When Compassion Collides With Safety

I had been paired for the exercise with the one person in the group who I knew in my bones I did not want to work with.

The resistance I felt toward them was intense and unusual. Within thirty seconds of striking up a conversation with anyone new, they would tell the same story: a tantric journey interrupted by cancer, years lost, difficulty finding people willing to practice with them. The words themselves were factual. But underneath - in the micro-expressions, the slight pout, the tone - was something else entirely.

It was instantly familiar.

From my experience with an ex who routinely positioned himself as a victim to garner sympathy and approval, I could feel my nervous system reacting to something subtle but unmistakable: a solicitation of my emotional energy that did not feel consensual.

My body knew before I had words for it.

Nothing overt had happened. They had not crossed a boundary. They had not touched without permission. They had not said anything explicitly inappropriate.

That’s what makes this particular shadow so difficult to name.

It doesn’t look like aggression. It doesn’t sound like entitlement. It hides behind vulnerability.

If you haven’t been burned by this pattern before, you might not even see it.

But I have.

The Dilemma of Conscious Spaces

We both found ourselves in a beautifully held space. Inclusive, compassionate, trauma-aware. The facilitators were skilled. The structure was thoughtful. Nothing about the container was careless.

And that is partly what made this so complex.

In spaces that value compassion and inclusivity, naming something can feel disruptive. When the field is oriented toward making room for everyone, it becomes surprisingly difficult to say: something in me does not feel safe.

There is also a deeper layer at play. Women are conditioned to keep men comfortable. We internalise that smoothing tension is mature. That “everyone deserves space” is a higher virtue than honoring our own contraction.

And sometimes, that conditioning quietly overrides a more primal truth.

This happened in a conscious space. But it could just as easily have happened at work. In a relationship. At a dinner table.

Anywhere we override the body in the name of something else.

Exploring the Edge

When it came time for the exercise, I told myself this was an opportunity. A safe container. A chance to explore my edge consciously rather than avoid it.

When I was offering touch, I stayed regulated. I tracked my breath. I checked in about pressure. I followed the structure, and I found I could hold the space with clear compassion.

Then it was my turn to receive.

I chose no contact - just their hand hovering a foot above my sternum. Even that felt like a stretch. I squirmed under their gaze and struggled with eye contact. I work with men all the time, but my discomfort in this instance was intense.

I stayed. I breathed. I tried to find safety inside myself.

And I could feel I was getting close to the edge of dysregulation.

When the facilitator invited receivers to share their experience, I began to speak. I said I didn’t feel entirely safe. I could feel I was near the edge.

Instead of simply hearing me, they interrupted.

“Oh yes, I can feel it,” they said - and began offering advice.

In that moment, something in me flipped.

My body was no longer in that training room. It was in my ex’s kitchen. Frozen. Trapped. Not being heard.

I had been reading Peter Levine’s In an Unspoken Voice, so the anatomy of what was happening was fresh in my mind. My system had surged into a trauma response - not because of what was happening in that moment alone, but because of what had once happened and had never fully completed.

Years ago, in that kitchen, I had not been able to remove myself. My body had stayed and endured, paralysed.

This time, I stood up. I got dressed. I walked out. I sobbed. My body shook. My teeth chattered.

The trauma cycle completed.

What had once been frozen had finally moved.

The Real Edge

Later, once my system settled, the deeper reflection began.

The flashback was not the only thing to look at.

There had been an earlier moment. The first conversation. The instant contraction. The quiet knowing.

I had seen the shadow clearly.

So why did I wait?

Part of the answer is conditioning. Another part is subtler: the desire to be seen as compassionate. To prove that I can hold complexity. To demonstrate (if only to myself) that I am beyond my triggers.

But compassion that overrides the body is not compassion. It is self-abandonment disguised as virtue.

A friend of mine - a trained craniosacral therapist - told me that during her training, she had moments where she wanted to explore edges and found herself in similar situations. She learned two essential practices: ask for support sooner (really quickly), and name what’s happening from the very beginning.

She found that by naming her experience early - tracking what was going on in her body and voicing it - the energy she was struggling with would often shift. By naming it, she gave the boundary a form it didn’t otherwise have.

Earlier naming. That’s the edge.

Not withdrawal. I already know how to remove myself.

What I’m learning is nervous system honesty in real time. Clean communication before the surge.

It might have sounded like this in that first conversation, when they started telling their victim narrative:

“I’m feeling a roiling sensation in my belly and tightness in my chest. I need to step away from this conversation right now.”

Maybe that would have shifted things already at the start - way before the practice ever began.

When Only Your Body Knows

This particular shadow is difficult to address because most people won’t see it. On the surface, it looks harmless. It might even appear courageous. Other men will likely experience it as completely benign.

Unless you have suffered at its hands, you probably won’t recognise it.

It’s the grown man with the energy of a small child pouting for a kiss on their boo-boo. And when that energy shows up in a context where the group isn’t attuned to it, you face a dilemma: how do you trust your intuition when the collective understanding doesn’t validate what you’re feeling?

The answer: trusting your body doesn’t require external validation. Learning to hold that trust when you’re the only one who sees what you see - that requires practice.

I didn’t ask for support on Sunday. It didn’t even occur to me. But now I see: the earlier I name what I’m sensing, the more clarity I have about my boundaries - and the less likely I am to override them.

The Courage to Trust

This is not just about trusting the body. It’s about having the courage to trust it against all odds - even when the group consensus says everything is fine, even when you risk appearing unkind or reactive, even when you can’t fully articulate why.

And then taking the next step: naming the experience out loud.

That’s where the healing really begins.

Healing the Field

I am committed to healing the damaged space between men and women. And that repair requires both sides to take responsibility for the energy we bring into the room and practice bringing our shadow into the light.

On my side, that means continuing to refine clean communication. Naming earlier. Trusting my nervous system. Speaking from sensation rather than accusation. Allowing discomfort in the field without rushing to smooth it over. And refusing to perform safety when my body does not feel safe.

I know from experience that when I show up in a really clean, really powerful way, the shadows shift. But I also know I haven’t quite found my way in effectively meeting this particular energy.

I’ve moved past the fawning stage - the automatic pattern of keeping men comfortable. I’ve stepped into a place where I can see this shadow clearly and remove myself from it without encouraging it.

The third stage, I think, is challenging it by how I show up: with love, but also with clarity and strength.

This is the work.

And it is ongoing.

I am learning that harmony built on self-abandonment is not harmony at all. It is silence dressed up as virtue.

So I’ll leave you with this:

Where are you still performing compassion when your body is screaming no? And what might shift in your relationships - with your partner, your children, your colleagues - if you found the courage to name what’s true in your body?