At a training today, I was so surprised to hear that safety is not a need. When our needs are met, feelings of safety arise. Are you as surprised to hear this as I was?

In our day to day lives, we encounter places where we don’t feel safe. Something or someone threatens our survival, needs, or wants. It seems like this is being mirrored particularly in these times by violence in physical, verbal, and subtle forms. So many of us are experiencing conflict on micro and global levels.

During meditations recently, I realized a small piece of what Amma, the Divine Mother incarnate, has been teaching. To love, to serve others selflessly. It has been a struggle for me as I have wavered between feeling like I can get really big with another person or situation and feeling messy with my own feelings. It has been one or the other, but I didn’t quite know or understand how to love another and love myself simultaneously. Selflessly pretty much translated to loving the other. Period. How can I be feeling messy, angry, revengeful, hatred, powerless and love? That question often translated to shoving away my messiness.

I received at least a partial answer to my paradox in a meditation that addresses feelings with conflict in relationship with another, which coincidentally was our group meditation this week. This meditation offers a space for feelings to arise as they are and channels those feelings towards the heart. The meditation makes space for feeling threatened, unsafe, rage, and much more as it continues to orient towards the heart.

As I sit down to meditate, I feel gratitude for channeling my feelings into the heart where they are received and met. I feel gratitude that no matter what is being mirrored to me by my circumstances, real generosity and love are available in the moment. I’m not saying it’s easy since there are often long standing patterns in play and have a lot of strength to them. However, I’m grateful for this meditation that teaches how to manage conflict in ways that are empowering. This week’s group meditation had the power of the group coming together supporting all the group members in connecting more deeply to clear up and expand spaces within.

I feel grateful to be making an offering that my heart truly desires to have.

Here is a simple way to feel more empowered right now. Check in with yourself for a few moments. Is there someplace in your life that you could feel more empowered? Imagine and send love to your feelings. Imagine love surrounding that situation or circumstance. Imagine your heart sending love to that situation or circumstance. How does that feel or shift your experience?

Love, Ruchika