Happiness is Feeling Safe

Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson

Happiness at some level is a luxury. What do I mean by that? Well it comes back to one of my favorite concepts of all-time, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The concept is beautiful for its simplicity, basically the idea is that you have to meet your most basic needs before moving on to things that are optional, like happiness, environmentalism or spirituality. Those things are secondary if your kids are hungry. One of the most basic things that human beings need is to feel safe and it is the second level of the hierarchy. So the question today is, do you feel safe?

If not, what is it in your world that threatens you? Is it something you can change? If you can, you should make it a priority, taking care of yourself and your well-being is one of the first steps to being happy. Remember that the things that threaten you are not always physical threats and most likely are psychological in nature. People who are overly critical or not responsive of your needs can be just as damaging to your feeling of safety. In the end, feeling safe means you can feel comfortable to let your guard down both physically and psychologically.

What got me thinking about this today was that I was fortunate to wake up this morning at a hotel on the beach. Laying there in my warm bed, listening to the waves I was hit with this incredibly feeling of safety, I haven’t been feeling very safe in my world lately and the feeling this morning was wonderful and inspired this post and the following poem, enjoy.

Safe (written in Monterey, CA – 2/19/11)

I feel safe here
warm in my bed
sound of waves
breaking on shore
regular as heartbeats
kissing the land

A reminder
the original safe place
warm
wet
well-fed
regular heartbeats
the meaning of safety
before words or language

About Michael Kane

Michael Kane is a writer, photographer, educator, speaker, adventurer and a general sampler of life. His books on hiking and poetry are available in soft cover and Kindle on Amazon.

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