How I learned to feel safe in my mind and body

Earlier this week I wrote a piece on how “Anxiety is not just in your head” and one of the main ideas I shared was...

If you want to heal anxiety, you need to teach yourself to feel safe again.

In this blog, I want to share how I learned to feel safe in my mind and body.

If you’ve ever felt like your mind is running your life…

The overthinking, the emotional spirals, the impatience, you’re not alone.

I've been there as well and I know it sucks.

Most people with anxiety either just suppress it and pretend it doesn't exist or they try to escape it completely.

They try to distract themselves, keep busy and avoid it all together.

And when that doesn’t work, they assume something is wrong with them.

Here’s the truth: 

• You don’t feel anxious because your brain is broken.
• You feel anxious because you don’t feel safe in your mind or your body.

This is what I've learned over the last 15 years of working on myself and now having helped 100's of other professionally.

It's why I'm so passionate about meditation and self development.

Not as a spiritual escape or a mental health hack…

But as a way to train yourself into focus, concentration and real, grounded, nervous-system-level safety.

I didn’t understand any of this when I first started meditation.

I was 17, struggling internally but pretending I was fine. 

I was overthinking, reactive, scattered, and living on autopilot.

I didn’t want to go on medication.

I didn’t want to rely on anything external to fix my internal world. 

One day I read a blog post that said: “do some meditation.” So I did.

No training, no expectations, just a naive belief that... “if I keep doing this, it’ll help.”

Honestly, that naivety saved me.

I didn’t overthink it.

I didn’t question whether it was working.

I just showed up every day or every other day for years. 

And looking back, that blind faith created the foundation for everything I now teach.

What I want to give you here is the shortcut I didn’t have…

• How to feel safe in your mind and body.
• What’s happening beneath the surface
• How presence (not perfection) becomes the thing that heals you.

This is the meditation philosophy that I’ve developed over the last 15 years of practice:

1. Training your ability to be present builds a sense of internal safety. 

2. A sense of safety within your mind and body, heals your entire system.

3. You stop living with fear and you start living with faith.

Finally, it becomes a choice.

Let’s break this down...

The 5 Core Beliefs Helped Me Create Internal Safety

Before we get into the neuroscience that backs all of this up, I want to share some of the core beliefs that helped me along the way.

These are beliefs I would consistently repeat in my mind and they ended up changing my life:

1. There is nothing wrong.

This one belief could transform your anxiety. 

Most people live their entire life believing something is wrong… with them, with their mind, with their past, with their future.

The belief “something is wrong” creates the fear response.

The belief “nothing is wrong” deactivates it.

It allows you to enter into a state of acceptance of the experience you’re having in the present moment.

2. Everything is as it should be.

When you see life as perfectly unfolding, instead of constantly going to shit, you soften into the experience instead of fighting against it. 

3. I am home.

I’ve repeated this mantra everywhere… meditating on floors, in hostels, in airports, and even while living in a tent on a beach in Turkey when I was backpacking around Europe in 2013.

Saying “I am home” in your meditation practice helps you create a sense of internal belonging. 

No matter where I was, I could feel safe and at ease within myself.

4. I am the universe and this is my playground.

This shifts you out of fear and into curiosity.

It opens your mind up to limitless possibilities.

Life becomes less of a threat and more of an experience that’s full of potential.

5. I am safe.

Simple and powerful... Breathe into this one.

Learn to actually create that feeling of safety in the present moment.

Use these beliefs in meditation, journaling, or even during the day.

Over time, they train your system to feel grounded rather than threatened.

Presence: The Bridge Between Your Mind, Body & Safety

Now let’s talk about what actually happens in your brain when you’re present.

This is the stuff that explains why meditation works so well for anxiety.

Most people think meditation is about stopping thoughts.

It’s not.

Meditation is about shifting your attention into the present moment, and when you do that, your entire brain (and body) comes into coherence.

Your mind and heart will find harmony and alignment.

Here’s what’s happening in your brain when you are in the present moment.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) slow down.

This is the part of your brain responsible for:

• Overthinking
• Rumination
• Self-criticism
• Imaginary problems
• Past/future spiraling
  

When the DMN is loud, you’re trapped in mental stories.

This is kinda like day-dreaming.

The DMN is active when you’re in a passive state of mind.

That’s why I teach people to practice ACTIVE & FOCUSSED meditation

This is why even a couple of minutes of real, active and focussed presence feels calming.

It’s also why people say “I can’t meditate”...

Because they’re going to sit in a practice or listen to a guided meditation or try using apps like headspace or calm that never explain this stuff.

They are just passively expecting something to happen.

Meditation is not a passive practice, it’s an active and concentrated practice.

Like going to the gym, when you focus on the exercise you’re doing, muscle growth improves.

