Your nervous system doesn’t need fixing, it needs safety.

As a therapist, a mother, and a woman committed to my own healing journey, I return to this truth over and over again: we don’t heal because someone gives us the right answers. We heal when we feel safe enough to unfold.

When someone rushes in to fix our pain, to silence our fears or patch up our vulnerability, even with love, our bodies might register a very different message:

“There’s something wrong with me.”

And in that moment, we contract.

We shrink.

We disconnect from ourselves.

Because healing doesn’t come from being saved.

It comes from being seen.

Held.

Heard.

Felt, without judgment, without rush.

This is what neuroscience calls co-regulation, a scientific word for what we all long for: to be met with presence. A calm, grounded nervous system next to ours that says, “You’re not too much. You’re not broken. I’m here. You’re safe.”

And this, I believe, is one of the greatest responsibilities we carry in relationships, especially as parents.

We are the first environment our children’s nervous systems adapt to.

They learn how to feel, how to express, how to regulate, not through our words, but through our presence. They need us so they can regulate their “big emotions”. They can’t do that without a mirror. We can’t let them be alone in that process without wounding them. They will survive but that will be the wound that will be triggered later on in their life.

If we can offer them safety in the form of attunement, patience, and emotional steadiness, we give them something precious:

A foundation that will hold them through life.

So many of the wounds we face in adulthood come from growing up feeling unsafe in our emotions.

From being told to be quiet, be good, be less.

From not having our pain mirrored with compassion.

But the good news is, we can change the story.

We can become that safe place.

For our children.

For our partners.

For our friends.

For ourselves.

We don’t have to fix or rush or rescue. We just need to stay. To breathe. To soften.

And in that quiet space of presence, we help others remember:

They are not alone.

They are not broken.

They are safe to feel, safe to be.

This is where healing begins.

This is how we change the world.

One nervous system at a time.

One safe relationship at a time.

With care and presence,🤍

Aniela