My entire life, I have longed for safety because I haven't felt like I had any growing up, or as a young adult. We moved and travelled a lot, while I simply cherish having a nice home.
What is then safety and which requirements do we hold on to, to get the level that is both needed and yet with freedom to live and love fully?
Some days when I was locked up in my cell alone in 2012 at Honolulu Federal Detention Center due to immigration proceedings, with access to water, WC and window, and a little food, it was a little like my own studio but with cold concrete walls and floor... but without being stalked! I sat there and wrote in my journal (and on loose paper when the free notebook given to us by a volunteer from church, was full), read, and simply rested, did yoga, and thought about the past to define and solve problems for a better future, while visualizing my ideas and dreams come true. In a way, it was the same peace I used to have in my own home.
Safety to me, has to be the foundation for the rest in life to function well, both for health and happiness, as well as learning, expression and success to follow, from that taking off point, rather than mere struggling to survive. It includes:
Physical safety: Food, water and living quarters, medicine, rest, sleep and walks in fresh air outdoors. Protected property, including online content and means of communication. And the money to care for these needs.
Mental safety: Clarity of thought with freedom of thought, to explore opinions, perspectives, events in society alongside personal ideas, as well as access to books and news, with privacy.
Emotional safety: Daring to feel and express the experience of being fully human with the range of both positive and negative emotions that one should be allowed to share verbally, as well as physically at times, with tender respect for one's vulnerability.
Spiritual safety: To dare have faith and be able to both meditate and pray without any interference of others, as well as being able to meet with others and talk about how we can approach and look at life, death and society. To dare believe.
All these are made possible, or stopped, through a country's culture, laws and will. And money. All bringing peace. Or drama, conflicts and war, when not or unfairly distributed.
Which do you prioritize and how do you fulfill your needs? Or do you even take your safety for granted? Whose responsibility is it? Which people can you be around that make you feel safe? Or pull you up from the water that you continue help others with? Can we even demand safety as a human right? Each need, a right to have it fulfilled.
The one thing we all can use is a blanket meanwhile, a neutral warm embrace holding us when the world seems to not. Mine was pink with white fluffy clouds that I held while sucking my thumb for many years as a little girl, followed by having soft and cuddly bunnies as pets, and pulling a warm made of wool over me in my couch. Even a warm bath can hold and caress you!
What does safety mean to you and how do you contribute to the making of a safe world?
Photo snatched online.