I never really thought that I would see Safety as a complicated topic. I was raised AMAB in a not-so-small-anymore Northern Michigan city and I know I am a product of all of the toxic stuff that came come from that. While I had a lot of privilege in my situation, being hispanic made some things a bit more difficult. As an AMAB person, I was supposed to put forward strength at all angles. With those goggles “Safety” can actually correlate with weak. If you are acting to show emotional safety, you are not showing your strength.

The way that I was affected by being hispanic with regards to safety is that I chose to make myself less intimidating. The way I carry myself, the way I speak, the words I use. I worked very hard for a long time so that when I interacted with people, they didn’t see a threat. While this is a tool I created for myself that no longer serves me, this truly benefited my life at this time. While it didn’t stop people from following me in most stores I went to, it limited the times people asked security to be on guard, and it limited the times I was asked to leave businesses. I found a way to change that allowed me to find a bit more safety in my every day. As a side effect, that does serve me now, I learned the value of and how to start offering up: Safety.

On my Services page, the first service I offer is: “Confidential Communication (It is amazing how healing it can be to just be heard)”. And do you know why it is SO important for people to be heard? When a person is heard, they feel safer.

The human psyche is an incredibly powerful thing. When you are in the midst of a fight, you cannot spare the resources to heal. And with so much of our community being aggressive as forms of sharing their opinions and beliefs, the everyday world has become a place of fear and anxiety. Which doesn’t allow much time for healing. We rarely feel safe enough to allow ourselves to heal. For some of us, even in our own homes, we do not have space to feel safe. And when we finally find it, our psyche allows us to open up and start the healing process.

Imagine being the reason that someone else can feel safe… How good would that feel? I do not correlate safety with weak. I find that any means you can show vulnerability actually shows an incredible amount of strength. And with that strength, you can create a safe place for people, you can build connections with people, and you can become a little more whole. With all of that said, what beauty can come from you finding a way to create a safe space for people? When you can make people feel safe, and you continue to be the person you are trying to be, people will feel better in your presence. People will feel the safety you offer, and they will be open to connection. And connection is one of the most important things for me to gain. I want people to feel safe, I want to be a person that allows people to feel safe, and find connections.

What is one thing you can do in your everyday to offer even a single person Safety?