When I think about it, I notice how difficult it is to pinpoint it.

Asked if I feel safe, I’ll be able to locate some details that might worry or frighten me in the moment.

Asked if what worries me is relevant, I will start to assess the risks, think about the danger, and might end up knowing how to protect myself against the risk. Alternatively, I might see what permission I have to give myself to overcome the fear.

The sense of safety comes and goes. It’s the normal alarm system I’m constantly using, usually without even noticing it. Sometimes because of how I learned to anticipate things, prepare myself, and thus avoid danger. Sometimes because of the excitement I can experience whenever I’ve decided to accept a challenge. Both anticipation and excitement are ways I’m using to regulate my sense of safety.

The sense of safety is located in the process. It can’t be fixed. It is one of the boundaries we need to manage as human beings. We do so all of our life. Always with the means that are at our disposal.

Just like every human being, I want to feel safe and find ways to achieve it.

This doesn’t guarantee that I’m safe. It’s how I arrange myself with the situation.

Some of these arrangements become habits. Some because it always worked, others because it is too challenging to deal with the situation. In those cases, the risk is to become so used to that specific risk that it is hard to notice when it becomes dangerous.

And yes, sometimes my alarm system doesn’t work well.

That’s when I don’t feel safe.

Sometimes that’s exactly how it needs to be.