The Need to Be Safe

I recently watched this video by Simon Sinek on leadership and was struck by the statement, “leaders make others feel safe and protected”. Since then, I’ve been mulling around in my head this idea about feeling safe.

In every values test I have ever taken, safety and security have always come out in the top position. It is one of my strongest needs and I am not alone. In fact, the need to be safe is one of our core needs as human beings.

Without a sense of safety, it becomes difficult to trust that we will be taken care of and that everything will work out. I also know feeling safe is why most people stay stuck in situations that no longer work for them.

False Security

Familiarity breeds a sense of safety; it’s why we often choose to stay inside our comfort zone. We know what will happen there and this predictability helps us feel safe and in control.

But our comfort zone can also create a false sense of security. We stay in places/circumstances/relationships that are actually harming us because the thought of making a change feels too risky.

I know from personal experience that the need to feel safe while navigating change is huge. After leaving my last job and the faith community I was a part of, I spent two years feeling unsafe almost daily. I felt like I had no anchor because the things that once grounded me were being uprooted and unraveled.

Safe Places

One of the things that helped me move through that time was finding people who felt safe to me. These people became my safe places. I felt loved and cared for but most of all I didn’t feel judged.

These were people who could hear me without needing to tell me how to think or feel. People who let me wrestle through all of my uncertainty, affirming me when needed but never judging me for my journey. They simply let me be.

They did not feel the need to dictate to my path. Instead, they trusted that I would find the right path in time. It was unsettling but them not telling me what to do helped me trust myself, something I was not very good at.

Cultivating Self-Trust

I, like a lot of women, had been trained and conditioned for most of my life to ignore my intuition and trust those outside myself. But my friends who didn’t try to rescue me helped me learn to trust myself.

Cultivating this self-trust was an important part of my journey. I questioned a lot of things I once believed with absolute certainty and found more beauty and grace in the mystery of not knowing. I learned to access the truth that was in me instead of relying on others to tell me what to do (and what to believe).

But perhaps the greatest gift that came from this time was remembering that the Divine gave my gifts to me. As such, the expression of those gifts was not dependent on being in a specific setting. My gifts are free to be expressed anywhere and at any time. I can’t tell you how freeing it was to have this simple revelation come forward for me.

If I had not risked feeling unsafe during that time, I never would have accessed this deeper level of inner trust. Knowing how to trust myself has made me feel safer than I ever did before. I am anchored within myself not outside of me and, therefore, I’m not as easily shaken when things don’t go as planned.

What about you?

I wonder where your need to be safe may be causing you to stay stuck? Where has a false sense of security developed in you and you’re staying in a situation you know you need to leave?

If you’re ready to develop that inner trust and a deeper sense of security let’s talk. Schedule your complimentary Courage Igniter call with me today. On this call, we’ll look at what it is you really want for yourself, what has been standing in your way, and why it’s time to get you where you want to be.

If you’re ready to get unstuck, I can create the space for you to access your courage. Schedule your call today.

Here’s to you rising into your greatness.

From my heart to yours,