Safety - A collective need!

I had a profound realization in my therapy session with my healer this past week. There's a part of me that equates safety with collective well-being:

I'm only safe when everyone I love is safe too!

Past few week, 2 patterns have kept resurfacing: my tendency to prioritize others' needs over mine and my struggle with money scarcity and I think I have an answer!

CEO's backstory

This part of me emerged when I was just 10 years old (~4th class) - a time when my family was facing challenges financially, and my younger brother was weak in his health. While most kids were playing and exploring, this young CEO was already calculating ways to keep everyone safe - in his superstitious ways, prayers & studying hard & deep with discipline (damn, I miss this discipline in my life now).

Over time, this part created a complex vertical hierarchy in my mind - ranking the people I love based on how much they needed protection and how afraid I was of losing them. My mom, Kabir, (now) Han & Bamboo, Konika, and various friends all have their positions, and I was somewhere down in this list.

The CEO's core belief is deceptively simple yet profoundly limiting: I am only safe when everyone I love is safe too. This universal safety need is the foundation for so many patterns in my life.

Oh, the anxiety with it! I'm rarely my "self"

When someone I care about struggles - especially those higher on my mental ranking - my CEO goes into high alert. This happened recently when I heard about a former colleague's suicide. Even though we weren't close but this news triggered deep fears about people I love, particularly my brother!

I found myself obsessively checking on him, worried when he didn't answer calls, thinking about worst-case scenarios. This isn't just typical concern - it is my CEO part treating Kabir's challenges as direct threats to my own safety.

Beyond checking & using my healing on people, I've used money as a solution - offering financial help when they struggle, believing that practical support will solve emotional problems. This approach comes from this same CEO part (and from my mom's patterns), convinced that unless my loved people's problems are gone - I can never have my sense of peace.

The Unsustainable Burden

The problem with this worldview is - it makes my safety dependent on factors I can never fully control. No matter how much I check in, how much money there is, or how many problems I try to solve, I can't guarantee everyone's wellbeing - they just have to go through their own journey. I can do things in external world like share money or my world view and do my healing things and that's it! After that internally - I can just spread my loving kindness to them. By treating others' struggles as threats to my own safety, I'm creating a life of constant anxiety - something I've grown up with all my life and this feeling is the new alarm in my inner world now to check up on me.

This part was formed when I was young and felt responsible for maintaining harmony in my family. Daily school church memories surfaced - of me touching every Jesus statue & painting, and praying daily - always asking for the same thing: "Keep my mom, dad, Kabir, Konika & me safe." I was the last on that list - no wonder I have a hard time putting myself first & being fully me. But with me back in control, we are living with honesty (in speaking what I really feel), courage (to say it) & trust (that this is better way to live & nothing bad will happen).

New way

What's beautiful is how this realization connects to my meditation practice. The loving-kindness meditation (metta) I've been doing offers a different approach to caring for others - sending love and compassion without taking on their struggles as my own.

My CEO needs to learn that I can care deeply for others without making my own safety dependent on their wellbeing. I can be present for Kabir, Han, and others without panic or the need to immediately fix everything. Sometimes just being there, offering supportive presence rather than solutions, is what's truly needed.

This part doesn't need to be fired or removed - it just needs a new job description. Instead of frantically monitoring everyone's safety, it can help me use these powers of caring for everyone out there in world and do my part.

I haven't fully felt the emotional weight of this insight yet. When I try to go deeper, a protective part steps in, saying "not yet." And that's okay. For now, I'll continue living, meditating, connecting with others, and giving these tender parts space to feel safe in their own time.

The journey through AbhinavLand continues, with each session bringing more clarity about how these parts work together to create my experience of the world. Beyond thankful for these insights that connect so many dots in my life!