The Privilege of Feeling Safe

I started 2020 at a largely silent, 5-day meditation retreat. These are all the rage, a lot of them are Buddhist-based, mine was Jewish, but you do not need to be Jewish or religious to attend by any means. 2019 had been a long year, just like 2018 and 2017 before that. I was working too hard, traveling too much, was too stressed. I had achieved a lot of great things with Solve, but I felt like I was burning out and I needed a reset.

2020 was going to be the year of balance. Hahaha – it was a good objective at the time… Anyway.

On New Year’s Eve, I arrived somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, put my phone and laptop in the safe, and surrendered to the process. I was in bed at 9:30PM, something that had probably not happened in a decade if it was not jet-lagged related. And especially not on New Year’s Eve.

Every morning, we (some 50-something people from all ages) would get up in silence, start with a meditation, go to breakfast in silence, walk around, practice yoga (I did not though!), and more – in silence. The only time we were allowed to speak was for 1 or 2 sessions a day where we would discuss a key topic e.g. equanimity, tolerance or our meditation practice itself. During these rare times, we were still not allowed to speak to each other, only to one of the teachers.

We practiced a blessing meditation, where the first step is to bless yourself, before blessing others and the world.

‘May I feel peace, May I feel love, May I feel safe, May I feel joy’ was the instruction to repeat in silence for 45 minutes.

I loved it – I realized most of the time I forget that step – to bless myself, to take care of myself before taking care of others. But during one of the group discussions, a man, white, perhaps in his late early 50s, asked a question about the meditation. 

The man  was confused and asked the teacher: “I understand peace, love, and joy, but I do not understand ‘safe’. Why do we need ‘safe’?” The teacher was diplomatic: “If it does not speak to you, you can use another blessing or drop that one”. 

I on the other hand wanted to scream – in silence. You have never felt unsafe?!

You cannot relate to people wanting and blessing themselves to feel safe?! You cannot relate to wanting to bless other people and wishing them safety?! What a privilege to feel safe and to think those around us feel safe too.

Most people in the world feel unsafe – sometimes on a daily basis – they rightly fear for their lives, their body, their livelihoods, and often that could be because of their gender, sexual orientation, color of their skin, and more.

In the US, we rob all of our black and brown children of their childhood when they understand way too early that they might be shot for wearing a hoodie, for having their hands in their pockets, for jogging in the wrong neighborhood, and more.

 Like probably every woman, there are many times in my life when I have felt unsafe – and that feeling can happen at any time: walking down a street at night, or even in the middle of the day. I have been threatened and screamed at by someone who followed me into a shop and said he had been shot before in L.A., groped by a random man right by Grand Central in New York, and was punched in the stomach by a woman while walking with my mother in central Paris – all of these, right in the middle of the day. And these are probably not the worst. But generally, most of the time, I feel safe enough. And that is still a privilege, because the large majority of people constantly live in much less safe places and situations than I do.

 Peace, Love, Joy – I wish these on everyone all around the world. But if there is one I think we must address above all right now, one that ultimately would bring peace, love, joy – it is safety. Perhaps the definition of privilege is the expectation of safety.

What would it  mean if everyone could feel safe? How can we create a world where everyone has the right and opportunity to feel safe? Freedom from fear. From war. From poverty. Conflict. Trafficking. Assault. Policy Brutality. Bullying. Discrimination. Hunger. And so much more.

 Perhaps safety is the biggest challenge of our time. Or as my former professor Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh - taught me back during my Masters – human security for all.

And for those of us who are able to feel safe – at least most of the time – what can we do to help everyone feel safe? Because it would indeed be nice to be able to drop feeling safe from our blessing practice – but only if we have achieved that for everyone.

What do you think?