Safe Space

There are two opposing ideas around Safe Spaces. One is that it is a place where people hide you from being triggered. Full of cuddles. The opposite is that it is a place where people find your triggers. Where you learn to be stronger than them. 

I carry a fair amount of anger around with me. I can be very confrontational. This is not the way a lot of people know me. That is because it is not a side I like.

I like calm Trev. Yogi Trev. I like the version of me that listens, asks questions, and tolerates ideas that are very different to mine. I like warmth and good humour.

But.

I am still someone who will put myself in between a bully and someone else. I am still fairly easy to tease, if I misinterpret it as a jibe rather than banter. I think there is a difference. I tease a bunch of my friends, and they tease me. That is normally because things are fundamentally okay between us. The humour can tease out the truth. 

I still have a Saviour Complex. A Justice Warrior Complex. I still absolutely hate feeling unfairly judged or misunderstood. Shut down, cut off, or pushed to the side.

With some of my closer friends, I let my guard down in the second version of the Safe Space. I let myself get angry. I put aside the Emotional Intelligence tools that you learn in order to make your way through the world. I genuinely don't like myself in those spaces. It is obviously very much a part of who I am though.

Those safe spaces scare me a little. They make me think that maybe that is 'who I really am'.

I don't consciously believe there is a 'who I really am'. I think we are a collection of habits, emotions, reflex responses and stories we tell ourselves. Our ability to forget and to imagine allows us to decide who we are. If we are willing to put the work into understanding what drives us. Anger drives me.