Safety
…an existential concept
It’s an existential concept. Something we’re always striving to grasp.
We build layers of protection, routines, relationships, and structures to convince ourselves we’re safe. But real safety is much more elusive than the locked doors and steady jobs we cling to.
We could be driving "safely" and someone else could crash into us.
We could be sleeping behind a locked door, only for someone to break in.
The unsinkable Titanic, sank.
Life is unpredictable, and so is our sense of external safety.
And these are just dramatic examples. Closer to home, most of us have experienced the shattering of trust in relationships where we placed our sense of safety in another person. Whether through lies, betrayal, or heartbreak, the sense of security we’ve built around someone else inevitably crumbles—and then what?
All too often, we give our power and our sense of safety away to someone or something outside of ourselves. When that happens, we’re never truly safe. We rely on people who, like us, are driven by their own unresolved trauma, survival instincts, and emotional wounds.
But external sources of safety are fleeting at best. They’re conditional, unreliable, and dependent on the ever-changing tides of life.
This is what it often looks like:
Financial struggle: You meet someone who has a stable job, and they start to "take care" of you. They pay for your rent, your groceries, your life. But slowly, you lose your autonomy, your ability to stand on your own.
Emotional voids: You feel unloved, unworthy, so you search for validation in a partner. They tell you you're beautiful, smart, and funny. It feels good at first, but soon, you crave more. No amount of praise or love is enough to fill the void. You become addicted to their validation, reliant on their love to feel whole.
Before long, you’re accepting emotional breadcrumbs just to keep the connection alive. It’s better than being alone, right? You stay in dysfunctional relationships, sacrificing yourself to maintain a sense of safety that was never really yours to begin with.
This is what happens when your foundation is built outside of yourself—on someone else’s terms, someone else’s love, someone else’s stability. It can all be taken away in a moment.
True safety—lasting safety—comes from building your own inner sanctuary. It means reclaiming your power, valuing your life, and deeply understanding your own needs. It’s an ongoing practice of self-care, where you learn to meet those needs in healthier, more empowering ways.
To build your inner home is to:
Know yourself deeply: Get to know your true needs, desires, and triggers. Understand what you’ve been using external relationships to fill, and begin the process of meeting those needs within yourself.
Create boundaries: Honor your own space, energy, and emotional well-being by setting clear boundaries. This is not about shutting others out, but about protecting the sacred home you’re building inside.
Find stability within: Rather than leaning on others for security, find practices that help you ground yourself. Meditation, journaling, mindful movement—these tools allow you to access safety from within, no matter what chaos may swirl around you.
Honor your emotions: Let yourself feel it all—the grief, the pain, the joy, the peace. This is where your power lies, in being able to hold yourself in the full range of your human experience.
When you find your inner home, you no longer need to grasp for safety outside of yourself. You can enter relationships from a place of fullness, from a place where your foundation is steady. You are not dependent on anyone else to fill your voids—you are your own source of safety, love, and stability.
This is the journey of coming home to yourself.
