becoming a safe person

i wonder what it actually means to become a safe person...

not someone who always has the right answer... not someone who fixes everything... not someone who agrees with every choice another person makes...

just... safe.

because i keep noticing something...

we often abandon people at the very moment they need someone willing to wonder with them. someone is hurting in ways we don't understand... and instead of becoming curious... we evaluate.

i wonder why that is. is it because we're uncomfortable? is it because we're scared of the answer? is it because we don't know what to do with someone else's pain? or maybe... maybe we've just never learned another way.

i wonder what would happen if we led with questions...

what happened that made this feel like the safest choice? what need is this trying to meet? what are you protecting? what are you longing for? what feels impossible to let go of? what are you afraid might happen if things changed?

what would it feel like to answer those questions without worrying that someone was going to judge you?

i wonder how many people (other than me) have spent their lives explaining themselves... when what they were really longing for was someone willing to understand them.

and i get it... i really do.

when i'm overwhelmed or anxious... it's hard for me to ask good questions. sometimes i become more interested in making the discomfort go away than i do in understanding the human being sitting in front of me.

i'm becoming, too.

i wonder if becoming a safe person starts long before the hard conversations...

maybe it starts in the ordinary moments.

the aggressive driver cuts me off... i wonder if they're okay.

someone makes a decision i don't agree with... i wonder what they're seeing that i'm not.

someone doesn't text me back... i wonder what kind of day they're having.

someone gets defensive... i wonder what they're protecting.

someone says something that hurts... i wonder what pain they're carrying.

i disappoint myself... i wonder what need i was trying to meet.

maybe wondering is the entire practice.

maybe wonder is supposed to slowly change the way we move through the world.

i also notice how easily we confuse understanding with agreement...

i wonder when we learned that.

i wonder how many relationships stay on the surface because neither person is willing to ask one more question. (calling myself out... again)

the relationships that have changed me weren't the ones where someone had all the answers...

they were the ones where someone stayed...

they wondered...

they trusted that if they stayed... eventually i would find my own words.

maybe that's what a safe person does...

they make room for the truth to arrive.

and i'm beginning to wonder if the first person i need to become safe for... is me.

when i disappoint myself... do i rush to judgment... or do i wonder?

what am i protecting?

what need am i trying to meet?

what story am i still believing?

what part of me is asking to be understood instead of corrected?

because i'm never going to do this perfectly...

there are conversations i wish i could do over.

moments where my anxiety was louder than my curiosity.

moments where i reached the edge of my own capacity... and stopped wondering.

and i wonder if that's okay... not because i don't want to grow...

but because growth has always been a practice.

what if relationships were a practice too?

what if we came back?

what if we said... "i've been thinking about our conversation..."

or... "i realized i stopped wondering..."

or... "can we try that again? i want to understand you better."

we usually practice everything else.

we expect to make mistakes when we're learning something new...

i wonder why we don't offer our relationships that same grace.

what would change if we came back?

what would change if we asked one more question?

what would change if we listened a little longer?

what would change if becoming a safe person wasn't about getting it right...

but about returning...

again...

and again...

ready to wonder.

ready to listen.

ready to love.

and i'm beginning to wonder if the first person i need to become safe for... is me.

maybe sitting with ourselves first is where the work really begins.

maybe the way i learn to stay with you... is by first learning how to stay with me.

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if this stirred something in you...

don't rush to answer it.

stay with it for a little while.

then return... this practice will be here when you're ready.

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