Calm Safe Happy Place
In my initial appointment with my trauma therapist, she led me through a meditation where I established a place of safety in my mind. This place was to be revisited over and over again. Two years later, I still retreat there, especially before sleep.
I rolled my eyes a bit at the name Calm Safe Happy Place. I felt destroyed by my trauma and being infantilized felt even more demeaning. But the rhyme-y name stuck and the idea integrated into my psyche. Before my therapist initiated our EMDR sessions, she would remind me of my Calm Safe Happy Place.
My Calm Safe Happy Place is in a lush, green rainforest where the air is warm, and the earth is soft and cool. It is an enclosed space in nature with walls of moss-covered trees and thick foliage to feel secluded from whatever it borders.
When I reach my Happy Place, I arrive in nearly the same spot every time, just at the edge of the rainforest. In the circular enclosure of the rainforest is a plush, green carpet of grass. The soft grass is so comfortable to rest on, you could fall asleep. There is a rushing waterfall to the far right where healing waters flow and a small pool that the waterfall empties into. Around the waterfall is a heavy mist that wets my skin if I walk too close. There are moss-covered boulders in the celestial pool where I can stand under the waterfall and bathe in its holy water to cleanse me of pain and suffering.
My therapist asked me to invite my higher power there. Coming from a high-demand religion, I was hesitant to establish a belief in a higher power. Faith in the Christian God I was raised to believe in often carried shame, sin, and feelings of inadequacy. Still, I thought carefully about a new higher power. My therapist told me I had to believe in it, believe in its ability to protect me at all costs, and believe that this power existed in my life.
My protector was Mother Earth. It was undeniable. She created this calm, safe, happy place as if it was woven with the materials of her womb. The walls were knitted together with roots she grew and nourished, the grass was sprung from seeds she sowed, and it was her own blood that coursed through my healing waterfall. Mother Earth is as real to me in my real life as she is in my Calm Safe Happy Place.
Mother Earth had to be an active protector, not just an idea. I was asked to call on her to protect me whenever EMDR sessions took effect. She would bury my abuser under rubble in a fury of earthquakes. She would cradle me as I cried face down on the floor in a PTSD-induced panic.
What else do you want to bring to your Calm Safe Happy Place? She asked. I brought my deceased dachshund Libby and our beloved shepherd Cowboy. I brought my friend, who I won’t name. I invited my grandparents, who passed many years ago. Sometimes I bring a hurting friend and imagine them sitting in my Happy Place in complete safety. I regularly bring loved ones who have died. When my beloved kitty passed away, I asked him to live in my heart and in my Happy Place so that I could see him often. And I do.
The power of the Calm Safe Happy Place is great. I can be alone or invite my friends on this planet or other dimensions. I can bathe in healing waters or nap on the plush green grass. I can seek refuge and call on my ultimate protector when I need her.
Your Own Happy Place Meditation:
I invite you to establish a Calm Safe Happy Place. First, take a moment of meditation to ask yourself where you would feel safest in the world or even outside of this world. What would it look like? Then, go through each of the senses (sight, taste, smell, touch, sound) and establish the details of your Happy Place. Who would you bring, if anyone? What would you do there? What or who is your protector (it can be anything as long as you believe in its ability to protect you from harm)?
Meditate on your answers and try to visit your Happy Place often. Then, when you are in crisis, sadness, or turmoil, you can quickly establish this place in your mind. Finally, take a few deep breaths from the place you feel safest.
