”)Some daughters became shields.Some sons became pawns.Some got both.I’ve worked with men who were raised by mothers in survival mode, covertly controlling, emotionally dysregulated, narratively manipulative.This wasn't because they were “bad,” but because no one had taught them another way. Given them the what I call crayons to color life with. Remember, some of us were only give very few if any. Now, Fast forward to the future… (I told you this was a field trip) those boys are noe men who carry the shame of collapsing as fathers.They’re terrified of messing up.They freeze when left alone with the baby and it’s not because they don’t care, but because their own nervous systems are still children.And shame… is louder than logic.Now let’s pause…Because I can already feel some of the internal voices rising up. Some women reading this are saying, “Well, we didn’t get that either. We didn’t have support. We were scared too.”And that’s the point.We know.We know you didn’t get that.We know you weren’t mothered.We know the system didn’t nurture your fear or guide you through your first time.And still—you chose your partner. You said you loved him.You stepped into this life with him, which means at some point, there was trust. There was intention. There was a “yes.”So this… this is where love shows up.This is where the vows get tested.This is where we either pass down our blueprints or we interrupt the loop.Because when a man becomes a father, he’s not just hearing your voice.He’s hearing his mother’s voice in his head, in his body. He’s hearing the tone of every woman who disarmed him with love but punished him with silence.And yes, you are going through your own unraveling too. But that’s the part we forget: you’re both scared. You’re both brand new. And no one taught either of you how to do this with nervous system safety.Do men need to step up?Absolutely.But how can they learn in an environment that shames them before it shows them? How can any of us? Parents…Let’s be real. Most women didn’t get shown either.Most women are entering motherhood terrified, overwhelmed, emotionally raw.And that cocktail of anxiety, hypervigilance, and responsibility often leads to control. Why? Because control feels safer than chaos and many women confuse safety with control the same way their mothers, grandmothers etc did. So what do we do?We micromanage.We take over.We silently narrate: “You don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll do it.”And the baby becomes a battleground for competence.Now, Here’s the issue…If the first message a man receives after becoming a father is “I don’t trust you,”don’t be surprised when he shrinks.When he defers.When he stops trying.When his nervous system says, “See? I knew I couldn’t do this.”That’s not him weaponizing incompetence.That’s his trauma saying, “You’re right. I’m not safe here.”And that’s the setup for the very problem we claim we didn’t sign up for.When we say, “Why won’t he help with the baby?” Well… maybe it started the moment he tried and felt like a burden. Maybe he started clocking the eye rolls, the corrections, the side comments. Maybe his freeze response activated because his nervous system got paired with your disapproval instead of your belief.This is not about blame. This is about wiring. Making it about blame proves your nerves systems need to be the victim. Were you raised under that? The minute the baby enters the world, a new energetic contract is written and both partners bring their nervous systems into that contract. If we want fatherhood to feel like a safe identity for men, we need to ask:How am I showing up in those first moments, those first weeks, those tiny ruptures?Am I reinforcing his fear of failure?Or am I modeling what repair looks like?Because your regulation—or lack of it—is now shaping two generations.Weaponized Accountability, Cultural Projection, and the Scapegoat ComplexA lot of us were raised in systems where being accountable was a survival strategy, especially if you were the scapegoat. You learned to take the blame to keep the peace.To carry the dysfunction so the family didn’t collapse. So now, as adults, when someone calls us out—we’re not just hearing feedback. We’re hearing danger.But here’s where it gets tricky: Some people only demand accountability from others to avoid doing their own work. They perform call-outs as a form of power not as a path to healing. They weaponize “insight” as a form of shame-displacement.And some of us grew up with people like that.So when we say we fear “being corrected,” what we’re really afraid of is being abused again under the guise of accountability. This is why we have to build new emotional ecosystems. What I call The Rules. These must include not just safe spaces but mature ones. Spaces that distinguish between a call-out, a correction, and a conversation.What We Don’t Clean, We Pass DownWe talk a lot about the “mother wound.”But what about the mothering wound in men? What happens when boys are raised by women who never processed their own grief, shame, fear, or trauma? What happens when emotional enmeshment gets mislabeled as love? When the son becomes the therapist, the emotional husband, the emotional hostage? And what happens when these boys grow up, try to become fathers, and no one has trained their nervous systems to tolerate the identity of being needed?Some collapse.Some disappear.Some rage.Some cheat.Some distract.Some shut down.Now, our safari is about to hit some bumpy terrain as we pivot perspectives and explore the area of mens impacted development. Because what we’re seeing now is the result of those dynamics we already named. Some of these men? They were infantilized.Some? Parentified.Some? Both.And when boys are raised like this, they often go one of two ways.They either become submissive, passive, shut down or they become aggressive, controlling, manipulative. There’s rarely a third path without deep inner work and external reparenting.Let’s start with the first one.You’ve probably seen the collapse.The freeze.The stonewall.The delayed routines. The disappearing acts right before breakfast.The drawn-out trips to the bathroom every time bedtime starts. Let’s Zoom Out. This is regressed child behavior. Think about kids who stall when they don’t want to do something. This isn’t just irresponsibility, it’s the nervous system stalling, it’s nervous system movement. It’s fawn and freeze patterns wrapped in “I don’t know how” and reinforced by a partner who keeps saying, “You’re doing it wrong.” Think about