safe and alive

Pleading, 1984 by Jeff WallSafety without aliveness is deadening; aliveness without safety is disorienting. You can tell where you have room to grow by examining your relationship and asking yourself what you’re more afraid to expect: safety or aliveness?If you want to know if something is alive, ask yourself: does it thrill me?If you want to know if something is safe, ask yourself: do I intuitively feel I can depend on it in every realm that matters?If you care too much about safety, you’ll be terrified of risks that lead to more aliveness because you’re so indexed on what you might lose: This is good enough.If you care too much about aliveness, you’ll struggle to create a solid foundation from which to experiment and grow, or the intuitive sense that you are fully held.If you’re never experienced safety and aliveness at the same time, you probably doubt that they can coexist. We love to depict them as mutually exclusive in our culture. Manic pixie dream girl or nagging wife. The guy…