If you’re lazy and scrolling on your phone while you’re at the gym, it doesn’t hit the same.

The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) switches on

This is the CEO of your brain and it’s responsible for executive function (conscious thinking).

The PFC controls:

• Decision-making
• Logic and rationality
• Emotional regulation
• Perspective
• Behavioral change
• Conscious awareness

When you're anxious, the PFC is offline and you’re operating from survival instincts and emotions (the amygdala… more on that in a second).

When you’re present, brain activity returns to the PFC and it switches on.

This is why you suddenly feel “more like yourself” when you calm down. 

You’re able to think more clearly. 

It’s because you’ve shifted back into your adult, rational, grounded brain (not your emotional child brain).

This is also why when you’re emotional, you always do stupid shit.

The Amygdala calms down

Your amygdala is the emotional processing centre.

It’s the threat detector and the internal alarm bell.

There’s a term coined by the Father of emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman, called the “Amygdala Hijack”.

It’s literally when your amygdala hijacks your brain and floods it with emotion.

This is when you’re “triggered”.

It causes you to act out of character.

When you’re present, the amygdala reduces its firing. 

You can avoid going into fight or flight and instead, stay in a balanced and relaxed state.

This doesn’t mean you won’t get triggered anymore…

It means you’ll know how to manage your emotions (and behaviours) when you do get triggered.

This is the physiological definition of “calm.”

The Insula activates

The insula is the part of your brain that helps you feel your emotions without getting overwhelmed by them…

Most people with anxiety either:

Feel too much and get overwhelmed or feel nothing (suppression) and are disconnected.

Presence helps you feel what’s happening in your body without being hijacked by it.

The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) strengthens

The ACC helps you stay focused, regulate emotions, and shift your attention back to the present instead of getting swept up in thoughts. 

Every time your mind wanders and you return to your breath or your body when you’re in meditation, the ACC gets stronger.

This means less reactivity, better impulse control, and a greater ability to notice what you’re feeling without being overwhelmed by it.

Finally, the brain becomes integrated

Presence increases communication between the major brain networks:

PFC ↔ Amygdala (top-down regulation)
PFC ↔ Insula (awareness + regulation)
PFC ↔ ACC (conflict resolution + focus)

That means you're no longer a bunch of disconnected systems firing randomly. 

Your brain becomes a unified team and the final point…

When you're present:

• Default Mode Network (DMN) activity drops
• Pre Frontal Cortex activity (PFC) increases
• Communication between them decreases
  

You're breaking the PFC–DMN loop that drives overthinking.

Why This Makes You Feel Safe

When you put all of this together, presence pulls blood flow and neural activity:

OUT of:

• Overthinking (DMN)
• Emotional alarms (amygdala)
  

INTO:

• Regulation (PFC)
• Awareness (insula)
• Focus and concentration (ACC)
  

You move from: 

Survival → Safety
Reaction → Response
Chaos → Clarity
Fear → Presence

Presence isn’t some spiritual fantasy.

Presence is your brain working at its full potential.

Meditation Isn’t About Fixing Yourself

Most people who try meditation are getting it all wrong...

• They judge themselves.
• They get attached to thoughts.
  
• They try to be perfect.
• They think that "thinking" or "feeling" makes them a failure.

But the real magic happens when you:

• practice without attachment
• practice without expectation
• practice without judgment
  

When you do that, meditation becomes the space where you train your system back to safety.

If you show up every day for 1–3 months (not chasing an outcome) just practicing presence, you’ll start to feel the shift. 

Most people see noticeable changes far sooner than that and scientific studies have showne that the grey matter in your brain literally starts changing within 21 days of consistent practice.

Where to Go From Here?

The real secret with meditation is hiding in plain sight.

• Discipline.
  

You need to be consistent and disciplined.

I teach my clients to develop new routines and habits and then I tell them they have to be disciplined.

No excuses.

If you want to heal and create a feeling of safety in your mind and body, it's actually quite a mechanical process.

You've got to lock in and make it a priority to train your brain just like you’d train your body.

You don’t have to practice for the rest of your life.

But you do need to practice for long enough to get your brain back into a healthy state.

It's kinda like muscle memory. 

Once you've got it, you're sweet.

I don't meditate everyday anymore but I understand the process so I have ZERO concerns about anxiety, depression or my mental health now.

I'm not just saying that, I really have a level of inner peace that means I am not scared of shit like that anymore.

Remember, these aren’t techniques to “fix” yourself...

They’re methods to bring you back into the present moment, back into alignment, and back into safety within yourself.

If you practice consistently (and actively), you don’t just get better at being present...

You get better at being you.

I’ve helped 300+ people do this with the Mind Launch Method.

If you want to learn the method you can find it on my website here.

You got this.

With Optimism,

Josh