What if safety wasn’t something given by others, but something awakened within us?

In the journey of healing, safety is often the first threshold. But true safety, the kind that invites us to breathe more fully, to rest, to play, is not just a condition we find externally. It’s something we reclaim in the body, in the spirit, in our belonging to the Mystery itself.

Belonging begins not with others, but with the breath within.

There is a moment in healing when we stop reaching outward and begin rooting inward, not in isolation, but in deep, cellular belonging. This poem is a reflection on that shift. On what becomes possible when the body finally feels safe enough to soften. To play. To rest. To receive.

For me, safety is not the absence of threat, but the presence of love. It is not perfection, but permission. When safety lives in the body, joy becomes accessible again. Not as performance, but as a form of return.

This poem arose from that sacred noticing. From the somatic knowing that when we are safe enough to be with discomfort and uncertainty, we are free, not just to survive, but to expand. Not just to be careful, but to be creative. It’s a love letter to the soul’s return to itself.

When Safety is Home

When I know I belong
not to a person,
not to a place,
but to the breath inside me
and the Mystery that holds it
then I can play.
Not perform.
Not please.
But play.
Wild and curious
as a child tracing the edges
of a brand-new morning.

When safety lives in my bones,
I don’t shrink, I expand.
I stop watching myself
from the outside in.
And start being myself
from the inside out.
That’s when the colors return.
The sound of my own laughter
feels like sunlight.
The yes in my belly
becomes a compass.
I no longer ask,
Am I too much?
Am I enough?
I’m already full
with presence.

And so I reach
for the moment,
for the sky,
for the hand
that doesn’t need to hold me up
but wants to swing beside me.
I taste joy.
I choose nurture
not as compensation
but celebration.

Not to fill a hole
but to honor the wholeness
that’s already here.
And when it’s time to rest,
I yield.
Not because I’m empty,
but because I’m met.
By the rhythm of breath,
the hum of earth,
the womb of God.

This is how love grows roots:
not through grasping,
but through trusting
that I am safe enough to reach.
Safe enough to receive.
Safe enough to rest
in the arms of delight.