Stop Renting Your Security

Where does your security come from?

Your job? Accomplishments? Savings?

Your paycheck. Your title.

Approval from others.

Much of our security is from outside ourselves. This isn’t your fault. It’s how we’re conditioned.

In school, we were taught to stay in the lines. Get good grades. Follow what’s expected of you.

We were rewarded for performing well. Every system we moved through handed us the same implicit message: do the right things, get the right outcomes, feel safe.

But, what happens when the uncertainty shows up. Because it will.

What happens when something changes at work and you no longer have approval from your boss? Or, when the job becomes so toxic, it’s not even safe to be there? Or, when your partner decides the relationship is over?

External security isn’t bad. It’s just fragile.

Jobs end. Marriages dissolve. Friends change. Life happens.

And, if your security lies in these external factors, you not only lose your security, you lose yourself.

If your security is external, you people-please to avoid disapproval. You let others steer because you don’t trust yourself to do so. You chase someone else’s dream and not yours.

You see uncertainty as a threat, rather than information. In the background, you operate within the nagging statement “I’m not good enough.”

A little over 3 months ago my husband and I started on a cross-country adventure, eventually landing in a new city in a new state. We are currently looking for our permanent home.

People keep calling it brave. The move isn’t the brave part. Trusting myself enough to go is.

Over the years as a solopreneur, I’ve learned to build something amidst the unknowns. Where will my next paycheck come from? How will I find enough clients? I learned to just take the next step. I learned to focus on what I could control. As a recent retiree, I realize how much security I got from work. Once again, I’m forced to grow internal security.

What if security was never to come from outside of us? It’s a question worth sitting with.

Security that lives inside you doesn’t evaporate when the job ends. It doesn’t disappear when a relationship shifts. It doesn’t dissolve when someone tells you no.

What if you had enough security to quit the toxic job? Or, end the codependent relationship? Or, go after your own dreams instead of someone else’s?

This type of security just doesn’t suddenly appear. It’s built from evidence. From that time you left home and realized you could make it on your own. From the time you said no to a friend’s request because it felt like manipulation. From the time you moved to another state, and actually made it work. Even from the time you sat with uncertainty and didn’t die.

When security comes from within, your relationships change.

Your relationship to yourself changes. You follow your intuition. You chase your dreams. Your creativity returns.

Your relationship to others changes. You allow others to be who they want to be. You’re no longer offended when they say no.

And, your relationship with uncertainty changes. You begin to sit with uncertainty, and listen. It doesn’t scare you anymore. Uncertainty is information, not a threat. Decisions and choices become an experiment, not a destination.

Most people won’t do what’s required to find inner security because it requires sitting with discomfort for a while. External security is faster, easier, and socially approved. Internal security is slower, messier, and built in the quiet moments when no one’s watching.

But it’s the only kind that actually travels with you.