How can we feel safe in an unsafe world?
Reflections on cultivating connection and finding shelter in each other
Welcome. If you’re new here, I’m a writer, new mama, and grieving daughter, exploring what it means to fully embrace the creative messiness of life. I share whole-hearted, weekly reflections to help us remember our shared humanity. Thank you for your presence here. 💞
Hello.
I’m writing to you from my bed, a drizzly sky outside, the gray background highlighting rich hues of orange, yellow, and red leaves as they drift toward the ground.
In need of extra comfort, I put on a softer playlist, headphones in, door closed to outside distractions.
I’ve written this letter, or a version of it, at least twice now. Please forgive its length and the departure from sharing many visuals. I can feel the importance of this conversation and at the same time, my inadequacy to do much more than invite you into it with me.
The question of safety is one I’ve carried close to my chest for months, maybe years. No matter how I approach it- with defiance, grief, or bravado, the answer does not reveal itself. I come to you today hoping maybe we can begin to hold the questions together.
“It’s not safe but you’re safe, and I love you,” my Dad told me once during one of my anxiety spirals. He was the person I turned to often for his gentle pep talks, bear hugs, and hikes in the forest together. When he passed away, a large part of how I felt safe in this world disappeared, overnight.
Feeling safe is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. As a child, I witnessed the events of 9/11 unfold on live television. Before that, I remember Columbine, the first school shooting we all thought could never happen again. After college, I spent years working as a nurse in an I.C.U, on the front lines of the battle between life and death.
I’ve seen too much and lived too much for my nervous system to believe I am truly safe, but haven’t we all?
As an adult, I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy re-wiring patterns of hypervigilance and over-functioning. I’ve learned about trauma and done my best to rest and allow my body to heal from symptoms of burnout and adrenal fatigue. I’ve adopted practices and taken medicines to move out of a state of fight, flight, or freeze. Yet still my heart races, my hands clammy with disbelief.
Perhaps I’ve been missing something.
Some synonyms for safety are freedom, security, protection from harm, immunity, defense, and invulnerability.
I’d argue a lot of those experiences aren’t available to most of us, or false promises, at best.
However, some words near to the feeling of “safe” are: cherished, sheltered, and safeguarded.
Maybe a sense of safety isn’t something we can achieve as individuals; we need each other to cherish, shelter, and safeguard whole families, communities, and countries.
Years ago, I found shelter in prayer. Living in Nashville, I used to take evening walks through the neighborhood. On my way to my favorite sitting tree (another place to find shelter), I whispered blessings over every house. I spoke words of love over myself, my friends, and everyone I knew who was hurting and dreaming and hoping.
Recently, I told my sister I was grappling with how to respond to the latest news, struggling to understand my place and capacity1, feeling another wave threaten to take me under.
“How is it that we feel responsible for people across the globe yet don’t talk to our neighbors?” I asked, feeling the rage start to bubble. Outrage at how disconnected we’ve become, and my part in it. Angered by the impossible demands and expectations we’ve had to bear as our world becomes increasingly interlinked and yet isolated, the pain and suffering insurmountable.
That’s when she told me about the difference between carrying a load and shouldering a burden.2
A load is heavy, but not unbearable. It’s something we can sustain, a weight suited to our ability, resources, and life experience. It’s our share of the collective burden and can change over time. There are seasons when we can carry more, or less.
A burden is meant to be shared. It’s something we carry together, in community.
If shelter is a way to experience safety, what is the collective burden we must carry to shelter each other?
How can each of us shoulder our part of the load without overwhelming our nervous systems with the full weight of that responsibility?
If we return to the first set of synonyms for safety- security, defense, immunity, and invulnerability, we can see how seeking safety through these mechanisms can lead to much of the disconnect, fear, and violence present in our world. We know from experience we are neither immune nor invulnerable.
To be human, fully alive and present in this world is to confront our mortality. The more we defend or rely on systems of security to protect us from harm, the more we shrink from ourselves and each other. Yet, there are times when self-protection is necessary, when our survival depends on it.
On my walk with Noah this afternoon, I tuned into the podcast episode below, “Brené with Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce D. Perry on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing.”
