Safety is an inside job- how my relationship to men changed

A few days ago, I found myself wrapped in the arms of two amazing, strong men.

Right there in a random supermarket.

Between freezer and discount shelves.

No reason. No plan.

Just presence and connection.

Just the moment calling for a hug.

They squeezed me tightly in their embrace.

My whole body relaxed.

I melted.

I felt safe.

Held.Connected.

Not a single cell in me was on guard.

It wasn’t always like this.

Looking at this picture that captured this beautiful moment, it struck me how relatively new this is for me.

How far I’ve come.

Until a few years ago, I would have tensed up in a moment like this.

My breath would have gone shallow.

A quiet alarm would have echoed through my nervous system.

Because the story I grew up with taught me that men are dangerous.

That they always want to take from me.

That I need to protect myself, to guard my body, to be alert, defended, ready.

In puberty and early adulthood, I rebelled against that story.

I sought the edge, flirted with danger, called in intensity.

But I was never able to relax and surrender.

I was deeply longing for closeness,

and yet never fully trusted.

Not one man.

Not really.

And honestly:

Not myself.

Because it was me, who let boundaries blur.

Me, who stayed silent when discomfort whispered through my body.

Afraid that speaking up would break connection,

that being honest would make love vanish,

I endured, tolerated, accommodated.

I traded authenticity for closeness

and ended up with neither.

Chasing love through pleasing.

But it wasn’t real love I received.

How could it be?

The real me wasn’t even present.

An essential part of me- the tender, slow, deep one- was hiding behind a mask.

Through this, I unintentionally confirmed my mother’s story:

“Yes, men are dangerous.”

Her fear became my experience.

Then finally came the moment when I had been abandoning myself for too long.

Anger rose like a lioness in my throat.

When I finally learned boundaries they arrived like walls,

like steel

like a warrior.

This warrior walked in front of me, sword always ready, eyes scanning for threat.

No one got close.

I was safe

But armored.

Protected.

And lonely inside that protection.

It took time to let that warrior step behind me.

To soften his grip on the sword.

To substitute him with remembering some essential skills:

Feeling my boundaries in real time.

Speaking my truth in the moment.

Staying connected to myself even when connecting with others.

Especially Temple spaces helped me to practice and grow these skills.

The softness of these spaces.

The sacredness.

The permission to feel slowly, honestly, fully. The encouragement to express my truth.

All of this allowed my system re-learn trust.

Slowly, I've been replacing the story I grew up with, with the embodied truth of what one of my mentors once told me:

Safety is not the absence of risk.

It’s the presence of self.

Safety is an inside job.

Because safety was never something others could give me.

Safety was always something I had to grow from inside myself.

A return to my body, to my boundaries,

to the part of me that can finally relax into love.

Since it lives in my body,

being held became a joy.

Softening became natural.

Touch became deep nourishment.

Receiving became possible.

Trust became effortless.

Love can finally be received because it has a place to land.

And so I could stand in this random supermarket,

wrapped in the arms of two men,

feeling nothing but ease and connection.

Nothing but myself- fully here, unmasked.

Nothing but love.