The Illusion of Safety
LAU (pronounced Lauw)
Love is the energy fueling the actions.
Abundance is the energy that gives space and resources for all of the process for production leading to profit.
Unity is collaboration, connection, inclusion and efficiency.
FLS (pronounced Fliss)
Fear is the energy fueling threat, insecurity, domination and power-over.
Lack is limitation and control of resources.
Separation is division, disconnection and segregation.
The Illusion of Safety – and why it sucks. Work is an especially volatile space to feel unsafe, which many individuals do and can slip into so quickly. Why? Because there is threat tied to it from the story we’ve been told and taught by FLS that our livelihood is tied to our job/employment. If we lose our job, our life is at threat which morphs quickly and easily into “I feel unsafe and (fill in the name of your boss, your company, your equity) hold my life in their hands. They may as well be God”. This keeps us afraid, quiet, complicit. We stay in jobs we hate, relationships that drain or harm us, and in systems that are so broken we’ve gotten used to where to step to avoid the potholes.
Most humans I know don’t have a burning desire to live on the edge. Running from one crisis to another wondering where their next meal, shelter, love or friendship will be coming from is not the ideal. It is completely credible to have a desire to be and feel safe.
That very natural, credible, human desire gets FLS’d-out when we believe that we control and can ensure our safety, and the safety of those we love.
The story FLS tells is that if we just “do it right” and check the boxes we were told would get us the life and security we want, we will get the outcome we desire. Spoiler alert: the FLS story of safety is a lie, and like all things FLSy, icky consequences pour forth from it anyway. Any of these sound familiar?
· If you didn’t get what you want, you did something wrong.
· Because you gotta do it right, do whatever needs doing to get rid of anything or anyone that might be in your way.
· Mutuality, trust, collaboration, sharing ideas, and offering support disappear.
· Hold fast and tight to the steps you need to take to get what you want. Don’t take your eye off the ball.
· Creativity goes out the window. Admitting mistakes or saying “I don’t know” feel like risky behavior.
· People who don’t have what they want didn’t do it right. It’s their fault they are in the situation they are in.
• Judgement looms large while unity and mutuality fly out the window too.
“FLS-y leaders, supervisors, managers, and bosses inspire FLSy individual contributors.”
Then, when we do get what we want (that job, promotion, partner, lover) we let go a huge sigh of relief. Phew. Done. Made it. Until something happens (that we, ahem, couldn’t control) and we feel unsafe. Damn. Let the FLSing-out commence.
The story of fear, lack, and separation tethers us to whatever we name as the source of our safety. A job, promotion, or compensation package. A degree, title, or position. A lover, partner, child, or friendship.
The workplace is an especially rich place for the FLS illusion of safety to run rampant:
· We work, we get paid. This allows us to provide for ourselves and our loved ones.
· In America, healthcare comes from and through our jobs.
· The hierarchy of the workplace practices power-over. Value increases the “higher” you get up the ladder. The lower you are, the less value you have and the higher the threat level.
· Do whatever needs doing to climb that ladder, increase your value, and reduce the threat.
If you ever wondered why you stayed in a job you hated, why people remain in unhealthy, toxic relationships, or why citizens accept laws, policies, and behaviors from their leaders and systems without challenge, this is why. We are afraid that if we speak out, leave the job, say “You can no longer treat me this way”, we will lose what we perceive to be our safety.
In “Chocolat”, one of my favorite LAU movies, a woman has been reduced, beaten, and diminished by her husband. When the owner of the chocolaterie says to her, “You husband isn’t God,” she responds, “he may as well be”.
Her perception of the world is that her life, her ability to survive, is tethered to the marriage and no matter how awful it is, dangerous, unsatisfying, and repulsive, she must stay. Worse, the longer one remains in abusive, toxic, FLSy situations, the more we come to believe that we deserve nothing better. Our sense of self and the truth that every human has a right to flourish, increase, and soar grows ever smaller.
We see this in the workplace all the time. FLSy leaders, supervisors, managers, and bosses inspire FLSy individual contributors. People stay at jobs that make them physically ill every day and give them “Sunday tummy, Sunday blues or blahs, Sunday dread, etc.” every night of the week because they believe that their manager, boss, or company might as well be God. Their safety is held in their hands.
It might be tempting to think that this comes from fear, but this tenacious story is rooted in lack. There are not enough jobs, opportunities, money, good men/women, clients, contracts, time…so I stay put, shut up, tuck in, and make it work.
“There is not enough” quickly becomes “I am not enough” and morphs into fear where the daily “Sunday tummy” appears and we feel stuck, paralyzed, and deeply unhappy. This slowly becomes “who we are” and sometimes we don’t even recognize ourselves anymore. We forget the fun, creative, vital and joyful parts of us.
The good, great, tremendous news is that the FLS illusion of safety is only a story! And a lie. Not true. A ruse, to get you and me to shut down, be quiet, complicit and in service to the powers that appear to loom over us.
We, you, me, can retell it. And we must retell it. This is one of those foundational collective FLS stories that is begging to be transmuted and retold. You have the power to do it and you can start this minute.
If the old story is “I am not safe. My life is in the hands of ___________”, the LAU story is, “I am safe. __________ is not God.”
You are safe. I know this because I know that you, me, we come from Love, Abundance, and Unity. LAU is our true origin story. We come from abundance and hold it within us. We need not look outside of ourselves to find or secure it. We have the energy, clarity, and knowing of abundance in our bodies. It pumps through the cells of our body with every beat of our hearts.
We live in an abundant universe with limitless possibilities and endless resources! More than enough for all to receive all their hearts desire.
This is truth.
The FLS story is “there is not enough”. The LAU story is “there is MORE than enough!”
The inquiry is, “What would happen if we believed this?” What truths would you tell? What risk would you take?
In “Chocolat” the woman takes the risk and leaves her abusive husband. When he comes to apologize with flowers, and she accepts his apology he mistakenly believes she is returning to him. She corrects him and he says, “We are still married in the eyes of God”. She replies, “then God must be blind”.
Right! Because there is no room for abuse, bullying, gossip, or diminishment of one human over another in environments where Love, Abundance, and Unity is practiced and expected. There is no “God” or power-over us that holds our lives in its hands.
We do.
You do.
When you and I trust LAU and make choices in service to it and to increase for all, we are harnessing the peak of our powers, opening our hearts, hands, and minds to receive all that we desire. And the question of whether or not we are safe, that is what flies out the window.