A story about exiting from the distorted programming of DISRUPTION and entering into a long-term love affair with SAFETY.

The best kind of affair to have is with creating your own internal sense of safety, security, and devotion to self-love (which natural turns into loving and caring for others).

The worst kind of affair to have is sucking on the teet of scarcity, focusing on what you do not have control over, comparing yourself to others, and/or resisting what is happening now.

Most people are ‘sleeping with the enemy’ right about now and wondering why they feel terrible, are terrified, or only intermittently okay in life.

The thing is that the vast majority of humans have no idea the power that they have. 

And I am not talking about some esoteric power, some airy-faery-pray-and-make-it-so power (though that is real too!), I am talking about the most SIMPLE TOOLS that you utilize every moment of the day.

• Your gaze: that is what you are FEEDING yourself in your visual field
• Your listening: who and what are you spicing your life with? 

This is what makes up your ATTENTION.

Who or what are you attending to on the regular.

Next is…

• How do you orient to the world?: What is the lens through which you perceive yourself and others. If you look back over your life, what is the narrative through-line that you have?
• What emotional states do you nourish and amplify?: If your emotional life was a pie chart, what % of your day do you live in anxiety, worry, angst? What % are you numb, mindlessly scrolling, zoning out? What % are you sowing seeds of bone-deep gratitude, appreciation, and tending to feelings of enoughness or prosperity?

This makes up your INTENTION.

Your intention is how and where you direct your power and authorship (authority) as a creator being.

And then there are the very practical bits of your thinking-feeling-believing-doing (which I cover over my 10-week Your Marriage Is Your Ashram course for women).

All of these things are the foundation of your life and what your life gives to you daily.

Did you know that gobs of people use their creative powers to create DISRUPTION in their own relationships-finances-family-life?!

Did you know that those people often have NO IDEA that they are creating the drama-trauma-distortions again and again because their attention and intention are so wrapped up in the old patterns?

Until you start having a love affair with safety, you’ll likely continue recreating the same relationship patterns, stress cycles, and emotional overwhelm that keep many women feeling disconnected from themselves and their partners.

Until you get to know bone-deep safety-security-presence INSIDE of yourself, you will run on the treadmill of preparing for crisis, putting out fires, over-scheduling-your-overwhelmed-self, and maintaining an outside-of-yourself-gaze. 

LOOK OVER THERE!

All the while believing that once everything is BETTER-FIXED-WHATEVER-YOU-BELIEVE-IT-SHOULD-BE then you will be able to feel safe, relaxed, nourished, emotionally fed, and satisfied.

Yesterday, when I was walking out the door to meet a friend for a sunset walk, it hit me.

I felt genuinely connected and at ease in my marriage, something many women in midlife quietly long for but struggle to create consistently.

More accurately, I could locate the sensations of ease, relaxation, and calm inside my body.

I interpreted those SENSATIONS as joy and happiness. 

I marinated in those sensations and feelings which invited me to think about what an enjoyable day I had, how grateful I am to have a dear friend to walk with, and how much I love living in the desert.

I allowed that FREQUENCY FOR HAPPINESS to spill into my present moment as I kissed my husband good-bye as I left the house.

And I was allowing that joy to infiltrate my marriage.

I was sharing my joy with my husband and allowing play, lightness, and fun to spill over in our life together.

EVEN THOUGH, on paper there are some difficult-scary-real-life WTF happening.

Maybe for you sharing joy and satisfaction with your beloved is business as usual but not for me. I was the Queen of Dissatisfaction and Let Me Tell You How To Improve Yourself So I Can Be Happy for a loooong time.

For a solid 15 of our 25 years together, I created disruption because I was having an affair with fear-worry-comparison that fed my propensity to be anxious-overfunction-overwork. I remember days when my husband would go off to work or school and I would be home with our small son and log a solid 9 hours worrying about our lack of connection, fretting about money, and then commiserating with my friends about it. 

He’d come home and be like, “Hi hon!” 

And the fury that I had stoked all day would hit him in the face like a sucker punch.

Honestly, I didn’t know what safety-calm-presence really felt like.

I thought it was a MIND GAME. If I learn how to train my mind, regulate my nervous system, or meditate more, I would stop being annoyed, bitter, and thinking about divorce quarterly.

Looking back, I realize that I didn’t even know the TONE or FREQUENCY of safety. I probably read it as “boredom” or “uninspired” and likely said to my husband, “But you just don’t GET ME!”

Many women come to relationship work believing their marriage is the problem. But often the deeper invitation is learning how to create safety within themselves. When we stop living in constant anticipation of crisis, disappointment, rejection, or scarcity, we begin showing up differently in every area of life, including our closest relationships.

Safety is a FREQUENCY. It has a shape and your body will soften in the presence of safety. It is why it can be so powerful to come together in a circle of others who are praying or meditating or consciously creating because you will attune to their energy.

The beautiful thing is that safety is not something we wait to receive from life. It is something we learn to cultivate within ourselves.

And when we do, something remarkable happens.

We stop gripping.

We stop preparing for disaster.

We stop demanding that everyone around us change so that we can finally feel okay.

We begin to soften.

We begin to trust.

We begin to experience more connection, more joy, and more ease, even when life remains imperfect.

That shift has changed my marriage more than any communication tool, book, workshop, or insight ever could.

Because when safety moved in, fear stopped being the loudest voice in the room.

If you find yourself exhausted from trying to fix, improve, analyze, or manage everything, perhaps the invitation is not another strategy.

Perhaps the invitation is safety.

And perhaps that safety is closer than you think.

~~~

If this reflection resonated, you may enjoy exploring my work with women and couples navigating relationship challenges, life transitions, emotional healing, and personal growth. Whether you’re seeking deeper connection in your marriage, more trust in yourself, or greater ease in your everyday life, you’ll find resources and ways to work together here.

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