I had to say no to the thing I love most, in order to say yes to myself.

I recently fostered two rescue cats for 6 months. I adored them. Especially the nervous little baby who still scared easily despite all the time, patience, and care. I was entrusted with finding them the right home, and I took the responsibility seriously. I was nervous for the nervous cat, in finding him the right environment.

Somewhere along the way, when I reached out for support, I started feeling increasingly dismissed, blamed and misunderstood. When I first had a felt sense that something wasn’t right in the usual dynamic, I would check it out and ask for clarity, but felt further dismissed, causing me to doubt my own signal and lose internal certainty.

My pattern isn’t just seeking safety where I won’t find it, but losing trust in what I noticed when it wasn’t validated. And what I didn’t fully realise at the time was how much the cats themselves had also become part of my own sense of safety. So, I kept trying harder to fix it - trying to explain, prove it to be otherwise and to be reasonable enough for safety and connection to be restored again. I saw it elsewhere, but I thought I was different. I thought I could be the one to turn things around. I was repeating a pattern from childhood when chaos is also the safety of survival. No matter how much love, effort or care I gave, I still felt as though I was being cast as the problem.

Then it dawned on me, I was trying to seek safety from a place that would never be able to give me that safety. Realising that self-abandonment can look like repeatedly pleading with unsafe dynamics for people to understand us.

I knew what I had to do.  I could no longer doubt the internal signal that was getting increasingly louder. Heartbroken, I realised I had to take the cats back and cut ties completely. It broke my heart into a thousand pieces, feeling like I had failed them by not finding them a home. And it wasn't because I didn’t care for them enough to keep advocating for their interests. It was because I finally loved myself enough to stop remaining in something that was harming me.

Since the cats have gone back, I’ve realised the real teacher in this story was the nervous little one.

No matter how much I was trying to protect him, he never abandoned his instincts. He was agile, adaptive and responsive enough to get himself to safety from naught to a hundred the moment that doorbell rang each time. He hid when he didn’t feel safe. He waited. And he only came out when trust that had already been earned previously continued to be re-established.

Part of my healing journey is learning from that wisdom. To stop overriding myself in order to maintain connection and force safety, where it is repeatedly shown that there is none. And to trust the parts of myself that already know that. Even the parts that break down specifically when my perception is not mirrored back.

Breaking the pattern starts with awareness. Because when nervous system load becomes too high, we often stop responding to what is actually happening and start reacting from survival instead. My pattern isn’t just seeking safety where I won’t find it, but losing trust in what I noticed when it wasn’t validated.

So, I ask myself these questions in case my story helps you too:

•        What helps me recognise when someone or something feels unsafe or out of alignment?

•        Where do I notice that in my body?

•        How can I mentally log early signals, without needing to prove myself, explain myself or escalate the situation?

•        What does a safe exit strategy look like that doesn’t cause me further harm?

I can see that this experience moved me through the same process I use in my own work with clients around nervous system load and safety with my 4-step SAFE™ Framework:

S – Spot the strain
Recognise and name the load your nervous system is carrying.

A – Attune and anchor
Pause, resource and reconnect back to enough safety and internal grounding.

F – Focus and filter
Notice the beliefs, patterns, relationships or systems that are no longer aligned or supportive.

E – Edit and ease
Reduce unnecessary load, create safer boundaries and move towards outcomes that feel more sustainable and true.

Because sometimes healing doesn’t begin with forcing change. It begins with finally recognising what your nervous system has been trying to tell you all along.