Safety Series: The Power of Stillness - Safety in Silence, Solitude and Space

Stillness sounds simple.
Sit. Be still. Do nothing.

But for many people, stillness is anything but restful. It is unnerving, even threatening.
Because when the noise stops, the body starts talking.

Silence becomes loud.
Solitude feels like abandonment.
Space, instead of freedom, evokes fear.

We live in a world that rewards movement, performance, and productivity. From an early age, we are taught to do — not to be. So when the moment comes to pause — truly pause — many people experience discomfort they can’t name. The body starts to fidget. The mind races. The heart may beat faster. Emotions we’ve managed to keep at bay all day begin to rise. And the impulse is clear: reach for your phone, open a screen, play music, scroll, snack, run, escape.

This is not a personal failure. It is a nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to do: avoid the vulnerability of stillness.

Stillness is where our unmet emotions live.
It’s where grief bubbles up without invitation, where shame lingers, where fear we never named starts to take shape.
It is also, paradoxically, the only place where healing truly begins.

From a polyvagal perspective, stillness is not neutral. The autonomic nervous system doesn’t evaluate stillness in a vacuum — it evaluates stillness through context. Is stillness a rest after safety? Or is stillness forced upon me by threat, helplessness, or collapse?

For many who have experienced trauma or chronic stress, stillness can be deeply associated with shutdown — not peace. A child frozen in fear is still. A woman waiting for a partner’s rage is still. A soldier hiding from threat is still. If this was your body’s early blueprint, then of course you don’t equate silence with serenity. Of course space feels dangerous.

To reclaim stillness as a signal of safety, we must retrain the nervous system.

We must learn to be still by choice, not compulsion. We must create conditions where stillness is accompanied by breath, presence, and support — not shame, fear, or abandonment.

Stillness becomes safe when we are allowed to move within it if needed.
When it is entered into gradually.
When the body is allowed to speak — and we don’t rush to silence it.

In my Stress and Wellness Coaching, one of the most powerful elements we work with is meditation coaching — not the rigid kind that asks you to sit cross-legged and push away your thoughts, but the kind that honours your nervous system. Meditation, when approached gently and skilfully, can teach your system that rest is safe. That solitude is nourishing. That silence is not the enemy.

For many, the first experience of safe stillness doesn’t happen in a monastery. It happens sitting in a chair, eyes open, with one hand on the belly and one on the chest, just feeling the breath. It happens when you allow a full exhale. When you notice a moment of stillness between songs or sips or sentences — and instead of filling it, you stay there.

It happens when you stop trying to escape your inner world, and instead begin to relate to it.

What follows is profound.

When stillness becomes safe, it becomes a homecoming. You find rest not just in your environment, but in yourself. You no longer need to run from emotion, from sensation, from memory. Your system begins to downshift. You sleep more deeply. You think more clearly. You speak more intentionally. You stop over-extending, over-efforting, over-controlling — because you’ve remembered how to be.

Stillness is not a reward for having everything figured out. It’s the ground from which clarity emerges.

It is not the absence of movement — it is the presence of peace.

The work of nervous system safety is not just about up-regulating energy or shifting out of stress. It’s also about down-regulating into rest, and learning to stay there. And that is a skill — one that your system may not have had the chance to develop until now.

If stillness feels threatening…
If solitude makes you uneasy…
If silence feels loud and restless…
You’re not broken. You’re likely dysregulated.

And you can learn to change that — gently, with guidance.

Through Stress and Wellness Coaching, I help clients just like you develop a healthy relationship to stillness. We don’t dive into silence — we build capacity for it. We explore breath, body-based practices, and gentle somatic meditation that allows your system to feel safe enough to settle.

Because the goal isn’t to force stillness.
The goal is to make peace with it.

Your body deserves that.
And you deserve to know what it feels like to come home to yourself — not in movement, not in noise, but in the quiet miracle of simply being.