Safe circles in life describe how we move between safety, curiosity, and stress – in the body, in relationships, and in everyday life.
Safe circles in life are not about always being calm, kind, or balanced.
They are about understanding where we are when things begin to rub –
in the body, in relationships, and within ourselves –
and about slowly finding our way back to safety again.
In this post, I want to invite you into the three circles I often return to:
the green, the blue, and the red.
Read this post in Swedish →Trygga cirklar i livet
If you are new here, I want to say this right away:
this is not a place for quick answers or ready-made solutions.
In the link below, I write more about the green circle.
I will also explore the blue and the red circles further on, but for now this post – and the green circle – are what I have written from Compassion.
The Green Circle – staying in safety
I write about everyday life, ADHD, the body, relationships,
and about what happens when energy does not always stretch far enough.
Sometimes clearly. Sometimes hesitantly. Often slowly.
If you recognize yourself – then you are already home.
So welcome in.
Moving between the circles in everyday life
Safe circles in life
Today I want to stay with the circles I have written about before –
the green, the blue, and the red.
We are moving within Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT).
Does that sound boring?
I don’t know how it sounds to you,
but to me it feels exciting.
It is something I feel in my body.
Safe circles in life is a way for me to understand
how safety, performance, and fear interact in everyday life.
Image created with AI (ChatGPT) as a tool.
Content, concepts, and interpretation are my own.
The green circle – safety in safe circles in life
The green circle is the place where thoughts soften
and a quiet sense of contentment can exist.
Here, you are not harsh toward yourself.
You look at yourself with more forgiving eyes.
If you are often able to rest here,
you have either had a secure attachment from the beginning,
or you have built it along the way.
This is called earned secure attachment.
It often means:
– I can still be triggered
– old patterns can awaken
– but I have a safer baseline to return to
It is not perfect safety.
It is lived safety.
The green circle is also the place we need to return to
when we have ended up in the red –
where stress, fear, or threat has taken over.
But sometimes it is not about red.
Sometimes we have been in blue for too long.
The blue circle – exploration and performance
The blue circle stands for curiosity, desire, and exploration.
This is where we try, do, and learn.
It is also where we often want to be seen.
To receive confirmation that our efforts matter.
When green safety is weak,
the blue circle can become the place where we feel as good as we can.
Then there is often a strong need for validation
and less inner safety.
If something goes wrong while we are exploring,
we easily turn against ourselves.
Everyone else can – but not me.
Here attachment begins to ache.
The fear of being rejected awakens.
The fear of not being good enough.
That fear belongs to the red circle
and it is not healed by staying in blue performance.
The red circle – stress, fear, and anxiety
If we stay too long in the blue circle,
we often end up in red eventually.
Because we need to move between all the circles –
green, blue, and red – all the time.
But with too little green safety,
we often only have blue available.
Then we want to perform, shine, and do things right,
but not really for our own sake.
That is when we would need more tools
to dare to move closer to the green circle.
To be able to rest in the thought:
I tried.
What I did wrong was not so serious.
It was human.
A quiet question
Perhaps you recognize yourself in one of the circles.
Perhaps you know exactly when you end up in red.
Or when you do everything in blue – but still cannot rest.
For me, the question has never been
whether I need the green circle,
but how I dare to stay there.
This is the first part of a series about the circles and secure attachment.
In the next part, I want to write about how the green circle can be built in practice –
and why it sometimes needs to grow in conversation,
not only through solitary reflection.
Between the lines – Safe circles in life
This is not a text about fixing yourself.
It is a text about understanding why the body sometimes rushes,
why rest can feel difficult,
and why safety does not always come by itself.
Between the lines is a reminder that there is nothing wrong with you
for moving between red and blue.
It only means that you are human,
and that the green circle may need to be built gently,
with time, relationships,
and sometimes help from others.
When fear colors me red
and performance pulls me blue,
it is in the green circle
that yesterday may rest,
tomorrow may wait,
and right now may be enough.
I have written about the circles before, for example here:
Safe Circles – Life and the Cabinets We Build
I have also written more about how energy runs out when living with ADHD:
Living with ADHD When Energy Is Not Enough
If you want to explore the green circle together with someone,
you can find more information here:
Presence & Conversations
You can also try my course –
available both as a free version and as a full course.
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