Daily Archives: January 12, 2026

What We Mean When We Say “Safety”

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When people talk about safety, I’m feeling that we usually think of it in very narrow terms, such as the following:

  • Physical harm,
  • Rules,
  • Boundaries,
  • What’s “allowed” and what’s not.

Those things matter, but they’re a baseline and somewhat obvious.

As I’ve been figuring out my path over the past few years and sort myself out, I’ve realized there’s a much deeper nuance we might be tippy toeing around. We know it’s there, we just don’t bring it to the forefront of thought.

I’d like to talk about safety especially in the context of belonging — I’m talking about something broader and quieter. Something most of us feel instinctively but rarely name.

Safety is what allows a person to stay.

Safety Is Not the Absence of Harm

Safety isn’t just the absence of violence or overt cruelty.

A room can be technically “safe” and still feel hostile.

A group can follow every rule and still make people shrink.

A space can say everyone is welcome and quietly punish those who test that claim.

Real safety isn’t about what doesn’t happen.

It’s about what does.

What People Are Scanning for When They Enter a Space

When someone walks into a room — especially someone who has been marginalized, traumatized, or repeatedly excluded — they are scanning constantly. I know I do, subconsciously, asking questions like:

  • Am I welcome here, or merely tolerated?
  • What happens if I say the wrong thing?
  • Will I be ignored, corrected, mocked, or dismissed?
  • Who seems relaxed, and who seems guarded?
  • Is attention given freely, or does it come with a cost?
  • What happens when someone is vulnerable?
  • Do people stay consistent, or do rules change depending on who you are?

This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.

People learn very early what it costs them to be visible.

Safety Is Predictability

One of the most important and underrated components of safety is consistency.

People feel safer when:

  • responses are predictable
  • kindness isn’t revoked without explanation
  • boundaries are clear and stable
  • feedback doesn’t come wrapped in shame
  • affection doesn’t suddenly disappear

You don’t have to be perfect to be safe. but I propose you do have to be reliable.

Inconsistent warmth is one of the fastest ways to make a space feel unsafe.

Holding Space Is an Active Practice

We often talk about “holding space” as if it’s passive. It’s not.

Holding space means:

  • letting others take time without rushing them
  • allowing discomfort without trying to fix it
  • resisting the urge to center yourself
  • noticing who hasn’t spoken — and why
  • not punishing people for being careful
  • not demanding performance as proof of belonging

Holding space doesn’t mean lowering standards or abandoning boundaries.

It means enforcing them without humiliation.

Safety Is About Not Making People Earn Their Right to Be There

Many spaces claim to be inclusive but quietly expect newcomers to prove themselves.

To be confident enough. Interesting enough. Resilient enough. Easy enough.

That’s not safety — that’s audition culture.

Safety exists when people don’t have to minimize themselves, overperform, or apologize for taking up space just to remain welcome.

Why Safety Comes Before Belonging

Belonging is often framed as something people should choose. I have argued in previous posts that choosing belonging requires safety first.

Without safety:

  • the nervous system stays alert
  • risk feels dangerous instead of exciting
  • connection feels temporary
  • withdrawal feels like self-protection

People don’t fail to belong because they lack courage.

They struggle because safety hasn’t been established yet.

What It Looks Like to Create Safety

Creating safety doesn’t require special training or perfection. It looks like:

  • saying hello and meaning it
  • following through on what you offer
  • being clear instead of clever
  • naming mistakes without shaming
  • staying curious instead of defensive
  • noticing power dynamics instead of pretending they don’t exist

Most of all, it looks like showing up the same way tomorrow as you did today.

Consider that safety Is an Invitation to Stay

When safety is present, something subtle changes.

  • People breathe differently.
  • They stop scanning exits.
  • They take small risks.
  • They stay five minutes longer.
  • That’s how belonging begins.
  • Not with declarations.
  • Not with slogans.
  • But with consistency, care, and the quiet signal:

You’re okay here. You don’t have to disappear.

A Final Thought

If you run a group, host a space, lead a team, or simply care about community, here’s a question worth sitting with:

What does someone have to do in your space to remain welcome?

The answer will tell you more about safety than any mission statement ever could.

Cracking the Code on Belonging

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For most of my life, people told me I needed to choose belonging.

  • “Put yourself out there.”
  • “Find your people.”
  • “Claim your space.”

And I believed this overly simplified messaging and even tried it on for size.

