Feeling Safe & Standing Strong
Feeling tense, reactive, overwhelmed, or like you’re carrying more than you need to? Feeling Safe Standing Strong is about the small things that can help us feel safer, steadier and more able to navigate the messy business of being human.
If you’re looking for practical, plain English ways to understand your nervous system, have kinder and clearer conversations with yourself and others, and feel a little more settled in your own skin, you’re in the right place.
Each episode brings together body-based practices, real conversations and simple frameworks you can actually use in the moments that matter. At work. At home. In relationships. When a conversation gets hard. When the day gets heavy. Or in those quiet moments when you simply need to come back to yourself.
No jargon. No pressure. Nothing that requires a psychology degree to understand.
These aren’t tools you have to master. They’re small things to notice, practise and return to. And the more familiar they become, the more likely they are to show up when you need them.
Hosted by Bronwyn Clee, Trauma Responsive Psychosocial Coach and Educator and Co-Founder of The Institute of Hope, in partnership with Protective Behaviours International.
Full transcripts available.
Take what helps. Leave what doesn’t. And come back whenever you need.
Feeling Safe & Standing Strong
Episode 1: When Safety Isn’t Obvious
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sometimes our bodies notice danger or discomfort before our minds catch on. In this episode, we explore the hidden ways our body signals us when something’s not quite right, even when nothing seems obvious on the surface. This is the foundation of psychological safety, recognising those subtle inner alarms and learning to respond with care.
We touch on how the nervous system works (drawing lightly from Polyvagal Theory, which explains how our body shifts between states of calm, alert, or shutdown), and connect this with Universal Protective Behaviours Pillar One: that we all have the right to feel safe, and also have the responsibility to respect others rights to feel safe.
Somatic Practices in this episode: **Somatic practices are simple ways of listening to and supporting our body so that we can respond with more clarity and care.
- Butterfly Hug — gentle rhythmic tapping to calm your system.
- 3:6 Grounding Breath — breathing with a longer exhale to help the body settle.
(You’ll be guided through each practice in the episode. Try them at your desk or adapt them while walking.)
By the end of this conversation, you’ll have a clearer sense of how safety shows up in your body and two simple tools to return to steadiness when safety isn’t obvious.
✨ Feeling Safe Standing Strong is brought to you by The Institute of Hope (IOH) in collaboration with Protective Behaviours International (PBI).
🌏 I have the privilege of living, loving, learning, and creating on Larrakia Country and I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.
🔗 Find out more at www.theinstituteofhope.com.au or www.protectivebehavioursinternational.net
