Spirituality is definitely transcendental, but to soar we must first be grounded.
When my kids were very little, a friend gave me a DVD about “stranger danger”. The approach was great; it broke adults into three categories (safe people, people you kind of know and complete strangers) and explained that ONLY the safe people were safe. And in the best of all possible worlds, these safe people would provide the foundation and framework for a child’s security and sense of well-being.
But, some of us did not feel safe growing up. Maybe we had unsafe parents or an unsafe home or we moved a lot or experienced trauma or tragedy at a young age, and what happened was that the very important and primal need for safety was never really met.
So we grew up and went out in the world seeking safety. But without a clear idea of what that really looks like or feels like, many of us wandered through many unsafe jobs and relationships and moves before we began to touch upon what safety really feels like.
Safety is the ground beneath our feet. And safety is different for every person. A good friend recently used the term “touch points” to describe those things in our life that ground us: our kitchen, our favorite place to buy bananas, that café that sells the coffee we love, that friend we connect to instantly and we can be raw with. We cannot underestimate the need for these touch points. Without them, we are free-falling.
Yet, life is constantly changing so it means that we have to be open to our touch points also changing. This is hard, but as we go through the inevitable changes of life—aging, children leaving home, retirement, moving, changing jobs—we need to be very loving with ourselves and honest with ourselves about what really brings us pleasure, what makes us feel safe and makes us feel grounded. And this, in the end, is what enables us to connect to the Divine. So, I encourage you to explore what makes you feel safe.
Blessings,
Tara
Tara Zafft, Ph.D. 