Episode 2: Safety & Meaning-Making

Written by Stephanie Underwood, RSW

What is it that makes us different as a human species from other animal species? What similarities do we have in common with animals?

Welcome back to my channel. My name is Stephanie Underwood, I’m a social worker and graduate research specializing in relational trauma. For the past few years my focus has been focused on getting to the root causes of trauma in order to better help my clients rewire their perception of themselves and others.

In this episode, I’m going to highlight three incredibly important components that play a strong role in how trauma forms. I’ll be going into more detail throughout this series, but these three components are critical to the formation of trauma, and so this is where we have to begin.

The first component is something that we have in common with certain other animal species. Humans are part of the altricial species, which include humans, cats, dogs, and primates. Altricial species are born neurologically immature, which means that they rely on co-regulation with caregivers for survival and emotional development. Early childhood interactions shape the foundation of the nervous system’s regulatory capacity.

When a child is born, the child is unable to self-regulate. The infant cannot meet its own needs. It requires a caregiver. The child learns how to self-regulate through repeated co-regulatory experiences. Caregivers act as external regulators, calming the infant’s nervous system through warmth, tone, and presence. Over time, these experiences are internalized, forming the neural architecture for future self-regulation.

Emotional safety, rather than the mere presence of others, determines our regulatory capacity. Safety and stability emerge when the nervous system perceives safety - whether through trusted relationships or internalized secure attachments.

If someone you know says to you, “Would you like some of this salad I’m making?” … what kind of reaction would that provoke in you? It depends on how you view the situation - what your narrative or story is of the situation.

If you see this as a generous act of kindness and this person is contributing toward your healthy life, then you might feel grateful.

If this question is seen as part of a narrative of hundreds of times this person has criticized your weight or criticized you personally, then you might feel hurt and angry.

Or maybe you have a narrative that salad is terrible, and you might feel disgusted and insulted, or you might feel oppressed by diet culture. [pause]

These are three very different reactions to the same act. And they’re determined by your view of things—the meaning that you assign to the salad, to an object, to literally everything around you. Once you’ve assigned meaning, then your brain creates a narrative or a story.

Every day, our lives are shaped by the story we have of ourselves, of others, and of the reality around us. We have feelings about politics, world crises, our community, social media, our work, an upcoming meeting, a conversation we had this morning, how good we’ve been at keeping up with new habits.

If you miss a day of meditation or exercise, depending on your story about yourself, you might feel that this is no big deal and just start again the next day… or you might feel that you’re terrible at this, that you’ll never get it right, and that your life is meaningless. Very different reactions and results from the same act—and it’s all dependent on story.

And this takes us to our second contributing factor in the formation of trauma: meaning-making. Our ability as human beings to create meaning out of our observations. Here’s the incredible part - humans are the only species who can make meaning based on our observations.

Meaning-making is the act of turning “What happened” into “Why it matters.” It evolved as a survival tool that kept us from being eaten or going crazy from the stress of existing.

In the wild, a “random” noise is a dangerous noise. If a bush rustles, the humans who sat there thinking, “Gosh, what a curious, random event,” didn’t live very long. The ones who assigned meaning to it —“That sound means a leopard is hunting”— survived.

Even if they were wrong and it was just the wind, the habit of looking for meaning kept them alert. We are the descendants of the people who were obsessed with “Why?” because “Why?” kept them alive.

Additionally, most animals can only cooperate in small groups where everyone knows each other personally. Humans are different. We can work together by the thousands because of shared meaning. For example, we all agree that a piece of paper with a face on it is “money” and has “value.” The result? We can trade with strangers across the globe. By creating shared meanings—like religions, laws, or even sports team loyalties—we created a way for strangers to trust each other. Without meaning-making, we’d still be living in small tribes of 50 people.

And then there’s purpose. Meaning-making allows us to move forward toward a goal. Meaning-making gives us the drive and the motivation to achieve our goals.

Purpose is what transforms survival into direction. Once humans could assign meaning, we weren’t just reacting to the world — we were shaping it. Meaning-making allowed us to imagine futures that didn’t yet exist, to delay gratification, to endure discomfort today for something better tomorrow. It’s why we pursue education, relationships, careers, creativity, healing, and personal growth. Our nervous system uses meaning to determine what is “worth it.” This capacity for purpose-driven behavior is part of what makes relational trauma so impactful: when early meanings form around danger, unpredictability, or abandonment, the very mechanism meant to move us forward instead becomes the mechanism that holds us back.

Let’s now talk about the third and last component that influences how trauma develops, and this is something that we have in common with all animals.

All animals have a nervous system that is constantly scanning the environment for possible threats. And we all have nervous system responses to help protect ourselves when we are under threat.

Why?

Because we’re all just trying to survive this world. That’s the brain’s primary goal. It’s to keep the organism alive and safe. The brain doesn’t care about our happiness, our success, or how many friends we have. It’s got one goal, and it will spend your entire lifetime on this earth making sure that it keeps you alive. That’s universal. It applies to the human species and all animal species. And it kind of makes sense if we’re looking at it from the perspective of the brain.

Safety is the organizing principle underneath trauma, attachment styles, and Early Maladaptive Schemas. Not happiness. Not success. Not self-esteem. Safety. From an evolutionary standpoint, the human brain developed for one primary purpose: survival. For early humans, survival didn’t depend solely on avoiding predators. It depended on remaining connected to the group. A human who was isolated from their tribe was unlikely to survive. Belonging was biology. Because of this, the nervous system evolved to treat relational threat as survival threat. Rejection, abandonment, humiliation, unpredictability, emotional withdrawal - these experiences activate the same survival circuitry that once responded to physical danger.

In the scientific literature, nervous system “safety” is not defined as comfort, relaxation, or the absence of stress. Safety is defined as a neurobiological state in which the organism detects low threat and sufficient resources, allowing regulatory systems to shift away from survival defense and toward adaptive functioning.

And this is where trauma enters the picture. Trauma is not just the memory of a painful event. It is the imprint left when the nervous system concludes, “This is not safe.” If that conclusion becomes global, it shapes how a person moves through the world.

So as we close out this first episode, here’s the foundation we’re building on: humans are born wired for connection, shaped by co-regulation, driven by meaning-making, and governed by a nervous system whose top priority is survival. Trauma forms when safety fails - when the nervous system learns that the world, or relationships, or even the self, cannot be trusted.

In the next episodes, we’ll break down how these systems interact, why trauma becomes embedded, and how relational safety becomes the path forward.

This is where our journey begins.

Stephanie Underwood