The Safety To Speak

Hey Data Collectors! It’s Sav!,

I hope y’all are doing well! Happy October!!! I am so excited! I love my favorite month of the year! 🥰🎃 Come get cozy and hang out with me as we explore the question I keep coming back to.

Can somebody disappoint the image we created of them without us needing to excuse what they do or destroy the entire person?

There’s a lot tucked inside that question. As you listen, notice who comes to mind and whether any part of this brings you back to yourself. Maybe you’ve been the disappointed person or you’re also been the person someone struggled to see beyond their disappointment.

I’ve left a few questions below for wherever this conversation meets you. You don’t have to answer all of them. Start with the one you keep thinking about after the recording ends.

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A few things to sit with after listening

This is where I would add something the recording doesn’t already give them. Don’t summarize yourself. Give them somewhere to take the conversation.

Reflection

1. What exactly was disrupted?Think about someone who deeply disappointed you. Was the pain entirely about what happened, or was some of it about realizing “I didn’t think you were somebody capable of doing this”?

2. What did your mind do with the new information?Did you minimize what happened so you could preserve your existing image of them? Or did your mind begin gathering evidence that they were actually terrible all along?

3. What did you believe this person represented?Safety? Loyalty? Wisdom? Honesty? Stability? Protection? Sometimes understanding what collapsed tells us why a particular disappointment affected us so profoundly.

4. Can understanding and accountability coexist?Can you become curious about why somebody behaved the way they did without turning that understanding into an excuse for what they did?

5. What would integration look like?Try finishing this sentence without erasing either side:

“It is true that __________, and it is also true that __________.”

If something came up while you were listening, I’d love to hear what stayed with you. What did this conversation bring into focus or leave you questioning?

You can share a reflection in the comments without sharing the whole story. I’m still sitting with some of this myself.

Welcome to my corner of the internet, where we explore human behavior, challenge our thinking, and practice having the uncomfortable conversations here so we can have them out there.

I'm Savannah, but you can call me Sav. I'm a licensed Psychotherapist, Educator and a fellow human being navigating this whole experience called life alongside you. My work brings together social psychology, behavioral psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, spirituality and lived experience to explore the patterns shaping how we think, behave, relate and experience the world through our filtration system. We explore conditioning and its impacts to society and to our minds!

Okay, Now What? is my advice column in podcast form. You bring your real-life situations into the conversation, and we explore different perspectives, ask uncomfortable questions and find ways to put what we're learning into practice. Because the real work happens out in the wild.

DISCLAIMER:

This podcast is for education, commentary and personal reflection. Although I am a licensed professional, this content is not psychotherapy, individualized mental health advice or a substitute for professional care. Listening, commenting or submitting a letter does not establish a therapist-client relationship. Listener submissions are discussed for educational purposes and do not constitute clinical assessments or diagnoses.

Knowledge is power. Ignorance is a choice.

Let’s get out there and expose ourselves into development!

I'll see you out in the wild!

— Sav

Research References Mentioned

* Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made

* Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the Heart

* Gottman, J. M. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

* Lerner, H. (1985). The Dance of Anger

* Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight

Knowledge is power. Ignorance is a choice

As always come as you are where you are. 🫶🏽

Remember knowledge is power ignorance is a choice.

References

Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. International Universities Press.

Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. M. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family therapy. Harper & Row.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.

Cozolino, L. (2014). The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing social brain (2nd ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.

Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. Viking.

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown Publishers.

Hochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. Viking.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lerner, H. G. (1985). The dance of anger: A woman’s guide to changing the patterns of intimate relationships. Harper & Row.

Perry, B. D., & Winfrey, O. (2021). What happened to you?: Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Flatiron Books.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Satir, V. (1983). Conjoint family therapy (3rd ed.). Science and Behavior Books.

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

Welwood, J. (2000). Toward a psychology of awakening: Buddhism, psychotherapy, and the path of personal and spiritual transformation. Shambhala Publications.

Extended Reading

For those who wish to go deeper down the rabbit hole, I highly recommend the following:

📚 The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der KolkTrauma, nervous system activation, and how the body stores unresolved emotional experiences.

📚 The Polyvagal Theory — Stephen PorgesUnderstanding safety, connection, threat detection, and the nervous system’s role in relationships.

