The Safe Spaces Project

One Safer Thing Life Tip #001 Awareness Comes Before Change By Troy Alan Cox I often tell the story of getting trapped at the back of Costco in the cooler section trembling and crying. While that may sound overly dramatic to the everyday big-box shopper, it was my reality. Having lived in my yoga studio, essentially surrounded by the yoga world, I had become accustomed to a peaceful environment and, for the most part, people who were seeking quiet and calm. After closing the yoga studio and trying to reenter civilian life, as I call it, one of my new jobs came with a Costco membership. Wanting the savings they advertised, I went to Costco in 2016 for the first time. As a highly sensitive person, meaning I'm naturally attuned to sensory input, I was immediately struck upon entering by the volume of sound. Then came the pushing and shoving, the chaotic carts rushing toward me and around me, the long lines waiting for food samples, and the glaring signage. My sense of spac...

The Search Troy Alan Cox After my brother was unexpectedly killed in a motorcycle accident, I began searching for answers. Like most people who have experienced a sudden and unexpected trauma, I questioned everything I thought was important before the accident. I look at my life as before Todd died and after Todd died. I first began with a bootleg collection of 1960s talks by Ram Dass that my brother's martial arts teacher gave me. It was the first time I had heard religion mixed with spirituality, humor, adventure, and someone questioning established belief systems. I listened to those cassette tapes so many times that I had some of them memorized. I ask myself questions every day... but I had never thought about whether I was asking the right ones. Once I realized my parents and I were not going to be much help to each other during this horrible time, I did what spiritual seekers have done for centuries. I ran and hid. First to the forest and then to the Florida Keys....

  Tragedy Is Not the Teacher Todd E. Cox 1994 Troy Alan Cox 6/27/2026 I had an experience that I will always remember as a radio D.J. on air.  It was the time I lost my voice during a live broadcast.  I was not ill.  I could no longer control my vocal cords.   People often say that tragedy is life's greatest teacher.  I understand why they say it. Looking back, however, I no longer believe it is true. Trauma is not the teacher. Trauma simply interrupts the life you thought you were living. The worse the trauma, the more devastating the interruption to ones life.   The lessons come much later, if they come at all.  The harder the lesson is the least likely it is that your life before will look anything like the life you have after the tragedy. For me, everything changed on January 31, 1994. At the time, I was a young radio personality in Kansas City. After spending nearly two years working the overnight shift on an AM oldies station, I ha...

  Why Do We Keep Ending Up in the Same Place? While cleaning out old teacher training manuals recently, I came across an exercise that I have taught in one form or another for over twenty years. Looking through the pages brought back memories of students sitting quietly with a pencil in their hand, convinced they had a relationship problem, a job problem, a money problem, or a confidence problem. More often than not, twenty minutes later they were looking at the paper in front of them with a completely different understanding of what was actually happening. One of the things that has fascinated me throughout my life is how often we repeat the same patterns without realizing it. We change jobs and somehow find ourselves having the same frustrations. We move across the country and bring the same unhappiness with us. We swear we will never date another person like the last one and somehow wind up sitting across from the same person wearing different clothes. Over the years I noticed t...

First Father's Day  What Is a Father?  First Father's Day What Is a Father? Written by Troy Alan Cox 6/21/2026 Where Is My Father? It wasn't actually an official Father's Day, but to a little five-year-old boy it was a special Father's Day. The earliest memory I have of my father is my mom sewing. My mom was a seamstress, and an excellent one at that. She didn't do it for a living. She did it for fun. I so wish I had kept her little pink Singer sewing machine, although I did not inherit the skill. I have these big, fat, clumsy fingers that are not designed for detail work or little needles. In 1970s San Diego, my mom would take the little-boy version of me with her everywhere. It was just her and me. I was lucky in that I had all the time I wanted with my mom when my dad was away at sea.  My dad began his career in the Navy aboard ships. It wasn't until much later in life that he would talk about the U.S.S. Bayfield. The USS Bayfield was a 1940s ...

Monastic Sites and Garden Getaways Glendalough, via Wikimedia Commons. Used under the license listed on the file page. Troy Alan Cox Marinating in the Morose It has been almost two months since my father passed here at the house. Since then, I have completely rearranged everything in the house and begun stripping his room of carpet ruined from flooding. It is amazing the emotions that come out from simply removing carpeting. Each strip that I cut and roll up causes a deluge of tears. My nervous system is equating the removal of terrible carpet with the removal of memories. Although I know the two are unrelated, the feelings that are coming up are almost unbearable. While I wait on getting a mold assessment for the drywall, everything my father owned or brought with him from Kansas is piled in boxes in the office and adjoining spaces. It has to be done, but it is almost too hard to handle. It has been apparent to me since one time in Southern California when a young man who ...

Green Design, Human Sensitivity, and the Next Step Toward Safe Spaces By Troy Alan Cox There is a lot of talk now about green building design. What defines a green building? A green building is generally understood as an energy-efficient and environmentally aware structure, designed with consideration for its footprint, energy use, materials, sustainability, and impact on its surroundings. It is often part of a thorough certification process by which a building is rated for energy efficiency, environmental responsibility, and overall sustainability. From what I understand, it takes a team of engineers, architects, designers, builders, and other specialists to oversee the design, construction, and completion phase of a building. The process may also consider the potential destruction or removal of the building one day and the impact that would have on its surroundings. It is quite an extensive process, and it is very much a team effort. A green building is designed to be com...

