A therapists personal experience with the Safe and Sound Protocol
I decided to become trained in the Safe and Sound in January 2025, after hearing about it for months through brainspotting therapy groups and the success others were having supporting their clients. It was intriguing to me, especially the element of it being based in Polyvagal Theory and it being a listening therapy that clients could primarily do on their own with supportive guidance. You can read more about the potential positive benefits of Safe and Sound here . After completing the training, I began the protocol myself, as any good therapist would, to experiment on how the protocol actually feels to go through, and what changes I might experience myself. To be honest, I didn’t have an agenda in mind as to what I wanted to see change, I already do quite a bit of brainspotting and thought, “ My nervous system is already really grounded, this won’t shift much”. I really just wanted to experience it and see what it was like to go through it. I was excited to start the SSP, and felt myself wanting to just be through it so I could see what the results might be. I started the Safe and Sound at about 10 minutes per listening session based off my own personal history and how it felt to listen. The first hour as I was listening I did notice having some anxious thoughts while listening, but nothing overwhelming. I would listen with my partner present, or my dog, and typically before bed, though I did experiment with listening in the middle of the day once while folding laundry; I would not recommend trying to do housework while listening, it was not relaxing, and I ended my session early.
Once I got to hour 3, I found myself becoming so relaxed while listening I would actually fall asleep while listening, which in hindsight may have been a sign that I was going too fast through the protocol, but I wasn’t experiencing any dysregulation or side effects. I personally did not notice much change as I was going through the protocol the first time around until about a week after I completed the SSP, but I was also doing the protocol to myself and did not have someone checking in with me weekly about things I might be noticing; if I had, I may have noticed changes sooner. Upon finishing the protocol, I noticed I was sort of sad about not having the listening to do every night and considered starting the Balance program.
About a week after I had completed the protocol, one day I woke up and noticed that my stress was much lower. It was like someone had turned my stress dial down by 5 notches, and I hadn’t even realized it had been up! What this meant for me was several things, but most notably, I had more patience ( especially with my kids), I was more flexible with changes in plans, things that would have caused me to get anxious or annoyed cause more of an “eh” response. My brain would still have anxious thoughts, but my body wouldn’t respond with anxiety, and so I was able to stay calmer and respond with more intention. I hadn’t even realized that I was carrying this stress around until my dial was turned down; I wouldn’t have called myself an anxious person ( my partner may disagree!) but more that I was just always sort of “doing”. Even when resting, my brain was still thinking about things. That changed after SSP. There was a two week period after where I felt this incongruence around my brain wanting me to be anxious to take action and be more mobilized, and my body not responding and so feeling like I wanted to get anxious, but I couldn’t. Through brainspotting I was able to integrate this and access more playfulness and feel OK with not being worried that if I didn’t worry, everything would fall apart.
Other interesting changes I have noticed, I sleep better ( stay asleep where as sometimes I would wake in the middle of the night waiting for a kid to cry), I am even more in tune with my emotions and have more ability to manage them in the moment, time feels like it has slowed down, and I over all feel more positive and optimistic. I have also been sick less ( improved immune function?), can run faster and longer when I work out with more ease and am more open to being vulnerable with my partner. I also feel more open to a busy social schedule, where as before I sometimes dreaded the full weekend schedule, though I enjoy being around people.
In terms of how it has impacted me as a therapist, I have always been most attuned and intentional in the therapy room, but I notice that time seems to move slower in sessions, there feels less pressure to “get someplace” in sessions, and that after a long therapy day, I feel less emotionally drained while at the same time I feel even more emotionally attuned to clients in the moment. I feel it has improved my ability to do other therapy modalities, such as brainspotting, as I have more access to my intuition.
I also feel like SSP has increased my relationship with my animal friends, it feels like I can be more vulnerable and communicate with them non verbally in ways that I could not before. In particular, I think using SSP has helped my horse feel more grounded when around me.
Over all SSP has been a very positive experience for me, and I will likely repeat Core at some point to see what else may shift or change for me. Anyone who is curious about how they could be feel more connected, intentional, reduce their stress and anxiety or just over all improve their wellbeing may want to consider SSP as a way to help them on that journey!