“EVEN THE WEARIEST RIVER WINDS SOMEWHERE SAFE TO THE SEA”

Henry Mencken said “The average man doesn’t want to be free he wants to be safe”. There will always be periods in life when we feel scared and unsafe. Feeling unsafe can be about physical or mental safety, maybe we are vunerable because we're small, or feel insecure about how we look. Maybe anxious thoughts mean we are afraid to live in surroundings we don't trust, when you find the world terrifying, even your mind can be an unsafe place where you don’t want to be alone.

Feeling safe can mean very different things, for some it is living all their life in the same place, it means never moving out of secure surroundings, because familiarity brings feelings of safety. It may not be the place that brings them happiness, but they are too afraid to leave, being contained and restricted makes them feel safe. Prisoners have said they felt safer in prison than living in the outside world where they have to make their own decisions, in a world with no routine and no structure. Often those caught in abusive relationships stay in them because they don’t have the courage to leave and face the fear of an uncertain life alone. Thomas Fuller wrote “Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away”.

Angelou says “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place we can go as we are and not be questioned”. For some that feeling of ‘being home’ is the safest place they know, their right place when everything is wrong. We are all searching for our own idea of safety, whether it’s family, friends, perfect health or financial security,The challenges we face are not supposed to stifle us they are supposed to make us strong. Perhaps we have to spend less time craving security no matter how unhappy or restrictive it is and more time learning to live in an insecure world, where nothing is certain and the only security comes from knowing how to stay balanced on a road that can be rough and often feels as if it is falling from beneath you.

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles”.       Buddha

STEP OUT OF THE SHADOW

There is an old Swedish proverb that says ‘Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow’.  I do not think it an exaggeration to consider worry as a greater master of the human mind than courage and ambition, and it can destroy both.

Each life is marked by its own set of disasters, great or small, some life changing, some just annoying, therefore worrying about disaster is unavoidable. However when you live your life anticipating misfortune, most of which never happens, then worry can become obsessive.

Being in a constant state of worry is a bit like grief - it is exhausting and all-consuming, blocking out light and repelling happiness.

The constant state of tension within which the mind and body are held, can cause actual physical symptoms and allow depression to take hold. So if this is you, put up the barricades now, use all your powers of distraction, determine that this is the year you don’t sweat the small stuff.

What we anticipate rarely occurs, and what we least expect generally happens, if you are a compulsive worrier the least expected is often happier days.