Becoming the Safe Place You Always Looked For

Safety doesn’t always look like someone showing up for you.
Sometimes, it looks like finally showing up for yourself.

For the longest time, I thought I needed someone else to feel whole.
I thought that love, success, or validation from the outside would finally silence the anxiety, quiet the trauma, and give me the peace I craved.

I was wrong - but not in the way you’d expect.

Because the truth is, I wasn’t wrong to want safety.
I was just looking for it in all the wrong places.

I looked like I had it all together

In an earlier version of my life, I looked like I had it all together.
I was the guy people pointed to and said, “He’s going places.”
I owned a Culver’s. I had investors. I signed six-figure checks.

But behind the confidence was a man quietly falling apart.

My marriage was crumbling.
I was silently battling addiction.
And I was stuck in a loop of self-sabotage and shame.

I wore a mask so convincing that even I started believing it.
But the truth was - I wasn’t showing up for myself at all.

Safety, for me now, means something different

It doesn’t mean being ahead.
It doesn’t mean being the strongest in the room.

It means consistency.
It means emotional steadiness.
It means cleaning the dishes, making the bed, and doing the small things that remind me - you matter enough to take care of.

It means honoring the sacred pause.
Putting the phone down.
Letting myself feel instead of numb.
It means talking to myself like I would someone I love.
It means no longer begging for peace but practicing it.

Because peace isn’t something I found.
It’s something I remembered… every time I chose myself.

These days, I don’t wait for someone else to make me feel safe.
I become it - moment by moment, choice by choice.

If I could talk to the version of me from five years ago

I wouldn’t judge him.
I wouldn’t rush him.
I’d hug him.

I’d wipe the tears from his eyes that no one ever saw.
I’d tell him the brokenness was temporary - and that every decision he made in that moment mattered more than he knew.

He didn’t know it yet, but the pain was carving a path home.

I’d tell him to stop searching for peace in people, titles, or distractions - and start looking inward.

Because safety was never a person.
Never a paycheck.
Never a finish line.

It was always waiting inside.

Becoming your own safe place doesn’t happen overnight

It happens when you…

• Clean your space because you realize your environment mirrors your mind
• Make your bed because you deserve a soft place to land
• Put your phone down and fully arrive in the moment
• Talk to yourself instead of judging yourself
• Ground to the earth and let stillness be your medicine
• Write, whisper, and reflect - not for others, but for you

These aren’t just habits.
They’re soul agreements.

Little promises you keep with yourself until you finally feel at home in your own body.

To the one reading this, unsure of your next step

I see you.

You might be anxious.
You might feel like you're behind.
You might be waiting for someone to choose you, save you, see you.

But here’s what I know:

You don’t need to be saved.
You need to be safe.
And the only one who can give that to you… is you.

Start small.
Start messy.
Start late if you have to.

But start.
You’re worth building a home within.

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