Realize that life is more than safety, security and success.
I’ve read this sentence today in an article and it really stuck a chord. For most of my conscious memory being / feeling safe was one of my top priorities. I wanted to know things in advance, to be prepared, to understand upfront as best as I could, to only do what I thought I could actually accomplish. And so often I would get nervous about not knowing, scared of jumping into the unknown, stubborn about leaving my comfort zone and angry or ignorant at anyone who tried to tell me that.
And I still have this urge and need to be safe though I have grown in my capabilities, trust, courage and confidence to handle what I did not expect or what is new. Still it can make me utterly agitated, especially if I lack a script of how to approach things, how to behave, what to do. Sometimes it will still launch me into freeze mode, only reacting to what’s happening around me, without the power to act on my own. I already know that my sense of safety was shaken in a time before of what I can consciously remember and I still carry this with me.
But again, reading this sentence made me question if aiming for safety is an empowering way of looking at things. Wanting a sense of safety in the world is an innate need for humans, and many are gifted with that during childhood, many are not. I wasn’t. So this need is still of high importance for me and my experiences and I will not ignore it when making decisions but I started wondering whether other values might be a better judge of what to do or what not to do.
Playing safe all the time is a life, it’s a comfortable and maybe easy life but how empowering, enriching, satisfying, adventurous, fun and exciting of a life is it? How much living is that?
I think I have played safe for most of my life, and honestly for good reasons. But the more I wake up to myself, to life, to what I really want, the more I don’t want to play safe anymore. Playing safe would mean denying who I am, or who I am becoming, who I want to be. It would also mean arranging with what I struggle with in order to avoid discomfort and new things.
But this is not a single choice, one moment in time where everything changes but it’s a commitment to be made again and again, and I will fail at it again and again cause it’s not a leap but a chaotic and curly path of growth. Playing safe used to mean not putting this article out but yet I want to share about this and show that I care about this.
I think, in the end, safety shifts meaning as we grow. For someone who’s sense of safety was shaken so early in life, the area to be safe in was very small initially. But it can grow and it already has grown. Learning to discern between perceived non-safety and actually danger is crucial in this process. I can learn that posting an article will very likely not put me into actual, physically threatening danger. So while it might still feel like a stretch and require some courage, it is no longer an unsafe thing to do. My meaning of safety in this area of life starts to shift and might eventually evolve into comfort, finally becoming a part of my own comfort zone. This process is slow and takes many attempts and lots of courage but things will eventually evolve. I know that patience is not a strong suit of most of us but you might find it worth it nonetheless.
I wish you all the strength and determination you need to walk this path for yourself if you desire so. Know that you are not alone leaving what feels safe and venturing into the unknown, myself and many others walk with you on the same quest. Take care!