There are some places I regard as safe places, places where there is no judgement and no pressure to be anything but myself. When life feels overwhelming, when things get very difficult, these are places I can go to get comforted, to feel safe.
You might be surprised (or not) to find out that some of these places are virtual — they don’t exist in real life. And that’s because some of them are books, websites, songs. Books, in particular, have been a wonderful friend to me.
Another safe place that we don’t often think of as a safe place is our heart. As I cultivate my heart over these few years, I have learned that I am also my own best refuge. The world can get its hands on everything I own physically, but it cannot get my heart.
In fact, befriending our *heart is our only option if we want to survive the tumult and violent beauty that is life. Once we find that our heart is now our best refuge, the safest place we can possibly be, there is nothing to be afraid of anymore.
* By “heart” I also mean “mind”.