It’s a wonderful resource for understanding the nuances of trauma and its effects on us. What stood out to me most was that Dr. Perry described vulnerability and curiosity as privileges. We only have access to curiosity and vulnerability when we feel safe. They are responses to a calm nervous system and to resources that enable us to put down our armor.
And…
In the face of adversity, connection is protective.
So, how do we live with what we can’t control? How do we face the possibility of harm and willingly take a risk on connection and love? How do we honor our privilege (or lack thereof) in our collective responsibility to shelter each other?
“It occurs to me that courage comes from the same place as fear, and where there is fear, there is the possibility of courage.”3
―
In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World
In exploring the layers of meaning of safety, some other definitions came into play, based on Brené Brown’s research. The first is her definition of faith, another place we might find shelter as we learn to embody the unknown.
“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
-Brené Brown
The second practice or tool we might strive for is her definition of spirituality.
“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion.”
-Brené Brown
How might our experience of safety change if we developed the capacity to believe in what we can’t see? If we began to trust in a higher connection to each other, one that was grounded in love and compassion?
What if embracing uncertainty and accepting our vulnerability created the very sense of safety we were longing for?
Is it possible that our self-protective measures, defense mechanisms, and independence/self-reliance are making us feel less secure?
Is it possible that as much work as we do on our own to soothe our nervous systems and cultivate inner peace, we’ll never be able to truly experience safety without the presence, connection, and shelter of each other?
If that’s true, where and how do we begin?
While ruminating on this essay, two tarot cards from the Osho Zen deck spoke to me during one of my morning tarot readings.
Silence and Exhaustion.
Silence is the equivalent of The Star in the traditional tarot deck, a card that comes after The Tower card, which depicts two people falling from a burning building. The Tower is a card of destruction, of releasing the structures that no longer serve us and experiencing an event beyond our control that ultimately liberates us. The Star is a card of hope, of naked vulnerability, and receptivity.
Exhaustion is the equivalent of the 9 of Wands card in the traditional deck. Symbolized by the wounded warrior, this is the epitome of burnout, of going it alone and not sharing the burden.
Might these cards offer us the chance to reflect on where we’ve been and choose a new way of being, together?
Lastly, I wanted to share a few lines of encouragement from the Rumi Oracle deck by Alana Fairchild. This is from the Human Gift Oracle card.
“Do you bemoan your lack of faith? Do you berate yourself, blazing angel, because you have moments where you cannot bring yourself to trust in love more than you trust in your fear? Do you lament and worry that you could, or should, be living in greater surrender?
And yet, when is light more precious than when it arises from darkness?
When is trust more admirable than when it involves an uncertain, yet bold, leap of faith? Oh human angel, your path is perfection in the divine sense – not in some artificial absence of struggle, but in the wrestling of darkness and light that ignites the fire within your holy heart.
Be kind to your heart. You may believe it to be weary from doubt and distrust, so much heartbreak and so many agonies, yet still it beats. Still it persists, with unquestioning allegiance to life.
What a grand heart it is, this sacred heart of yours. How can it be worthy of anything other than tenderness, gratitude, acknowledgment and appreciation?
Do not plague your heart with falsehoods and expectations of some disembodied perfection! The perfection of your heart is that is loves still, even if you try to stop it with some notion of self-protection from future hurt through doubt or fear – still it loves.”
-Alana Fairchild
In moments when we cannot bear to trust in love, when the weight of the world feels as if it’s ours to bear alone, when we reach for safety by arming ourselves with weapons, hatred, and fear, may we find a moment of stillness and remember our hearts, still beating in allegiance to life.
Ever grateful for your presence and connection and love,
Mariah
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In light of a global crisis (or, many) I believe any action taken in service of others has a ripple effect. Honoring my capacity as a new mom in a new community, I’ve decided to focus on using my gift of hospitality to volunteer once a month for a non-profit called Bridge Refugees that helps welcome refugees into our community, providing friendship, basic needs, and resources. I’ll share more in the future but hope we can each find a way, even if it’s small, to shelter each other.
My sister shared her source for this concept, the book “Boundaries,” by Dr. Henry Cloud.
I own this book and love it. I highly recommend reading it as a balm for the pain and crisis we’re confronting in our world.
This was so beautiful, Mariah! Thank you!