Relearning How to Feel Safe in Good Things

When “good” once came with pain and loss, the body doesn’t trust goodness right away…

I am learning how to feel safe in good things. And if I’m honest… I don’t know if I trust them yet.

Goodness has not been a steady companion in my life. It has always felt temporary.

Fragile.

Conditional.

Something that arrives in soft hands, and leaves without warning.

Goodness has left me before.

Love has turned.

Safety has shifted.

Kindness has come with a cost I didn’t know I’d have to pay.

So now, when something good appears — connection, gentleness, affection, peace — my body does not melt into it.

It tightens.

It prepares.

It waits.

Because my nervous system learned the hard way:

Nothing stays.

Nothing is safe just because it feels safe.

Nothing good is guaranteed to remain what it says it is.

So even when goodness sits beside me now…

Even when someone is consistent, warm, steady…

Even when life gives me moments of softness…

There is still a part of me gripping the edge of the table, waiting for the crash I can’t see yet.

I don’t automatically trust good things. I don’t automatically trust love. I don’t automatically trust calm.

I brace.

I guard.

I hover at the entrance of relief instead of entering fully.

Because when “good” has repeatedly turned into loss…

Your body learns not to exhale.

So this is my work right now:

Not pretending I am healed.

Not pretending I am fearless.

Not pretending I believe in permanence just because I want to.

My work is noticing the flinch. Honoring the instinct to protect myself. Telling the truth that I am still scared of good things because good things have left before, and they left me alone with the ache.

Some days I cannot relax into tenderness. Some days joy feels like a trap door I know will open eventually. Some days I feel like I am gently cradling something beautiful with both hands while quietly whispering,

“Please don’t go. Please don’t go. Please don’t go.”

And maybe one day I’ll trust goodness enough to believe it can stay. Maybe one day I won’t brace against love while I’m holding it. Maybe one day my body will learn that not everything warm disappears.

But today…

I am learning to stay when something feels kind.

I am learning to let goodness touch me, even when my body trembles.

I am learning to allow softness into my life, even when it terrifies me.

Because even if I don’t fully trust good things yet…

I want to.

And that wanting — shaky and tender and scared as it is — feels like the first small doorway toward healing.