Feeling safe with a group of people is not guaranteed.
There are many factors that go into feeling safe.
Some, have to do with the group.
Others, have to do with ourselves.
Yet ultimately we have to feel safe with ourselves before we can feel safe with anyone else.
It is not something we can work out with the mind.
Logical reasons fall short when the feeling of unsafety comes up.
For only the heart knows when it truly feels safe.
Emotional safety is a feeling.
It is not a thought or a mental construct.
It is the sense we get when the people we are with are a match to our own emotional state.
If we are living in our trauma and our past, then no one may feel safe to us.
The anxiety of the memories keep bubbling up.
We may not even be aware of the trauma.
Yet we know when something doesn’t feel right.
No one else may be affected.
The other people may never know how we feel.
For it is feeling inside of us that either settles us down or winds us up.
When we notice that we are feeling unsafe for no reason at all, that is the time to look inside.
To ask ourselves why we feel unsafe.
And seek when we have felt that way before.
What story are we telling ourselves?
Does this feeling seem familiar?
Is there any evidence to show us we should or should not feel safe?
We often do not realize that the stories we are still living inside of us are determining how safe we feel.
Perhaps it is a story of a painful event.
Of of an uncomfortable experience.
Yet although it is in the past, we still carry it around inside of us.
We keep it present until we work it through.
And once we work through the pain and suffering, we are more at ease.
Not only with other.
Even more importantly with ourselves.
For when we truly feel safe within ourselves, we can easily find ways to feel safe in any situation.
We know what to do, we know how to be.
It is not about the other person or people.
It is always about ourselves.
So where do you not feel safe?
What is the story you are telling yourself that continues to make you feel unsafe?
And how about we change that…
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant