The other day, I was sitting in a virtual classroom with 90 other students, when the professor asked us to each participate in an exercise designed to evoke a feeling of safety, of feeling supported, loved, and comforted. He asked us to focus on a moment, a memory that was both vivid and that would produce those feelings.
Immediately, my thoughts wandered to all the possible memories I could have chosen: me being in my grandparents' barn hayloft with a mother dog and her pups, or me talking to my uncle's Percheron horse as a nine-year-old girl, my grandmother making new potato hash browned potatoes... but I rejected all of these and chose something more recent: one time I awoke in the middle of the night as a grieving mother, sobbing into my pillow, and feeling my husband's arms around me. His presence, his unspoken support, his love, his comfort - they were all tangible.
As we went through the exercise, our prof engaged all of the five senses. As he drilled down into the memories we each chose, he was able to bring them front and centre. When it was done, I was one of many who dabbed at their eyes.
It was a powerful experience for me, both during and afterward. My eyes filled with tears of gratitude, of love, of letting go of that pain, of a feeling that I was kept safe and sheltered from the horrible storm in my heart. The feeling stayed with me long after the exercise was over. Each time I thought of that moment, the same feelings came back. I had discovered a new Safe Place, one to which I could return when I felt overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or threatened.
Our professor took us through that exercise so that we could experience for ourselves the power of emotions and the need for acknowledging them in our lives and the lives of our clients. Point. Taken.Free photo by Pexels at Pixabay
Shortly after I wrote the above words, my kitten, Willow (aged 7 months) crawled into the space between me and the arm of the loveseat. I started petting her head and neck. And then she lifted her head, looked at me, and crawled up on my chest and laid down, her face nuzzling under my chin. She stayed there for a good fifteen minutes, soaking in the love, absorbing the sense of peace and calm in my body and in the room, and dozing off amid soft purrs.
For a few minutes, I was her safe place.
When she was all filled up with comfort and with love, she got up, hopped off my chest, and went to her perch on the cat-tree to groom herself and survey her domain. Cats position themselves where they can see their people as a way of marking their territory. We are her people. She feels at home here. Now, she has returned to the back of the loveseat, and has laid down just behind my left shoulder. Her left front paw is on the back of my upper arm. She has fallen asleep. Connection. Trust. Safety. Love. Peace.
That's the feeling everyone needs to feel. I need to feel it; she needs to feel it; you need to feel it. And we need to feel it often. At least once a day, Willow comes to me for that feeling of safety and love, usually right before we settle down for the night. It's security for her. It's belonging for her. It's Home to her.
We can call that return to security whatever we like: grounding, meditating, centering, breathing, pranayama, enjoying the moment, going to our happy place, or whatever. For me, it's going to My Safe Place. As part of a healing and growing process in my life, it's essential. And it feels SO good. It's designed to - because we are each designed to connect, to feel safe, to feel settled and secure.
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If you want to learn more about living a lifestyle that lets go of the past and releases the future, you can try my book, after which this blog is named: Get Unwrapped! It's not long, but it's worth reading slowly. Get it here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91697
