Is Safety Imagined?

My body is tense right now. It’s pretty much always tense, despite years of self-work, therapy and a variety of consciousness and body practices. I regularly experience anxiety, panic attacks and hyper-vigilance. I don’t think I’ve ever really known what it means to feel safe.

But I feel like exploring right now what actually is “safety?”

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I notice that just sitting with that question helps the body relax a bit.

Is safety a feeling? Is safety a belief? Is safety imagined?

I’m recalling watching a video of a successful entrepreneur in the automotive industry describe how his luxurious lifestyle was deeply impacted after being robbed in the middle of the night while at home.

The experience left him traumatized and paranoid, making him constantly worry about whether or not he was safe.

What good is success, status and material possessions if you’re constantly afraid of them being taken away?

Do our possessions make us feel safe? Do our relationships make us feel safe? Does our social status make us feel safe? Does the body’s health and wellbeing make us feel safe?

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Is safety just our conditioned imagination, where we have been taught to believe if X, Y, and Z factors are in place, everything is “okay?”

I can certainly see how I do this all the time. When certain factors in my life are “threatened,” suddenly I go into fight, flight or freeze mode.

I desperately obsessively try to control certain factors so that I don’t experience the fear of not feeling safe.

But let’s look deeper.

Is there actually a “me” doing any of this?
Is there a separate-self in control of anything?

Does desperate obsessive controlling behavior just happen spontaneously?

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Sitting in this moment, consciously observing, I actually can’t find anything that is “safe” or “unsafe?” When I look for a separate “me,” I can’t find one.

Presence reveals that there is no “me” in control, there is no “safety,” there isn’t even “loss.”

There is just this moment, this here and now, this beingness that exists prior to thoughts.

Imagination is the fuel of fear. The mind projects all sorts of horrific scenarios when unexpected situations arise and then imagines “safe” solutions to them. But it’s an endless cycle of projection, that never actually arrives at “safety,” just a temporary relief and distraction from fearful thoughts.

The heart of presence illuminates this cycle of the mind and I see a little more clearly that the projections aren’t real.

I discover a love that exists in presence, it effortlessly radiates outward. I can see that it’s perfectly “okay” for self-nurturing behaviors to take place that make me feel “safe,” while at the same time seeing that there is no such thing as “safety.” These behaviors of self-care arrive spontaneously and there isn’t even anyone controlling them.

The worries of the mind dissolve in the loving heart of presence and “safety” is seen to be just another passing thought - no more real than a cloud temporarily passing through the sky.