SAFE SPACES EVALUATION METHOD Troy Alan Cox 6/13/2026 I'm am studying what is considered a safe location, architecture, design and requirement to classify a destination as safe for the human nervous system.  On my self guided trip to Ireland I am visiting out of the way, non tourist destinations. Before I visit each location I'm studying I am using a scientific method I've developed to evaluate their safety and my experience.  My evaluation consists of a series of steps beginning before entering the building up until a half hour after I leave the space or location.  Here is the method I've developed for evaluation.  1. The Approach.  As I approach a location I'm scanning for safety clues. I'm noticing the architecture of the entrance.  How is traffic directed towards the front of the structure? Is there clear demarcation indicating the threshold from the exterior to the interior of the space? As I approach I observe if it feels welcoming and saf...

  The Tools of Safety Pratyahara, Drishti, Samskaras, and the Nervous System By Troy Alan Cox Thank you for walking this path with me, the path of describing my experience as a Highly Sensitive Person.  In the previous writings in this series 'The Senses of a Highly Sensitive Person' I described how I hear, feel, see and smell the world and what the sense of safety means to me.  Today I am describing some of the practices and tools that I have learned to use.  These tools are not just yoga based although they have yoga based names.  I have found them to be real world applicable tools.  I use them everyday to help me deal with the world that always seems to be screaming at me and making me feel unsafe.  I hope that they can help others too.   The first tool is Pratyahara , often described in yoga as the withdrawal of the senses. I do not experience this as shutting the world out. I experience it as giving the senses permission to stop reaching...

How Do I Sense Safety Feeling Safe as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox 06/011/2026 Photo credit: Simoneau Photography Sanford Florida   How Do I Sense Safety? Feeling Safe as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox 06/11/2026 Photo credit: Simoneau Photography, Sanford, Florida Safety vs. Stimulation Many highly sensitive people, like myself, spend years thinking something is wrong with us. I have heard that if I just learned how to relax, I would be okay. Or if I got drunk, I would relax. Or if I would just “get over it,” which was the most damaging piece of advice a supposed spiritual teacher ever gave me about the depth of suffering after losing our family’s “Golden Child,” my little brother, at the age of twenty. We are told to try changing our food, read self-help books, exercise, find a hobby, or that we just have not found our people yet. The therapist I was seeing after Todd passed away in a horrible motorcycle wreck on a desolate stretch of highway in ...

  What Scent is That? Smelling as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox 06/10/2026 Photo credit: Dad's Flowers No Smell and No Taste Smell and Taste as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox It was a six-month-long Veterans Administration evaluation process to certify my father for assistance.  With all the medical needs that began to mount after his diagnosis of lung cancer, which was connected to his exposure to Agent Orange, he was tested for both smell and taste. We already knew he had no sense of smell, which was great since he and I shared our never-ending problems with gas, or “gas leaks,” as he called it. Not so great when you are a master gardener and grow extensive flower beds everywhere you live. His specialty was roses. Everywhere we lived, he grew rose bushes. One of his favorite stories was from when we were a young family in Southern California on Miramar Naval Base. He was tired of the neighbors cutting behind our double-wide trailer and wearin...

How Do I Feel? Feeling as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox 06/09/2026 Photo credit: Lost in Yonkers , Independence, Mo. Troy Alan Cox as Uncle Louie The Prince, The Pea and The Damn Fan I have always been a light sleeper. I toss and turn and wake up at all odd hours. If there is a ceiling fan on, or a fan in the room moving the air around, I will likely not sleep. For some reason, I have always jolted awake at 2:00 a.m. Even with training and practice, I still jolt awake at almost precisely 5:00 a.m. every morning. Lately, since my father passed, it has been at 4:44 a.m., almost on the exact moment. I try everything. Blackout curtains, check. No white noise, check. No water an hour and a half before bedtime, check. No animals in the bedroom with me, check. Cotton clothing only, tank top and shorts, no underwear, check. No electronics in the room unless I want to do insomnia shopping, which I have done. A cotton woven blanket over the bottom sheet and a matching cotton bla...

  How Do I See? Seeing as a Highly Sensitive Individual By Troy Alan Cox 06/08/2026 Painting artist credit: Troy Alan Cox Stop Scanning My role as an older brother in a foreign country was to keep my little brother safe, watch out for him, and know where he was at all times. This was no easy task. From as early as I can remember, Todd was always getting in trouble. The first time I rescued him was when he set the bathroom door on fire from the inside while playing with matches. I got an award of merit for being able to stay calm enough, at nine years old, to run outside, flag down a passing truck, and cross the street to a neighbor’s house to ask them to call the fire station, which we happened to live next to. Then there was the time he broke his arm by jumping out of the closet trying to fly like Superman, the time he got a major laceration from the swing set my dad built for us in the backyard, and the time he fell through the church roof and almost broke his back on the pulpit....