No matter how hard I tried, belonging always felt fragile. Conditional. Like something I could lose without warning.

For a long time, I assumed the problem was me. It wasn’t.

I’m sharing this as a celebration, not for sympathy, but for those who may be wondering the same thing in their life, that have lived a different truth, with a similar outcome.

As a child, I moved schools constantly, not because I was difficult—but because of circumstance. New cities, new systems, adults making decisions doing their best without understanding what instability does to a child despite their own similar experiences.

By the time I was twelve, I had already learned an unspoken lesson: Connections don’t last.

At one school, I was told—publicly—that belonging was a choice. That if I didn’t feel like I belonged, that was on me.

The message was simple: Try harder.

What I felt wasn’t motivation. It was shame, because being told to choose belonging doesn’t work when your body doesn’t feel safe enough to try.

Here’s what we don’t say often enough:

  • Belonging isn’t confidence.
  • It isn’t charisma.
  • It isn’t effort – although I think it does require effort

Belonging requires safety.

Belonging, for me, meant feeling welcome and connected without minimizing myself or apologizing for taking up space.

Without safety, the nervous system won’t cooperate—no matter how much you want connection.

While my story comes from relationships, this pattern shows up everywhere—in workplaces, families, communities, and classrooms—anywhere people are told to “belong” without first being made safe.

So instead of belonging, I adapted.

I learned to scan rooms. To read people quickly. To become independent early.

Those skills looked impressive. They helped me succeed, but they weren’t belonging.

They were survival.

From the outside, I appeared capable and self-sufficient.

Inside, I was armored.

Independence wasn’t freedom—it was protection. Love, when it appeared, felt temporary and withdrawable.

So I learned not to get too comfortable.


When Everything Shifted at Once

There wasn’t one breakthrough moment, but there was a period when several sources of stability shifted at the same time—and my old strategies stopped working.

A long-term relationship was ending; at the same time, another important relationship felt suddenly uncertain.

What mattered wasn’t the details—it was the impact.

I found myself in a familiar place:

  • not feeling safe,
  • not feeling secure,
  • bracing for abandonment.

The fear underneath it wasn’t new.

It was fear of abandonment—the belief that closeness is temporary, that stability doesn’t last, and that eventually you’ll be left managing on your own.

For the first time, I couldn’t think my way out of it. I couldn’t independence my way through it, and that’s when I had to face something important:

  • This fear wasn’t irrational.
  • It was learned.

This is where therapy stopped being optional, not to eliminate the fear—but to understand it.

That fear wasn’t weakness. It was adaptation.

Once I stopped treating it as something shameful, something surprising happened.

I stayed with it. and people stayed too. Not everyone, not perfectly, but enough.

They didn’t withdraw when I hesitated. They didn’t punish me for being guarded. They didn’t disappear when things got uncomfortable.

They were consistent and consistency taught my nervous system something it had never learned:

I don’t have to disappear to survive this.

That realization didn’t fix everything, but it gave me a foothold.

The Mirror Shift

In therapy, I learned a metaphor that reframed my relationships: mirrors.

Some people hold small mirrors. They can only see part of you—the part that fits their worldview.

Others hold larger mirrors. They have the capacity to see more of you, including the complicated parts.

Understanding this freed me from chasing belonging where it wasn’t possible—and allowed me to invest where I was actually being seen.

Belonging as Practice

Here’s the idea that changed my life:

Belonging isn’t something you find. It’s something you practice—once safety exists.

Not by performing, not by proving, not by demanding space; but by arriving less guarded, by staying present, by taking up space without apology.

Over time, the room doesn’t grant permission.

It recognizes you.


Belonging Reconsidered

I still have old reflexes. Healing isn’t linear, but I no longer live in survival mode.

I no longer confuse independence with isolation, and I no longer chase belonging where it can’t exist.

The blackout curtain burned down.

What remains is light—sometimes steady, sometimes flickering—but real.

So if you’ve struggled with belonging, I want you to hear this clearly:

Nothing was wrong with you.

If belonging felt impossible, it may not have been absent—it may have been unsafe.

We tell people to “put themselves out there,” to “choose belonging,” without asking a more important question:

Is this space actually safe enough for someone to belong?

So I’ll leave you with this:

Where in your life have you been told to belong—without being made safe?
What would it take—in your relationships, your workplace, your community—to make belonging possible?

I have many wonderful people in my life in both my personal and work life who have seen me and have provided that space, and I’ve seen a generational shift has been amazing.