A client asked me a question recently that stopped me in my tracks.

We were talking about safety in relationships—how important it is to feel physically safe and emotionally safe with the people you love. These are concepts I teach all the time. They're foundational to everything we do at the Smalley Institute.

And then she said something I'd never considered before.

"What about mental safety?"

I paused. She continued.

"We talk about emotional safety—feeling safe to be vulnerable, safe to share our hearts. We talk about physical safety—knowing we won't be harmed. But what about our minds? What about feeling safe in our own heads?"

I sat with that question for a long time after we hung up.

Because she was right. We don't talk about mental safety. And maybe we should.

The Three Safeties

When I work with couples and individuals, we spend a lot of time on two types of safety:

Physical Safety is protection from bodily harm. It's knowing you won't be hit, pushed, grabbed, or physically intimidated. It's the most basic form of safety, and without it, nothing else can grow.

Emotional Safety is protection from emotional harm. It's knowing you can be vulnerable without being mocked, dismissed, or weaponized against. It's feeling safe to share your heart, your fears, your failures—and trusting that the other person will handle them with care.

These two get a lot of airtime. And they should.

But there's a third safety that rarely gets named:

Mental Safety is protection from mental harm. It's feeling safe in your own mind. It's knowing that your thought life isn't a war zone. It's having a brain that feels like a refuge rather than a prison.

And for a lot of people, that kind of safety doesn't exist.

When Your Mind Doesn't Feel Safe

Let me describe what mental UN-safety looks like. See if any of this sounds familiar:

Your thoughts attack you. You're not just thinking—you're being assaulted by your own brain. Intrusive thoughts. Worst-case scenarios. Replays of past failures. Imaginary conversations where you defend yourself against accusations no one has made.

You can't turn it off. Nighttime is the worst. You lie down and your mind lights up. Worries. Regrets. To-do lists. Spiraling thoughts that lead nowhere good. You'd give anything for five minutes of quiet.

Lies have taken up residence. Somewhere along the way, lies moved in and made themselves at home. "You're not enough." "Everyone's going to leave." "You're going to fail." "You're unlovable." They're not just passing thoughts—they're tenants. They live there now.

Other people's opinions live in your head rent-free. That thing your mother said twenty years ago? Still there. The criticism from your boss? Playing on repeat. The look your spouse gave you last Tuesday? Running on a loop. Your mind has become a storage unit for everyone else's judgments.

You don't trust your own thinking. You second-guess everything. You can't tell if your thoughts are accurate or distorted. You've been wrong before—badly wrong—so now you don't trust any of your conclusions.

Hypervigilance is exhausting you. Your brain is stuck in threat-detection mode. Scanning for danger. Looking for what could go wrong. It's like your mental alarm system is broken—stuck in the "ON" position—and you can't figure out how to turn it off.

If any of that resonates, your mind doesn't feel safe. And that's a problem worth addressing.

This Is Different from Emotional Safety

Here's what's important to understand: you can have emotional safety and still lack mental safety.

You might have a spouse who is kind, patient, and trustworthy. You feel emotionally safe with them. You can share your heart without fear of rejection.

And yet your own mind still attacks you.

The lies aren't coming from your spouse. They're coming from inside the house.

That's what makes mental safety unique. Emotional safety is about protection FROM others. Mental safety is about protection from yourself—from your own runaway thoughts, distorted thinking, and internal chaos.

You can have a safe marriage and an unsafe mind. A lot of people do.

The Bible Talks About This

Here's what's fascinating: Scripture addresses mental safety directly.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." (Romans 12:2)

"Take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:2)

"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)

Look at that last one. God's peace will GUARD your MIND. That's mental safety language. That's protection for your thought life. That's a promise that your brain doesn't have to be a war zone.

The Bible takes seriously what happens between your ears. Your thought life matters. And God offers protection for it.

A New Conversation

I think my client stumbled onto something important.

We've been having half a conversation about safety. We've been addressing the body and the heart but ignoring the mind. And for people whose thoughts are their biggest tormentors, that's a massive gap.

So I want to start a new conversation. Over the next couple of articles, I'm going to dig into this concept of mental safety:

What attacks the mind? We'll look at the specific enemies of mental safety—the lies, the rumination, the hypervigilance, the cognitive distortions, the opinions that take up residence without permission.

How do we create mental safety? We'll explore practical strategies for making your mind a safer place—boundaries for your thought life, ways to evict the lies, and how to build what I'm calling a "safe room" in your mind.

Because here's what I believe: your mind can become a refuge. Your thought life doesn't have to be a war zone. Mental safety is possible.

It might take some work. It will definitely take some intention. But the peace of God really can guard your mind.

And that's worth pursuing.

If your mind has felt more like a prison than a refuge, you're not alone. This is exactly the kind of thing we work on together in coaching and in the Smalley Sojourners community. Check out what we offer at smalleyinstitute.com.

You can text me at (303) 435-2630  or email [email protected].

Does the concept of "mental safety" resonate with you? What does an unsafe mind feel like for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.