Feeling safe

The previous blog I posted, with the beautiful words from my guest, made me reflect on safety and what it means to me, both personally and in my work.

Among the lovely things my guest wrote, there was one word I kept coming back to: safe.

Perhaps because I can deeply relate to what it feels like when you don't quite feel safe in the world.

The more I think about safety, the more I realise how much of our lives rests upon it. To feel safe, we need some sense that we can trust our environment, the people around us and, perhaps most importantly, ourselves. For some of us there is another kind of trust too: trust in something we cannot necessarily see or explain, but somehow feel.

And when I look at the world around us, I can understand why that trust sometimes becomes difficult.

We watch institutions fail the people they are supposed to serve. We see wars happening while people far away make decisions about who will live and who will die. We are surrounded by enormous amounts of information and somehow it has become harder, rather than easier, to know what to believe. Now AI has added another layer to this. Sometimes I watch a video and genuinely don't know whether I am looking at a real human being or something that has been created. Even reality itself has become more difficult to recognise.

And then we look closer, at our own lives.

Most of us have probably known people whose words and actions didn't quite match. Someone who told us one thing and said something very different when we weren't there. Someone whose care turned out to have conditions attached to it. Someone who was very present when things were easy, yet strangely absent when life became difficult. Or perhaps the opposite: someone who disappeared when something wonderful happened to us, at exactly the moment we wanted them beside us to celebrate.

Sometimes these are small disappointments, sometimes much deeper wounds, but over time they shape what and whom we learn to trust.

So when someone tells me that they struggle to feel safe, part of me thinks: of course you do.

I don't mean that negatively and I don't think the answer is to become suspicious of everyone or frightened of the world, I simply think it makes sense.

Things outside us are changing very quickly. Some of the things we once assumed were solid feel increasingly wobbly and perhaps it is very human to feel some of that wobbliness (I think I've just made up a word!) inside ourselves too.

Safety sits underneath so much of life. It influences our relationships, our health, our intimacy and our sense of belonging. It affects our ability to relax, experience pleasure, love, explore, be vulnerable and perhaps simply be happy.

When we feel safe with someone, something in us changes. We don't have to watch quite so carefully or wonder what they really mean, whether their affection will disappear tomorrow, or whether the person in front of us is the same person when we leave the room.

We feel there is space for us to be. They don't need to take up all the space, and when they listen, they are actually listening rather than simply waiting for their turn to reply and bring the conversation back to themselves. We feel that we matter, that we are cared for and that this person will tell us what they genuinely think, rather than what they think we want to hear.

Our bodies notice these things too. They notice consistency and gentleness. Sometimes someone's words may sound reassuring, yet something else in the interaction tells a different story. Their tone, their body language and their words may not quite fit together. We might not even be able to name what feels wrong; we simply notice a tension in ourselves around certain people, a feeling that we can't fully relax or open.

I've also come to realise that boundaries are an important part of feeling safe.

There is something deeply reassuring about knowing that we can say no, change our minds, disagree or say when something doesn't feel right without being punished for it or having affection withdrawn. Someone who is safe for us can hear our no and respect it without making our boundary about their own feelings.

For me, a deeper kind of safety is knowing that whatever happens, I won't abandon myself. I can listen when something doesn't feel right. I can walk away from something that isn't good for me, ask for help when I need it (working on this one), survive disappointment and begin again.

I can't make the world around me completely safe, but I can try to create more safety within my own life. and in my bubble.

Some of that, for me, comes through my body. Looking after my health, becoming physically stronger and feeling capable and connected to myself all give me a sense of stability. There is something reassuring about inhabiting a body that I care for and trust.

And there is another part of feeling safe within myself that I am learning: being connected to my emotions and allowing them to be what they are. Sadness doesn't always need to be made happy. Anger doesn't immediately need to disappear. Sometimes I can simply allow myself to feel what I feel without judging it or trying to change it- it’s safe to feel all my feelings. I think this topic deserves a blog of its own :)

I also try to stay connected to my intuition. I want to listen when something feels right and when something doesn't, and to develop the discernment to know who and what I can trust without closing myself to people altogether. Ultimately, I want to know that I can rely on myself to make good choices for me.

And somewhere in the middle of thinking about all of this, another thought appeared: I want to be a safe person for other people.

I want the people in my life to know that they don't have to question which version of me they are going to meet. I want them to know that what I say to their face is what I would say when they leave the room, that my care is not transactional, and that if I say I will be there, I will do my best to be there, physically and emotionally.

I want to be someone who is reliable, honest, kind and trustworthy- consistently: in my work and in my everyday life.

And maybe these very ordinary things are what create the feeling of safety my guest described.

I don't step into another version of myself when I pick up my bottle of massage oil. Whatever sense of safety I have built within myself comes into the massage room with me. It comes through my presence, through my hands and through the way I relate to the person in front of me.

There isn't any magic behind it. I didn't learn it at a retreat or find it in a tantra book. To me, it is basic humanity, something I consciously try to practise in the way I treat people.

And when I get something wrong, as of course I sometimes will, I want to be open to hearing it, taking responsibility and trying to repair it.

I can't make the world safe, but I can keep learning to feel safer within myself. I can choose carefully who I allow close and I can try to offer other people the same thing I value so deeply: the feeling that, for a little while, they can put their guard down.

Perhaps sometimes safety begins as simply as being in the presence of another person and feeling, somewhere inside yourself:

I'm safe here.

Love,

Rosie x