Creating Safe Spaces — Through and With Movement
Now more than ever, we crave safety — not just as an abstract ideal, but as a lived experience. Safety has moved to the top of our priorities: feeling secure, supported, and grounded, both in our surroundings and within ourselves.
When I created my studio, I wanted it to be more than a place to exercise. It’s a place where people can arrive as they are: I envisioned a space that feels like an exhale — warm, open, minimal, and filled with calm. A space where movement is not about performance but about presence; especially for women, and for anyone who wants to move, breathe, and reconnect without judgment. Creating this kind of safe space means paying attention to atmosphere, tone, and energy — all of which have a profound impact on how we move and how we heal.
The Inner Safe Space
But safety is not only an external condition. It also begins inside the body. Feeling safe within our own body — that’s the foundation for everything else.
Many people who join my classes come from a place of pain, injury, or exhaustion. Others are simply looking for ways to move that don’t push them beyond their limits but bring them back to themselves. Movement becomes a way of re-establishing trust: trust that our body knows what it needs, that it can recover, and that we can move without fear.
This trust grows through mindful movement — through learning to listen to our inner signals, noticing the difference between tension and strength, between effort and flow. When we learn to sense these distinctions, we begin to feel safe again, even when we move into new or challenging areas.
Safety in movement also means understanding how to prepare. I often say that the way we enter movement determines how it will feel. The transitions matter just as much as the positions themselves.
How to Build Safety Through Practice
To share a bit of this process, I’ve added two short flows from my YouTube channel — both designed to help you create a foundation of safety and awareness in your practice.
1. Setting a Good Base
This 15-minute sequence is one I often use at the beginning of a class or workshop. You can also do it at home — in the morning, before another activity, or anytime you need to reconnect. It’s a grounding practice built on mindfulness, gentle mobility, and conscious breath. It helps to awaken your body and prepare your joints and muscles for more complex movement, reducing the risk of injury while enhancing focus and clarity.
2. Gentle Flow for Sensitive Knees
This flow is designed for those with knee sensitivity or injury. It shows that movement can remain fluid and enjoyable, even when we need to modify. It’s also a great preventive practice for anyone who tends to overstrain their knees — teaching how to distribute weight, align safely, and stay attuned to the body’s signals.
Both flows are simple yet powerful tools to reconnect with your body’s sense of security. They remind us that safety isn’t static — it’s something we cultivate through awareness and consistency.
Why Safe Spaces Matter
When we move in safety — externally and internally — we begin to open up again. Our breath becomes deeper, our movements more fluid, our mind more spacious. Healing, strength, and creativity all come from this same foundation.
Creating safe spaces, in this sense, is an act of care — for ourselves and for others. Whether through the physical design of a studio or the inner design of our movement, safety allows growth. It allows us to move from fear to trust, from tension to release, from guarding to unfolding.
And perhaps this is what the world needs most right now — spaces and practices that remind us how to feel safe enough to move again.
Let’s keep creating spaces — within and around us — where movement feels like coming home.