Community as an anchor – staying connected to self, others and reality during turbulent times

This weekend, I met a friend for lunch and a stroll through the park. As we shared our news, lamented the price of a coffee in a central London café and promised to meet for wholesome Sunday walks more often, I felt a familiar sense of being re-resourced by taking time to relax, reconnect and enjoy some time out in nature. This was briefly disrupted by unexpectedly passing a far-right rally in the park – suddenly, the two of us seemed significantly outnumbered by people who would likely wish harm on us and many others. We moved on and inevitably spent a long time discussing the state of the world and how we might respond to an increasing sense of division and uncertainty. I reflected on what helps me to keep things in perspective and feel safe when things feel scary and hopeless, and immediately thought of various communities that I’m part of, and the concepts of mutual support and safety in numbers. I also remembered some tools from trauma therapy, like Babette Rothschild’s oases, anchors and safe places[1], which are helpful in addressing feelings of overwhelm and detachment. Bringing the therapeutic concepts and the idea of community together, I’ve been considering community as a form of anchor, which might serve to keep us grounded and connected.

What are oases, anchors and safe places?
An oasis is an activity that you enjoy, and that you need to concentrate on (such as knitting, playing an instrument, learning a language, or cooking from a recipe). If you can carry out the activity on ‘autopilot’ without really thinking, it won’t function as an oasis unless you incorporate something new or challenging into the activity (such as learning a new piece of music or trying a new knitting pattern). This serves to give your conscious mind a break from potentially spiralling, as well as using the positive associations with the activity to signal to you that it’s time to relax and recover from stress responses.

An anchor, is something or someone external that exists in material reality (rather than something that you can imagine or draw upon from within yourself), and that you find supportive in some way. Anchors can be objects, places or people that create a sense of calm in your mind and body when you are in contact with them or when you think about them. Anchors can be identified and used in therapeutic settings when a client becomes overwhelmed and needs support with getting grounded. The therapist might ask a question about the anchor in order to take a break from distressing content and to offer a nervous system reset.

A safe place is, as the name suggests, a place where you feel or have previously felt safe and relaxed, and it’s a specific type of anchor. Ideally, this should be a real place that you can call to mind, in order to make use of somatic markers (or memories of colours, sounds, smells, textures, body sensations etc.) associated with it. This safe place can be called to mind during times of high stress or overwhelm, and may also be used in modalities such as hypnotherapy.

The aim with all of the above is grounding and re-connection (to self, to here-and-now reality, to safety). While this might be directly applied in situations where people are experiencing post traumatic stress, they can also be helpful concepts for anyone at a time when we may be feeling overwhelmed, unsafe, disconnected or powerless in response to what’s happening in the world.

How might community become an anchor?

Maintaining wellbeing and being safe requires a balance of self and collective care. Exploring and finding this balance of looking after ourselves and others (while allowing ourselves to receive support when we need it) feels especially important in a context of widespread unrest and a social structure set up to benefit profit over people, as we’re increasingly sold the idea that our wellbeing is entirely our own responsibility. Hyper-individualistic society necessitates a ‘one up/one down’ structure and competition over collaboration; while highly collectivist societies may sideline the needs of individuals in favour of the needs of the group, potentially leading to aspects of a person’s identity or choices being suppressed. Community that respects the autonomy of all of its members, and offers space where people feel supported and equally valued can be part of recovery, personal development and social change processes. It can also be a means of safety, with looking out for and protecting each other being part of the remit during times when there are significant threats or a lack of institutional resources and safeguarding.

Community can become a form of ‘anchor’ by offering a real-world experience of human connection, support and collective power. If a community feels safe and grounding, it’s something we can call to mind to anchor ourselves in moments of disconnection (either through recalling our experiences of being together, or by reaching out to the community in a bid for connection). There are so many distressing things in the world that we’re being relentlessly exposed to, and that lead to a sense of instability, powerlessness and disconnect. In a world of quick and cheap dopamine hits and algorithmically driven content, my first instinct when I feel overwhelmed by distressing news and doomscrolling is often to seek connection and people expressing shared values through online platforms. I’m not advocating for throwing the baby out with the bath water and getting rid of this. But there’s something important about the embodied, real-time, and relatively uncurated nature of connecting with people in person that offers a good foundation for developing authentic and strong connections and alliances, away from the profit driven influence of most online platforms. In-person interaction, community and movement can offer solid ways out of the stuckness. Supportive and robust relationships with others can also allow them to fulfil the role of anchor, which becomes one of the resources supporting us to re-regulate our nervous systems and reconnect with our Adult capacity when we start to drift.

