My story of using the Safe and Sound Protocol

Hello! It’s really good to have you here; please take some time, leave a comment and introduce yourself. My name is Rebecca — a client and provider of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP). 

I was first a client of SSP in my own therapy. My psychologist offered me the SSP intervention to access more regulation than I could naturally achieve at the time. My list of “symptoms” was fairly typical: anxiety, depression, racing thoughts, feeling stuck, and trouble sleeping. These were caused by relational problems and difficulties accessing the feeling of safety even when I was entirely safe. I had never heard of SSP and was skeptical but game to try something new.  

I listened to the protocol and found it unlike anything I had done before in my classes or trainings. I simply listened to music for two hours a day, five days in a row and felt experiences in my body that I had never been aware of having before. It moved me to tears and I experienced strong senses of ease and delight by the last day. Afterwards, my experience of being with others continued to ground me more deeply. A week or so after finishing the protocol, I had dinner with a few good friends followed by a show at the Denver Performing Arts Center. These were friends I saw regularly before this and the patterns of being with them were well established, and yet there was a newness there. I was more there, and consuming fears were further away. I laughed more, and felt it deeply. My body was relaxed and I was receiving the enjoyment coming at me. I felt safer and less afraid of rejection (something I didn’t know was so prominent even with close friends).

Some of this I couldn’t identify in words until afterwards, but during that dinner I could feel that something was different, and that it whatever it was, was really good. After that it wasn’t long before I did more research, started integrating somatic work with my own clients, revisited the protocol a number of months later, became trained in SSP and now provide the full and extended protocols for others. I’ve discovered that the music always helps! It’s like more oxygen rich air, or more clean water – it’s only better. 

My skepticism wore off, and the question emerged: what sort of magic is this? (Which incidentally one of my clients asked me not long ago as her son sat uncharacteristically quietly listening to it.) Check out the About page and subsequent posts to understand further the science behind this technology and intervention. It is magical. And that seems to be a good thing.

The first blog entries are primarily about the body – your body. You. A lot of learning needs to take place to focus on how to stay in and with our bodies. Many, if not most, readers here will have the tendency to become consumed by ideas and interesting thoughts, and yet experience almost no connection to their bodies.

You have your body. And always will. It’s very important in your mental health to stay rooted in that reality, and come to know your body. Intimately. Make friends with it. Fall in love with it, really. I imagine that conjures up a lot of mixed feelings to read that. Don’t worry, we’ll approach it manageably – together!