OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

When safety triggers what chaos concealed.

After a long storm, when the sea finally calms, it is not unusual for debris to rise to the surface. During the chaos, everything is stirred at the bottom: memories, fragments, the remains of old shipwrecks. The turbulence keeps us busy resisting, staying afloat. But when the waters grow still, when the danger passes, what was submerged becomes visible. Not because the sea has grown more dangerous, but because it is finally calm enough to reveal what was always there.

Entering a relationship that genuinely feels safe can be a deeply paradoxical experience. There is relief, steadiness, a newfound sense of solid ground — and yet, at the same time, unexpected reactions arise: sudden anxiety, intrusive thoughts, waves of insecurity or jealousy that seem disproportionate to the situation. For those who have spent a long time in unstable relationships, this can feel confusing, even alarming. The instinct is to read these signals as proof that something is wrong. Often, however, the opposite is true.

When the nervous system has spent too long in survival mode, it learns simple rules to endure impact: hypervigilance, anticipation of loss, emotional self-control. Love becomes synonymous with risk. Even after the storm has passed, the body remains alert, braced for the next blow. The rational mind may recognise that the current relationship is different — safer, clearer, more present — but the body has yet to receive that update. And the body speaks a different language: sensations, impulses, automatic reactions.

When the nervous system has spent too long in survival mode, it learns simple rules to endure impact: hypervigilance, anticipation of loss, emotional self-control.

This is why, within emotionally safe bonds, seemingly contradictory states can emerge: the urge to flee when everything is going well, fear of being truly seen, discomfort with calm, guilt for not feeling perpetually light or resolved. This is not regression, nor emotional immaturity. It is integration. It is the nervous system testing whether it is truly safe to lower its guard.

Why it shows up in healthy relationships

There is a reason these patterns rarely surface in chaotic relationships. Chaos keeps us occupied with survival. There is no room to feel — only to react. Safety, by contrast, creates silence. And in silence, everything that was pushed to the bottom finds its way to the surface. Healthy relationships do not create wounds; they reveal the ones that were already there.

There is a reason these patterns rarely surface in chaotic relationships. Chaos keeps us occupied with survival. There is no room to feel — only to react.

There is also a common trap within contemporary narratives around “inner work”: the belief that, after enough introspection, therapy or self-awareness, we should be ready. Healed. Immune. Reality is less linear. Intimate relationships are the final mirror. They inevitably reveal layers that cannot be accessed outside connection: attachment wounds, pre-verbal fears, responses learned long before we had language to name them. This does not negate the work done. It completes it.

Not everything the body interprets as threat is real danger. Often, it is memory. The body reacts as if something is about to happen, even when, this time, it is not. In a safe relationship, these responses are not weaponised nor treated as failure. They become material for repair.

The real work of emotional safety

The real work in a safe relationship is not about controlling emotions, minimising reactions or becoming “easy to love”. It is about learning to name what is being activated, resisting the urge to flee at the first sign of discomfort, and staying. Safety is built in real time, not in theory. Each moment of insecurity that does not escalate, each impulse recognised before it takes over the narrative, is a small internal recalibration. A body learning that stability is not a threat, that affection does not require drama, that calm does not necessarily precede loss.

Even within apparently stable family environments, when affection was expressed more through actions than through consistent emotional presence, the body may have learned to associate love with intensity, tension or constant testing. Years later, within a secure relationship, these echoes can surface with force — not because something is wrong, but because something is finally being felt.

With awareness, time and consistency, these activations become shorter, softer, less absolute. The nervous system updates slowly. Perhaps true healing is not the absence of fear, but the realisation that, this time, we are not alone with it.

I am writing this during a symbolic week. In a few days, I will mark one year in a relationship that is, without hesitation, the most beautiful thing that has happened to me in love — and, perhaps for that very reason, the one that has brought the most to the surface. Not because it is unstable, but because it is safe. It is not always easy to face parts of ourselves we believed resolved, or to encounter versions of ourselves that can, at times, be unsettling. Having an emotionally available partner throughout this process has been essential, as has clinical support and the ongoing learning of how to distinguish between real danger and bodily memory. The awareness that this is happening — and the growing capacity to stay, to observe, and not to react immediately — may be the clearest sign of transformation. Because when the storm passes, the real work begins in the stillness of calm waters.