A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference and in every hallway was a hand sanitizer dispenser with the tagline “clean hands are safe hands!”  

It got me thinking about the word “safe”.

I was listening to an Instagram story where the woman was leading her viewers in an embodiment exercise.  In the talk, she invited the viewers to feel a certain thing in their bodies, then added, “if that feels safe for you.”  

It got me thinking about the word “safe.”

The word safe is everywhere. 

There are safe words, safe spaces, safe people, safe rooms, safe sex, radio stations that are “safe for the whole family.”

I grew up in Canada in the seventies.   When I was a kid, I just don’t remember the word safe being everywhere.  I mean, we talked about safety first, but that was in terms of hand signals when we rode our bikes all over town and looking both ways before you crossed the street.  It was nice that we didn’t talk about being safe – we just felt safe. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know that this feeling of safety we had, was just that – a feeling.   Kids were still abducted, women were assaulted, crimes were committed.  In fact, there was probably less actual safety than there is now.  More bullying, more violence enacted upon LGBTQ+ groups, more hateful speech that went unaddressed and even unnoticed.  For that matter, we didn’t even wear seatbelts! 

But, I still wonder if, even though we are perhaps more safe now than then, the more we talk about being safe, the less safe we feel.  

I mean, I didn’t think about the germs on my hands until the dispenser reminded me that my unsanitized hands were unsafe.  I like to think I’m not a germaphobe and I don’t care about the safety of my hands, but the truth is, I stuck them under the spout and de-germed them just about every time I passed one of those dispensers.  

I thought about the Instagram lady and wondered about her choice of words “if that feels safe for you”.   It struck me as odd.   I was expecting, “if that feels comfortable for you.” ---- but not safe. 

If a feeling in my own body is unsafe, what does that mean for me?   That I am unsafe and a danger to myself?  That my emotional and physical responses are unsafe?   This seems like a set up for me to be living with a perpetrator of sorts every moment of every day – me. 

I just wonder if all this talk about safe has any meaning. 

Are we really safe?

Were my hands safe after the sanitizer?  Could I still touch something and pick up a nasty virus?

Are safe spaces safe? 

And what is a safe person?   Obviously, persons who assault us, rape us, abuse us or otherwise harm us are unsafe.  But is a person who says something we don’t want to hear unsafe?  Is a person who hurts our feelings unsafe?  Is a person who leaves us unsafe?  

I mean, is there such a thing as a safe person?  A person who won’t ever hurt us?

Are safe people actually safe? 

See, the thing about safe is ….  it just doesn’t exist - no matter how we might try to protect ourselves from the dangers out there, the people who might hurt us, the germs, the words, the feelings, the drunk drivers, the deranged criminals, the list goes on and on.

So sure, we should work to make the world a better place.  A place where there is less assault, less crime, less harm.  

But, maybe the word “safe” to describe this world just creates a false expectation.

Because….

We’re just not safe. 

And it seems to me the more we talk about safe, the less safe we feel.  

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