[Side note: I'm officially launching my freelance web coding service in June. This might be handy for you if you're a web designer and you could use a hand with the more technical stuff. If so, you might like to read this. Okay, where were we?]

Safety.

This is the part where I ramble for a while. Although somewhat unplanned and unstructured, I’m pretty sure we’ll cover some interesting ground. Okay! Let’s get started…

Returning to safety.

Always returning to safety, even though it’s hard to remember. Your beliefs about reality have to support it. If you believe you’re unsafe, fear is the result. It (fear) is actually the best way to relate to the world in that situation. So the root of the problem, of turning from fear to love, is in feeling safe or unsafe.

“Not minding what happens”

A quote I remember from a Buddhist monk. But that can be so, so hard. It’s attachment, to want one set of circumstances and not want another, but I dislike the word because it doesn’t offer a solution, it just stares back and says, “The way you’re thinking now, that’s making you unhappy.” Something like that. Not helpful.

So back to feeling safe, because that’s our hope. If we can view things as safe, then it’s all good. Love results instead of fear. When you feel safe there’s no need to worry about yourself. You naturally, without force, feel inclined to care for others. You’re fine, you’re okay, but they could use a hand. You care, so you do.

I guess, really, feeling safe or unsafe is a creative belief.

Imagine if you lived with the “feeling safe” mindset for a few months. All these people would love and support you back because you loved and supported them first. You really would be safe. And likewise, if you feel unsafe, your fears become real. You take them seriously and make sure they don’t hurt you. Your every action is driven by the fear, to conquer that which makes you vulnerable. Even as you grow more powerful, you still see unsafety everywhere.

All of this leads to…

How do we go about tipping the balance, feeling safe where we are now, in our present circumstances? I think this is one of those big, massive lifelong projects, something you can work on forever. But there also has to be something we can do something about today. Otherwise, how could we ever begin?

It’s got to come back to how we view reality. What do we think it’s all about? What’s the game we’re playing, and what are the rules?

The default answer is “I am a physical person with a physical body, in this world. There might be some creator who is bigger than me, or there might not be. I am mortal and I am going to die. I have maybe 60 years left, but death could really come at any instant, and then I cease to exist.”

If you really believe this, it’s completely logical to feel fear. It doesn’t make sense to not be afraid. This is a scary reality to live in!

So we have to create for ourselves a non-scary reality.

It can’t be too concerned with the physical stuff. That’s impermanent and out of our control to some degree. Happiness does not lie there. Do we agree on that? I think we do. Certainly there’s satisfaction in creating stuff, in expressing ourselves, but that can’t be dependent on physical outcomes or we get frustrated when it doesn’t work out how we want it to.

I think perspective is really important.

Place this visit to earth in the context of an immortal spirit / consciousness, temporarily experiencing this reality. It’s all going to pass and nothing important will be lost when it does. That way the little stuff doesn’t matter so much. That also means that we can tell what the important stuff is, because it doesn’t pass, it’s not tied to this physical world.

Even though the physical stuff is going to pass, it’s still here, now. So let’s call it a playground. We can do some pretty cool stuff here. Meet people, make cool stuff happen, practice and become good at things, maybe even masterful. Hey, it’ll pass, but doing it is fun, and we might as well have fun while we’re here. If we’re safe, we can pretty much do whatever we want and it’ll be okay. So we might as well do what’s fun.

So what’s the point of playing here? What would we look back on with gladness after our time here? What could we do that would be meaningful after we’ve left? Connect with people. Do awesome things together and share the experience. Care for them and help them enjoy their time here, too. Become stronger and more capable, so little things don’t knock you over and so you are capable of manifesting the wonderful things you imagine. Have fun even as you are learning and making a mess of things. You’ll get better with practice. Learn. Come away understanding yourself, other people and the world a little better. Indulge your curiosity and learn everything there is to know about the things that interest you.¹

In this world, you can still die.

But your consciousness remains unharmed, and you get to keep your growth – your wisdom, your strength and your lovingness, even if you are separated physically from those you love. This is like when you say “So and so is a very loving person.” The people they love are not so important as their general, unconditional attitude of love for whoever they encounter.

I can feel the objections, the resistance to this world view rising in me already, and I know I have more ground to cover, more corners of my mind to unearth. But this post is growing long, and I think this is enough to chew on for one day.

See you next time to explore further how we can feel safe in this world.

1. If you’re observant you might have noticed Steve Pavlina’s principles of truth, love and power there. Interesting. [↩]

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• Feeling safe, part two
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