📚 The Dance of Anger — Harriet LernerA foundational exploration of resentment, boundaries, self-abandonment, and overfunctioning.

📚 Family Therapy in Clinical Practice — Murray BowenThe gold standard for understanding family systems, emotional fusion, differentiation, and inherited relational patterns.

📚 Invisible Loyalties — Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy & Geraldine SparkAn exploration of intergenerational burdens, relational debts, destructive entitlement, and inherited family obligations.

📚 The Neuroscience of Human Relationships — Louis CozolinoHow relationships shape the brain, regulate the nervous system, and influence emotional functioning.

📚 What Happened to You? — Bruce Perry & Oprah WinfreyA practical and accessible introduction to trauma-informed understanding and nervous system development.

📚 Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel KahnemanHow cognitive biases, assumptions, and mental shortcuts shape perception and decision-making.

📚 How Emotions Are Made — Lisa Feldman BarrettA powerful challenge to traditional views of emotion that helps explain why perception is so central to human experience.

Key Points for Integration

* Predictive Processing: The nervous system doesn’t just react to the present; it creates a “mental rehearsal” of the future based on past trauma. This leads to a high allostatic load, where the body stays in a state of “functional freeze” or hypervigilance.

* The Dopamine-Discomfort Loop: Constant engagement with high-reward stimuli (social media, “outsourcing” feelings) lowers our affect tolerance. This makes ordinary life feel physically painful, causing us to avoid necessary developmental growth.

* Family Projection Process: When we cannot regulate our own shame or anxiety, we unconsciously “leak” it onto our partners or children. This is a primary driver of multigenerational trauma.

* External vs. Internal Locus of Control: Real healing requires moving from an external focus (blaming others, demanding they change) to an internal focus (holding boundaries, choosing yourself, and sitting in the “heat” of the moment).

* The Chaos-Homeostasis Connection: For those raised in high-stress systems, the “lake” (safety) feels boring. We may subconsciously sabotage peace because our nervous systems are wired to perceive chaos as “vitality.”

Extended Reading List

For the Neurobiology Enthusiast

* “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk: A foundational text on how trauma is physically stored in the body and nervous system.

* “Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain” by Lisa Feldman Barrett: A shorter, accessible look at how the brain “predicts” your reality rather than just reacting to it.

For the Family Systems Seeker

* “Extraordinary Relationships” by Roberta Gilbert: An excellent introduction to Bowen Family Systems Theory, focusing specifically on differentiation and triangles.

* “The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller: A deep dive into how children adapt to their parents’ unmet emotional needs, often leading to the “overfunctioning” discussed in the essay.

For the “Dopamine Nation” Context

* “Dopamine Nation” by Dr. Anna Lembke: Crucial for understanding why we are collectively losing the ability to tolerate boredom or emotional pain.

* “The Joy of Missing Out” by Tanya Dalton: A practical look at re-centering your life around your own values rather than the “external scan” of productivity and social pressure.

For the Boundary & Self-Work Journey

* “Parenting from the Inside Out” by Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell: Focuses on how our own childhood histories affect our parenting and how to break the cycle through self-understanding.

* “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman: Offers data-driven insights into the “gridlock” and communication patterns that happen when couples stop growing together.

Reflective Question

As you move from reading to practicing, which area of your life currently feels like the “hottest potato” the place where you are most tempted to focus on others’ failures rather than your own capacity for choice?

References

Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson.

Gottman, J. M. (1994). What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional contagion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2(3), 96–100.

Hebb, D. O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. Wiley.

Helgeson, V. S. (1994). Relation of agency and communion to well-being: Evidence and explanations. Psychological Bulletin, 116(3), 412–428.

Kerr, M. E., & Bowen, M. (1988). Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory. W. W. Norton & Company.

Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. Dutton.

Levy, M. S. (1998). A conceptualization of the repetition compulsion. Psychiatry, 61(1), 45–53.

McEwen, B. S. (2005). Stressed or stressed out: What is the difference? Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 30(5), 315–318.

Miller, A. (1981). The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self. Basic Books.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28.

Schore, A. N. (2012). The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Shaver, K. G. (1970). Defensive attribution: Effects of severity and relevance on the responsibility assigned for an accident. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14(2), 101–113.

Siegel, D. J., & Hartzell, M. (2003). Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive. TarcherPerigee.