it. If men are always doing it wrong when will they ever do it right to your standards? Do you even have standards? Or is being constantly unfulfilled a baseline personality trait that creates a double bind not just for your husband but also for your kids? A reenactment of your mother’s moods maybe? But then there’s the second path.The one that doesn’t look like collapse.It looks like dominance.It looks like gaslighting.It looks like a man who makes his partner feel small, confused, doubting her own sense of reality—because that’s what he had to do to himself to survive his own upbringing.This is often when narcissism enters the chat, not as a personality disorder right away, but as a pattern of delusion required to maintain a sense of self. It’s not that he wants to lie or manipulate. It’s that he was never allowed to just be.And when you’re raised by a mother or any caregiver for that matter who emotionally hijacks every moment, who re-centers everything around her pain, her emotions, her shame—you learn to do the same, because it’s the only way you ever got attention, safety, or identity. We must not confuse these with “skills.” These are maladaptive survival patterns.If we never pause to name them, we start reinforcing them.We start dating them.We start building families with them.And then calling it fate when it falls apart. So many women are in relationships with men like this men who are drowning in shame but performing control. Men who seek validation through cheating, flirting, overworking, or status, because it’s the only way they know how to feel good enough. Now here’s the thing…A lot of those women are reenacting their own wounds, too. They choose these men because the dynamic is familiar. Because it matches what their nervous system was raised on. And that’s not chemistry.That’s trauma. That’s your past recycling itself.All of this doesn’t excuse anything. We name to interrupt the reenactment.Macro-Micro Loop: Is Culture Conditioning the Family, or the Other Way Around?Here’s a hypothesis I’ve been sitting with:What if the family system isn’t just reenacting the culture…but the culture has always been reenacting the dysfunction of the family?We are fed narratives.Who deserves empathy.Who should be forgiven.Who is always safe.Who is always harmful.When was the last time you asked yourself… “Where did we get these blueprints from?” Who told us we had to chase perfection, be the “good wife,” raise the polite child, and suppress our mess?Advertising did.The church did.The state did.The neighborhood did.The PTA did.Marketing campaigns didn’t just sell us products—they sold us identities.They sold us what safety was supposed to look like and then punished us for not achieving it. But what happens when modern influencers are perpetuating a life that not even they are living? This is why discernment skills are so important. The deeper truth: We don’t have to keep reenacting any of it, and that is terrifying for some of us. We don’t have to let the algorithm of our nervous system or society decide our values. We don’t have to choose between family conditioning and cultural messaging. We can choose something else: We can choose alignment. That’s what this whole field trip is about. Not burning down the system, but getting honest about whether it’s been living in our bodies this whole time and the necessary rewiring work needed rewire what’s been imbedded within our system.Closing Thought: The Shame You’re Avoiding Is the Growth You’re DelayingLet me say this plainly:I’m not here to argue that all men are victims. I’m not here to suggest women can’t be harmed. I’m not here to “both sides” real abuse. I’m here to say that our perception filters… You know the ones shaped by pain, family roles, culture, and shame— yeah, those filtration systems often prevent us from seeing the full picture. And that blindness…hurts our kids.hurts our partners.hurts our healing.More importantly hurts ourselves. The shame you’re avoiding isn’t dangerous.Sitting with it is the real work. That’s the hypothesis.I’ll see you on the next field trip.🎵Music: “Etc…”- Franz GordonLicensed via Epidemic Sound This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe

Hey Data Collectors,It’s Sav…This is a deeply honest, unfiltered voice note that's been sitting heavy on my heart. I reference a public figure in this episode, but I want to be very clear: this is not an attack. This is not about targeting anyone's journey – it's about naming a pattern that's repeating across the algorithm, in our homes, in our therapy offices, and in our family systems.When someone pivots publicly – whether through religion, identity, or performance. We often miss the deeper grief underneath that's happening right under our noses. We see over functioning and think it means someone is "doing well." But sometimes, the child who gets straight A's the adult who finds God, or the person who rebrand overnight is just trying to survive. And no one sees them slipping until it's too late. This episode isn't about one person. It's about all of us. It's about the shadow. We're afraid of face. It's about the ache beneath the algorithm. It's about the performance of healing, the danger of validation, loops, and the ways we reenact our own trauma stories in front of an audience—in front of the world.Let this be a mirror, not a spotlight.This is meant to be heavy. So I hope you feel the weight of this conversation and marinate in that heaviness. I don’t usually ask this.This space has grown through word of mouth, relationship, and trust and I’ve always let the work speak for itself. But for this piece, I’m asking for help. This episode is an outcry—not just as a clinician, but as a human who has lost someone to suicide. That loss is the reason I chose this work. The Reason I Put Myself Out Here With My Work.I do it for Her, For My Clients, For You…There are people hurting quietly right now. Children hurting. Adults masking pain. Families missing the signs because so much suffering is being performed, explained away, or spiritually bypassed instead of seen.I use humor because it helps us stay in the room—but the concern underneath this message is real. This is not content for clicks. It’s a call for awareness, attunement, and responsibility.If this reaches you, and you know someone who might need to hear it—even if you don’t know why—please consider sharing it.Not for me. For the people we’re missing.Much Love,— Sav 🤍 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thesafetytospeak.com/subscribe