What might building communities that serve as anchors and places of safety look like?

The older I get, the more I notice how difficult it can be to carve out space and time to get a group of adults together, given the responsibilities and pressures of work, family, and all the various tasks involved in living in a fast paced society during an economic crisis. Slowing down and protecting time to nurture multiple relationships can be a challenge at the best of times. And finding the energy to engage in the often messy business of being in community with people with different and potentially competing needs, ideas and ways of communicating might be an even bigger challenge. So, we need leverage – what is the shared set of values, goals, interests or needs that makes it worth the cat-herding efforts, social contracting, miscommunication and conflicting ideas that will likely arise as we attempt to build inclusive and powerful communities? It might be addressing a social issue or injustice, sharing an activity we’re passionate about, being together in a space that allows us to unmask, feel seen and give/receive support. It might be a space where we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and connect with ourselves and each other on a deeper level, or it might be a space for playfulness, levity and a break from the heaviness of the world. At different times, it might be all of the above. As I write this, I’m thinking about a couple of examples of groups and communities that fulfil all of these needs for me, and as I do so, I notice the impact on my breathing, which in turn, allows me to let go of some of the tension I’ve been carrying around. And that’s an example of community as anchor.

I’ll admit that it’s not always been easy to get to a place where a community gives me more nourishment and energy than it asks of me (sometimes it’s remarkably easy, but I think there’s an element of luck in that). I’ve been part of many developing groups and communities in different contexts, often with challenges arising when something functioned well in the context of a small group of friends building a group activity or supportive space together; and then struggled to keep up with expectations, access needs and the need for more formalised agreements when it grew into something bigger. In order to become the safe anchor, there has to be something worth persisting through the ‘storming’ phase for, clarity of purpose and communication, and a desire to work together to overcome obstacles. We can never be all things to all people, and my own and others’ experiences demonstrate the unfortunate reality that someone may feel shortchanged no matter how much effort we put into creating safe, accessible, welcoming and compassionate spaces. We may need to manage expectations about what can be offered and how we will need to work together to address challenges (as opposed to organisers providing a service for people showing up in ‘customer’, rather than ‘contributor’ mode).

There is also an edge to the concept of safety in terms of community building – in any given group, people can work together to agree and implement a social contract that aims to address any barriers to people feeling welcome, valued and as psychologically safe as possible. But we can’t eliminate risk, conflict, competing needs and being in community with people we may not get on with (even if we share common goals or values). There’s a limit to the promise of safety and comfort; and yet, within these boundaries, it’s still possible to create the conditions for healthy challenge, disagreement and overcoming obstacles without compromising an overall sense of safety. If we each take responsibility for developing and practising the self-awareness and communication skills necessary to navigate this, we’ve already done most of the work required to build communities that keep each other safe, grounded, connected and hopeful.

Having shared goals and values, and a sense of our collective power can help us to address feelings of helplessness, dissociation and overwhelm, which feels like something that’s desperately needed right now. In the midst of so many storms, it’s important to be able to pause and put anchors in place, and to find places of safety in which we can rest and recover before braving the elements again.  

[1] Rothschild, Babette, 2000; The Body Remembers

Psychological safety

In recent times, the term ‘psychological safety’ seems to have become something of a buzzword. Outside the therapeutic circles I tend to move in, I’ve also heard people talk about it in relation to team meetings, political disagreements on social media platforms and other situations involving groups of people. And I must say, I am pleased to hear terms like this used in popular discourse (as long as they’re meant genuinely).  

