Relational safety test: a glass workshop

In this post I try to work out what is happening during tests to practice relational safety.

 I attended a glass workshop in another town. I thought this would be a good way of spending time around people to gain relational safety because.  Nothing bad was likely to happen.  I would gain a skill and spend an enjoyable time crafting..

When I arrived I realised I was very anxious simply from not knowing who the people were.  Pre-Pigface attacks I would have breezed in and started easily chatting to everyone, the way I was brought up to chat to anyone and everyone in any situation. I’ve had a lifetime’s experience of it and am well known for that being a long-standing skill and strength.  

But I was so shut down I wasn't able to make eye contact nor speak to any of the attendees.

Luckily there were no introductions.  The teacher explained the material and said we could apply our own designs using them.  We were expected to just have an artistic inspiration. 

Faced with this "have inspiration" idea, I fled to the loo on the verge of tears and panic and took anxiety medication.  I thought about leaving but calmed down enough to return. 

Thereafter if it were possible I felt even more shut down and avoidant.  There is not really a choice about this. A sense of fear that comes from somewhere that isn’t your conscious mind, takes over your reactions. 

The teacher came round to see what we were doing and to see if we needed help. 

I think I said the word “copy” with a nod to the example next to me.  

Eventually I was able to ask her questions about the work when I was stuck. 

Over the next few hours, I did the project, was glad and felt a sense of achievement both from getting through the experience and especially from making my piece. 

At lunch, I bolted my food and went out for a walk.

A woman I thought was too forward with someone who obviously didn’t want to be spoken to,  asked where I was from at lunch but that was it.  

Towards the end I was able to compliment someone on their design.

Nothing bad happened.  I wasn't threatened by anybody. 

I didn’t feel able to do anything but copy, with, in the end, some variations of my own, but I learned 4 techniques doing that.  It was a sensible choice. 

Why nervous of people who posed no threat?

So why was I so nervous of the people in the lantern workshop when it wasn't in my town when there was little chance of anyone from social services there and if they had, I wouldn’t have known it.  Why was the event so stressful?

I think my system no longer trusts its own ability to spot predators, manipulators, or coercive personalities before it's too late so it feels threat everywhere.  

But sometimes it does function when I feel in a safe environment, which usually means some “anchor”, something familiar or safe.  

So why when I go into an unknown cafe is everything fine? I think it’s because, provided the anchor there is is the ritual set process of ordering etc which I know and it’s predictable and therefore safe.  It’s very unlikely that the server is going to step out of their role.  

The workshop had none of that - unknown people, undefined expectations, and no social template so my system defaulted to: “all threats possible.”

I couldn’t invoke a script of “threats possible but unlikely” because that  relies on a cognitive override, which only works when the nervous system is already within its tolerable range.

But I was above the threshold where reasoning can down-regulate fear for the reasons stated. Once the body crosses that line, the brain can’t access “unlikely”, it only registers possible.

Why did “be inspired” make everything worse?

I was nervous when I went in, so what made it worse when the teacher talked about us conjuring up designs out of thin air as though it was normal and easy? Why did I panic at that, especially since I had always intended to copy and I believed then and later that it was a good choice? 

“Have inspiration now” is, neurologically, the exact opposite of safety: it requires openness, play, and social ease - states that trauma temporarily shuts down. Both the expectation to have a design and the complete absence of teaching you how to go about that means the system feels “I don’t know what’s required of me here.”

That implies exposure, visibility, and judgement at a moment when the system is already braced.

But I knew copying was OK, so why didn’t I just dodge that “have inspiration now” trigger?

The instruction implied: “Everyone here knows how to come up with a design, except you.” That hits the same circuitry as danger because it cues exposure, judgement, and the risk of getting something “wrong” in an unstructured space.  Again, the system was not able to cope with that in the state it was already in, that’s why it spiked panic even though rationally I knew copying was fine, a good option.