Feeling of safety within my own hands

"Finding that feeling of safety within my own two hands."

In Chinese culture, it's customary to tamp down your feelings, to press them so far back into your consciousness that you create a backlog of emotions you'll likely have to deal with later on. I was always very sensitive when I was younger, but I created a thick demeanor around it, so that I could handle what was happening in my household.

Then, when I began dating, I would attract men who seemed to not feel much of anything at all except for what was practical and rational and predictable. It made me feel like I was crazy, that I was going up and down and all around, when in actuality, I was simply being a human being. And, a beautiful woman at that.

Lately, I've been yearning to feel safe in the world, to be able to shed any presumptions or preconceived notions of how I need to be in order to receive love. Instead, I want to just be, and be loved for being me. While I've been seeking this feeling of security within and around others, like everything else in life, it always has to begin with ourselves first.

That realization can be both a blessing and a curse.

Because there are indeed times when you need to open up and surrender your palms, so that someone else can hold it for you. To pull you up when you feel you've stumbled, to hold tight when you get scared and want to run away, to remind you that you're not alone in the world. Then, there are other occasions when the only person who can make any sort of change is yourself — from what you think to what you believe to how you act, the spark must be ignited within you and then the flame can illuminate the rest of the world.

Every morning, before I get out of bed, I say a little mantra to protect my energy. I thank the Universe that I'm alive and gifted another day with my heart beating and my lungs breathing. And then, I place my hands on myself to offer Reiki healing energy. Today, after a night of odd dreams filled with fears, I awoke and did the same as I do every other morning.

The difference is, I felt filled with a sense of safety. I felt that my hands were offering loving energy to myself in a way that conveyed how worthy I am. I was giving myself what I've been looking for outside of me for so long. It was so serene and, while it was brief, it was an awakening of potential for greater self-care and self-respect in this moment and every other in the world.

It takes loads of work to change the patterns that exist in your brain. It takes effort and practice to overlay a new story on the one that was written before. It takes discipline to catch the approach you're using on yourself and others, to co-create a different type of experience, one that suits your soul much better.

Sometimes, it happens in an instant. Sometimes, it happens over years or even decades. And sometimes, it happens so subtly that you may not even realize you've arrived where you've always wanted to be. For all those other times in between, that's where faith that things are happening just as they're meant to comes into play.

Feel whatever you're feeling. Feelings are information and if you can be discerning and observing with the ones you choose to pursue, then you are growing wiser with every moment.

Today, I feel a bit safer. And that is lovely.

http://hawkandlily.blogspot.com/2013/02/finding-that-feeling-of-safety-within.html