Safety is a concept that can’t have been far from anyone’s mind lately. This may be a more practical, rather than emotional form of safety – assessing the risk of a trip to the local shop during lockdown, asking ourselves ‘should I self-isolate?' when we perceive the slightest tickle in our throats, weighing up the pros and cons of meeting a friend in the park for a socially distanced catch up. These decisions might weigh heavily on the psyche for some of us. Our perception of safety, or lack thereof, is psychological. Material risks may not be directly altered by the power of our minds – they exist regardless of our acknowledgement. But our individual relationships to managing risks have a bearing on how we go on to interact with them. At the risk of shaming different approaches to dealing with Covid-19, it’s an interesting study in our different approaches to safety. From those who were furious about joggers continuing their exercise regime in public because they assessed the risk to be critical, to those who flat out denied that anything out of the ordinary was taking place and that the virus is ‘just a flu’, perception informs behaviour, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever before seen an example of this scale where our choices could so profoundly affect the lives of others.  

When I talk about psychological safety, I’m not just referring to the mental risk assessments we all regularly carry out, but they’re a crucial part of the picture. For me, psychological safety is about creating an environment where people feel emotionally safe enough* to allow themselves to be vulnerable and to be seen and heard as they truly are. The term appears in the therapy and coaching worlds because they are about self-reflection, making sense of things that have hurt us and allowing ourselves to be witnessed in a state of vulnerability. In order to feel safe enough to do this work, we need to be able to trust the person or people we’re sharing with. Our mental risk assessment might involve asking questions like ‘will they keep my story confidential?’, ‘do they have my best interests at heart?’ and ‘are they reliable?’ As someone who is trusted with the gift of other people’s stories, emotions and thoughts, I take the responsibility of building a safe enough environment for my clients very seriously. This influences the physical environments I work in, how I set up and contract at the beginning of a relationship with a client, how I organise my time in order to be consistently available and how I respond to clients in session. Occasionally, things go wrong in a client-coach relationship – with enough rapport, trust and safety built up, we can move past any misunderstandings and use them as a powerful learning process.  

This way of thinking has influenced how I am outside of my professional practice. I tend to be acutely aware of how psychologically safe a given situation feels, and will adjust my choices accordingly. I should also add that I am a naturally risk-averse person. Or perhaps it’s less ‘natural’ and more learned. I grew up in a family that had endured an unusual amount of tragedy by the time I came along. My life, health and safety were upheld as the most precious commodity – not to be squandered by doing dangerous things. Of course, there were times in my youth when I rebelled against this as hard as I possibly could. But the tendency to shy away from risk remains. It’s something I work to override when I perceive a risk to be worth taking.  

And so, as we cautiously creep out of our homes after three months of relative isolation, my risk assessment process threatens to go into overdrive. While large gatherings are not yet permitted in London, there will soon come a time when I need to use the city’s notoriously busy public transport system. The question of trust appears in this context as I consider whether those running services will prepare adequately to manage risks, whether I can trust my fellow commuters to take necessary precautions and whether the ‘powers that be’ are offering sensible guidance (I’ll let you guess my take on that last question). And hopefully, before too long, it will be safe to congregate in larger groups again. I imagine that, in our first forays into a wider social life, many of us will experience feelings of elation, relief and a new appreciation for experiences we may have previously taken for granted. But I also expect there to be anxiety and awkwardness for those of us who tend towards a more cautious relationship with risk. How can we reach a place where we feel able to trust not only the people closest to us, but the people we share cultural and physical space with? How do we build psychological safety on a grander scale? This question feels especially pertinent in the current climate of oppression being brought fully into the light, civil unrest and resistance. And it’s one that I do not claim to have an answer to, but we can start with a moment of self-reflection. We can ask ourselves questions like ‘what makes me feel safe and why?’, ‘how do I react when I feel threatened?’ and ‘how do I react when my view of the world is challenged?’. An honest examination of these questions may yield some hard truths. It can be helpful to discuss these with someone we feel psychologically safe with. I believe that getting to know what makes us feel safe and why we feel, think and act the way we do is at least the first step towards collective safety and from there, on to healing the deep rifts in our societies. 

*I refer to ‘safe enough’ or ‘safer spaces’, rather than ‘safe spaces’ because we can only take steps that contribute to another person’s sense of safety. We can’t create it for them. If someone has a deep internal sense of being unsafe due to trauma, we can mitigate by building enough trust and a secure enough environment for them to begin working on this. It’s neither transparent, nor realistic to claim that “you will feel safe here”.