Daily Gratitude Challenge Day 23: Feeling Safe

In an effort to inject some positivity into my daily mindset and the online world I have created a Daily Gratitude Challenge and I am inviting everyone to participate. If you have missed my introductory post that explains the challenge and maps out the daily post schedule, visit here.

Daily Gratitude Challenge What makes you feel safe (1)

Day 23 of the Daily Gratitude Challenge focuses of the feeling of being safe.

What Makes Me Feel Safe

Daily Gratitude Challenge what makes you feel safe

The feeling of safety – for me at least – isn’t just the notion of being physically safe. Of course, I can always relax better when I know that The Bloke is home after work and the door is locked, but this part of the Daily Gratitude Challenge has forced me to look at what safety actually means and the psychology that accompanies it.

As someone who worries excessively about every potential possibility of a situation, I have discovered excessive worrying has often lead to feeling unsafe and consequently, I developed quite regimented routines to try and plan for every eventuality. Unfortunately, trying to gain control of things that 1. are out of my control and 2. often haven’t happened yet has been a fruitless task and did very little to calm the ‘what ifs’ that are causing me to worry.

I’ve been doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for almost a year and it has been instrumental in challenging my thought process, retraining my attention and gaining back a feeling of safety, particularly when doing mundane tasks as this is the point where my brain is likely to run away with itself. Being mindful about what I am doing, creating distractions like putting on my favourite playlist and repeatedly asking myself if the situation is really worth worrying about has helped me to become more aware about when my thoughts start to wander and made me feel more safe and secure. I try to give myself a break when unexpected events occur – normally I would have beaten myself up psychologically afterwards if something had gone wrong with lots of ‘you should have…’ statements if something happens – but now I accept that mistakes will occur and there is never going to be a point where I can please everyone all the time. By taking back control of what I am doing and who I am has also reduced the impact of other people’s opinions. It isn’t perfect, but I’m getting there, and I’m grateful for the resources and time I have been given.

What about you guys? What makes you feel safe?

Want to participate in the Daily Gratitude Challenge?

There are lots of ways in which you can participate in the Daily Gratitude Challenge:

Write a blog post about the advice that you are most grateful for and share it in the comment section below.
Share your posts in my daily link-ups on my Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #DailyGratitudeChallenge.
Share your images for the topic of the day on Instagram, tag my Instagram account (@suzie81speaks) and use the hashtag #DailyGratitudeChallenge and I will share as many as I can on my Instagram stories.
Join my Pinterest Group Board and share your Daily Gratitude posts.