Safe Place: This is how you create your own safe inner haven

Become more self-confident, have less fear, cope better with the impassions of life and stay on track even when things are in a difficult position? Our author knows what helps and is diligently building an inner refuge. Here comes your blueprint.

Well-being, balance and security are closely linked. But if a storm approaches and once shakes our insides vigorously, we are grateful for a safe haven. And it is best if we can find this one place – our safe place – within ourselves. A refuge with which we connect in uncertain times. Granted, it sounds a bit esoteric, but when we feel insecure, when we seem to be losing control, when the restlessness is not calming us, we feel like we are lost, then we need him, this one A place where we find support – not in others, but deep within us. And once we have built it, it stays with us forever. It's worth the effort, isn't it?

Feel? Just where?

We don't like to be vulnerable, we don't have time for it, we suppress what is possible or we are quickly overwhelmed by it. Negative feelings are uncomfortable. The most uncomfortable thing about them is that they keep standing in front of our door, often unannounced. Because they want to be seen. Otherwise they will widen a bit and let us feel this caustic restlessness, and we need this above all: calm. Peace to feel us and to find access to us again. And we can find this calm by building our safe haven within ourselves. Here comes the blueprint for your Safe Place.

1. Endure silence

In order to create a basis, we have to be able to endure silence. This is achieved by learning to let our thoughts go without evaluating them. Anyone who has ever done yoga knows this: Everything can be there. It always sounds very easy at first, and suddenly you find yourself sitting cross-legged in front of you with your eyes closed, preparing the shopping list for the next day, coordinating the children's appointments or a problem for the job solves. Damn it! We don't want to think! Patience is required here and a little practice every day in allowing ourselves to do nothing but just be there for a few minutes a day. It's like this: We hardly have to wait somewhere before we pick up our cell phone, scroll a bit through Instagram, turn on music, read something or watch a video. But instead of killing time and distracting ourselves, we can use these moments to stay with ourselves, turn off our heads and let ourselves drift. If that doesn't work, small everyday routines can also help, for example meditating 10 minutes after getting up or before going to sleep.

2. Acceptance and emptiness

We have many expectations of ourselves and others, and others expect a lot from us. If we want to build an inner relaxation room, we need our own limits. But instead of building walls, we have to tear down those that separate us from ourselves. In other words, in order to reconnect with ourselves, we have to let go of what has held us back in the past and learn to accept what is now. We can no longer change the past, we cannot control what lies in the future. It only takes energy to deal with "what if" and "but, if I had done it differently …". It takes time, but at some point you feel it when you are in the here and now. The state of mind that everyone says you should be right there. Because then we can enjoy the present without attachments or expectations that can frustrate us over time. And that in turn will make us stronger than we think we can be.

3. Imagination and vision

What does it look like, the place where you feel comfortable? When you are free and can be completely with yourself, when you come to rest? Imagine it exactly and keep going back to it.

4. Disruptive factors

Our shelter is a long-term project – or as the saying goes: a marathon and not a sprint. Not everything will go smoothly. There will be days when everything comes up: fear, uncertainty, insecurity, pain. It is part of it. We grow from it. No pressure! But accept what is. Step by step. The more you practice and take the time, the more stable the Safe Place in you will be.

And why the elevation?

Many of us just keep on going somehow, ignoring our needs and warning signals and at some point the so laboriously maintained structure called life suddenly collapses and likes to catapult us into states that we never suspected could feel like this. Most of the time, we then begin to laboriously put back together stone by stone in ourselves and rebuild our lives. If we are already working prophylactically on our safe center, our walls are better able to withstand one or the other change. We don't sink into the rubble, to stick to the metaphor, but can look at the disaster from above from the crane and see ourselves from the outside. We are more relaxed about life and feel less thrown off track, something unexpected happens. After all, we have everything we need in us. It's very comforting when you're staring at a major construction site, isn't it?