Living in the Real World - "Pillars of Security - Part 1"

Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/living-in-the-real-world-pillars-of-security-part-1/5007137/

Home is where when you go there, they have to take you in. - Robert Frost

Is there anything more basic than feeling secure: feeling that I am all right, right here, right now? If we can't safely relax, feel at home where we are, how can we work? How can we learn?

We feel secure in places where we know the life that happens there. The world is safe, predictable, manageable; we know we can fit into that world, as ourselves. We will be accepted by the people we encounter. When we travel, we can relax when we know what is in store for us or when we have confidence that our life experience gives us the skills to cope with whatever will come our way, or when we are with trusted others.

Young children are perpetual tourists without much life experience, truly strangers in a strange land. They are developing their minds and bodies at such a rate that they are literally new people with each sunrise. Their backlog of life experience is so slight that each day, each new place, each old place brings surprises. Their courage rises and falls like ...