When you feel very unsafe your sympathetic nervous system springs into action and prepares you to fight or flight or maybe freeze and/or collapse; your body tenses up and it becomes difficult to yield to the Earth for support.
We all have varying levels of feeling safe. Whatever makes You feel unsafe may not have as profound an affect on me or vice versa. If for example, you feel everyone is looking at you and judging you all the time, (which seems to be a very common phenomenon nowadays) even though you have no proof because you can’t read minds, it will make you feel insecure, hence unsafe, right? Most of the time when your around other people you will have a feeling of anxiety, created by these feelings of insecurity, Even if it’s not conscious fear there’s still fear within.
Feeling unsafe feels bad!! So, how can you change those feelings?
By changing your mindset e.g. don’t be the biggest judge of yourself. Find things you enjoy doing that make you feel good about yourself and create joy in your life, this will help you to know when you’re safe.
Recently I got another car, a mini hatchback. Someone said, ”Why do you want a small car?” I replied that I’d always liked minis, They replied , ”But it’s good to have a bit of something around you.”
This person meant that it makes them feel safer having a larger car with more space. Having been in 2 car accidents where the bigger cars I had then were right offs, I find myself sometimes saying to people a car is just a tin box that gets you from A to B, safely , you hope. The smaller solid car I have now feels safer to me than the slightly larger car I had before which had some aluminium panels. Well think of a crumpled coke can!!
I was a child who often felt unsafe due to my domestic situation. I learned unwittingly to be resourceful. It’s not the car that makes you feel safe or unsafe it’s your mindset, it’s the skills of reilience that you’ve acquired, tried and tested.
We can believe we are safe by acquiring and gathering more possessions. Perhaps a bigger house, and bigger car, more material posessions and money that give you a false pretense of feeling safe. However, there is always the possibility that you can lose it all – do you feel unsafe just reading that?
Nothing is certain in this world, so your ability to adapt with skill to a changing situation, without breaking down, requires a certain level of security and yielding to be already present within you.
If I lie in the arms of Mother Earth and allow myself to feel totally supported, embraced and loved by her, then I feel safe. I can yield to the earth and feel her support me. It works both ways though, in your everyday life what can you offer Her? What can you do to show gratitude?
Nowadays the majority of people feel fearful, take my example of self judgement. It’s your own thoughts that make you feel unsafe, amazing isn’t it? The mind can be an unsafe space if attention is focused in the wrong place.
Safety is all in the mind, except if we are in a life threatening situation or under attack by others. Even then if you have spent time building resources you can find a great inner strength and sense of empowerment to keep you going through trauma. Knowing when to rest is key, to slow down, pause and reflect in order to create a strong mind-body connection. The mind-body connection is absoultely necessary for yielding to the Earth and feeling Her presence, Her support and love. When you don’t know how to yield to Her it’s difficult to feel safe.