There are two feelings – two types of experiences – that we are always attempting to keep balanced in our lives:
Feeling safe
Feeling alive
First we crave to feel safe; to know with some level of certainty that we will continue to survive. Once we feel safe enough, then we crave feeling more alive.
If we focus on creating too much safety in our lives, we can begin to feel less alive. And if we focus on creating too much aliveness in our lives, we can begin to feel unsafe.
We’ve all had times in our lives when we felt bored, less than excited, or trapped in a job, a relationship or a situation because we were trying to create too much safety.
Many of us have also experienced times when we threw caution to the wind trying to feel more alive, or maybe in an attempt to free ourselves from one of the above situations, and jumped into a circumstance that had very little or no safety – maybe having no source of income, no relationships to rely on, or a situation where your health was compromised.
What we ultimately want is the perfect balance of feeling safe and alive simultaneously. We want enough safety to know we will be O.K., and enough aliveness to feel excited about living every moment.
One mistake that most of us make is assuming that feelings of safety come from knowing the future. We think that if we have enough certainty about what will happen, then that is how we get the feeling of safety.
The problem with assuming this is that our brains were not designed to know the future. It is impossible for us to know what will happen – period. So anytime we get a feeling of safety from attempting to know the future, it is because we are believing our own bullshit – we are believing in the lie that we know how things will go this time.
Using the strategy of trying to guess the future in order to feel safe is , in my opinion, is the number one cause of stress, fear, doubt, a lack of confidence and yes – feeling unsafe!
So how do we feel safe and alive at the same time with the perfect balance every moment?
Here are three simple steps to experiment with, if you you want:
Decide that you will always be willing to be open to what else is possible – even when things seem really certain! If you make this decision, you can have 100% certainty about how you will approach the unknown, and this is all the certainty your brain actually needs in order to feel safe.
Make the following phrase into a habit by repeating it to yourself 100 times:
“What am I no longer expecting this to become, and what else is possible now?”
Practice using this phrase in your everyday life, when things seem uncertain AND when things seem certain. You might be amazed at how much more alive you can feel! Even after using it 100 times or less, you will have developed the balancing of feeling safe and feeling alive into a lifelong habit.
– Andy
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