My Safe Place

Do you have a safe place?

A place that’s just yours… where you can go when you’re feeling threatened. When someone is demanding too much. Or trying to control you. When you’ve been told what’s wrong with you, or it’s been implied. When you’re hurting and you need to be left alone.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted somewhere to hide away. Not just to escape the kids or have some rest. I needed to feel safe.

I finally have that place. I have a big comfy chair. I have a blanket and pillows and a stuffy; and books if I want to read, and a TV if I need to vegetate, and a speaker if I think music will help. I can curl up in that chair, wrapped in the blanket, knowing I won’t be interrupted, and allow my mind to go wherever it needs to.

Well, doesn’t that sound perfect? We usually can’t have perfect though. What if the person(s) we live with won’t respect our need to be alone?

When I look back over the years, I wonder―could I have built a place that was just mine? Maybe I should have left the house. But I didn’t have the courage to assert my needs. Honestly, I didn’t even know what my needs were. And I certainly didn’t respect myself; I lived my life for other people. I didn’t think I mattered…at all…on any level.

So, it’s not necessarily easy to make safe happen. I’ll talk more about the foundation I had to establish in order to build a safe place...

… in my next post.