Sometimes We Build a Safer Life Before We Know How to Live Safely Within It

Sometimes we build the path towards safety before our inner compass knows how to follow it.

When the Compass Won't Settle

I've always been fascinated by old brass compasses.

There's something almost magical about the way the needle spins wildly before gradually settling, as though it has remembered where north was all along.

At least, that's what it was designed to do.

Sometimes, though, if you hold a magnet nearby, the needle will refuse to settle. It circles and hesitates, pulled first one way and then another, never quite finding the direction it’s meant to follow.

Lately I've found myself wondering whether many of us move through life carrying an internal compass a little like that — not broken, simply trying to orient itself amongst signals pulling us in different directions.

Over the past year, I've made some significant changes to my life. My husband and I moved to a home that's easier to care for. I walk almost every day beside the Hātea River, and I've become much more intentional about protecting quiet moments, spending time in nature, and creating an environment that supports rather than drains me.

If you'd asked me a few years ago what my nervous system needed, most of those things would have been on the list, and they have helped immensely.

The constant pressure I'd carried for so many years has eased in ways I couldn't have imagined, and yet, something has continued to puzzle me.

If I've worked so hard to create a life that feels safer...

Why do I still find it so difficult simply to feel at ease within myself?

For a while I wondered whether I'd missed something, whether there was some strategy or habit I needed.

Then I realised I might have been asking the wrong question because I was looking in the wrong direction, guided by a compass whose needle kept spinning without ever quite finding true north.

Creating a Safer Life Isn't the Same as Feeling Safe

Creating a safer life and feeling safe within it are not the same thing.

The environment around us matters enormously, which is what we explored in the last blog post.

Our nervous system is constantly taking in information from the world around us. The pace we live at, the relationships we keep, the amount of stimulation we experience, and the opportunities we have for rest, beauty, nature, and connection all become part of the conversation it is having with us every single day.

Those things matter because they create the conditions in which safety becomes possible.

But conditions are only the beginning.

The Stories Our Nervous System Learns

As I've reflected on my own life, I've realised that while I was changing my surroundings, I was also carrying decades of messages about who I needed to be — a series of beliefs that had become embedded at the deepest level.

Work harder.

Keep going.

Don't let people down.

Be productive.

Be useful.

Prove yourself.

Rest later.

Those messages became so familiar that I rarely questioned them, as they had simply become the magnetic field my internal compass had learned to follow.

Even when my external world began offering gentler signals, that old compass still struggled to settle.

There was nothing wrong with it; in fact, it was functioning exactly as it had been taught to. I'd simply spent a lifetime learning that safety and rest always came after something else — after the work was finished, everyone else's needs had been met, or after I'd achieved enough and finally become enough.

I suspect many women, particularly those of us who grew up believing we could do anything and therefore somehow had to do everything, know this feeling well.

We become remarkably skilled at creating, contributing, caring, leading, and achieving, yet somewhere along the way we quietly lost sight of the person beneath all that doing.

It’s no wonder stopping feels uncomfortable, and rest can feel strangely undeserved. Sitting in the sunshine with a cup of tea feels less familiar than pushing through another task, and reading a book for the pure pleasure of it is somehow a crime.

Our nervous system isn't only responding to today's circumstances — it's also responding to the stories it has been living inside for years.

And while those stories may have been quietly influencing our internal compasses for years, that doesn't mean they need to remain our permanent story.

It simply means they deserve the same compassion we've been learning to offer the nervous system itself.

Laying the Foundations Before Looking Within

I've come to think that Grounded is about something very simple — it’s not asking us to force ourselves into feeling safe.

Instead, it invites us to create enough moments, enough rhythms, and enough supportive conditions for our nervous system to gradually experience something different.

It doesn’t happen all at once, but through just one ordinary day at a time, and it’s why this work begins with the world around us, the roots beneath our feet.

It's extraordinarily difficult to explore our inner landscape while we're still living in conditions that constantly tell our nervous system to remain on guard.

Sometimes we build a safer life before we know how to live safely within it.

And perhaps that's exactly as it should be.

We lay the foundations first. We create the conditions, listen for the birds, go for the walk, make the cup of tea, and learn to stop before we're empty.

Little by little, those ordinary experiences begin telling our nervous system a different story.

Finding True North

Eventually, perhaps almost without noticing, our internal compass doesn't have to work quite so hard to find its way.

It’s not because we've become someone different — we're slowly discovering that we never had to earn our place in our own lives.

Perhaps that's where the next part of the journey begins.

Not by forcing ourselves to feel different, but by creating a life supportive enough that our inner compass can finally begin to remember where true north has been all along.

That's what Grounded has been quietly building towards from the very beginning: not a perfectly calm life, or a life without challenge.

Grounded is about building a life that offers our nervous system enough signals of safety that, when the time is right, we can begin the next journey of coming home to ourselves.

As I’ve been thinking about building a safer life before we necessarily know how to feel safe within it, I’ve started noticing some surprisingly ordinary signs that something inside me is beginning to shift. In the video below, I explore what the return of creativity, nourishing food, movement and even the desire to do a jigsaw puzzle has taught me about capacity, our old internal stories, and what it can look like when our nervous system finally begins to believe the signals of safety around us.

When You Start to Feel Like Yourself Again
A personal reflection on safety, capacity, our inner compass, and the small everyday signs that can tell us we’re beginning to find our way home to ourselves.

If these reflections resonate with you, I’d love to have you join me as we continue exploring what it means to create our own version of Dynamic Balance — one shaped by curiosity, capacity and the conditions that allow us to flourish.