The Safe Room

Close your eyes. We are going to build a room.

It does not exist anywhere except here. In the space behind your closed eyes. A room you can make exactly as it needs to be. Nothing you have to inherit or settle for or make do with. Entirely yours.

Start with the walls. What are they made of? Stone, maybe, thick and old, the kind that hold heat and keep out cold. Or wood, warm and amber, the walls of a cabin. Or simply walls that are whatever colour feels safest to you right now. Let the walls come. Let them become solid.

A floor. Choose it. The specific underfoot feeling you associate most with safety. Warm wood boards. Stone flags warmed by the heat of the room. A thick rug that your feet sink into. Feel the floor under you. The weight of your body supported by the floor of this room. The floor holds you completely without any effort from you.

Light. How much and from where. A fireplace, perhaps, giving the gold unsteady light of fire, warmth that moves and breathes. A lamp in the corner, soft and warm, touching the edges of things without revealing everything. Candlelight. The quality of light that the body reads as evening, as rest time, as the light of settling.

A window if you want one. Looking out on whatever makes the room feel more complete. Snow outside, making the inside warmer by contrast. Rain on the glass. A garden in summer. Or: no window. A contained space. No outside. Just in.

Furniture. Whatever the room needs to be restful. A chair the exact right depth and firmness for your body. A surface nearby for a warm drink. Something soft to hold if you want to hold something. The room furnishes itself with the things that help you.

Now sit in it. The chair or the floor or wherever you settle most naturally. Feel the room around you. The walls at the right distance. The temperature perfect, the temperature you would choose if you could always choose, a warmth that is neither too much nor too little, a warmth that says: you can rest here.

Nothing can come into this room without your saying so. This is a room of complete permission. Everything you carry can be left outside the door. Not thrown away. Not resolved. Just left at the door for later, because right now inside this room there is no room for it nor any need.

Breathe. In the room. The air the temperature of the room, taken in, filling you. Out. The room is here. You are here. The room holds you.

This room is always available. It requires no journey. It is built in you, designed by you, available in the time it takes to close your eyes and choose to return to it. A place that is entirely yours. That no one else will alter.

Rest here. For as long as you need. The room requires nothing from you.

You are safe here. completely safe.

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