Feeling Safe Now: How to Find Safety in the Present Moment

Our lives unfold in the present moment. How you view it is everything. Original artwork © Mea Jordaan 2026

Every now and then I get a message from what I can only assume is my higher self. It came through simple and clear:

"Safety is in the present."

And I understood immediately. Quite suddenly I grasped the idea that safety is something we feel now. Let me try to explain it as clearly and simply as possible, because I understand that it's a bit confusing.

The only time that actually exists

Spiritual teachers will often talk about the present moment, the now, as the only time that matters. Our lives happen in the present moment, and we create stories about the past and dreams about the future. The thing is that most of us end up living in those stories and dreams, rarely aware of the now and what is unfolding right in front of us.

I know it can sound incredibly abstract. The truth is that we've spent so much time as humans complicating things through our "rational" minds that sometimes very simple concepts become obscured. Not because they are in themselves confusing or absurd, but because we struggle to believe that things can be so simple and straightforward.

Consider for a moment these statements.

The past does not exist. The future does not exist. Only now exists.

Maybe that's too fragile a platform for you to feel stable on. I prefer this framing of time and possibility:

Everything that has happened or could happen exists at once.

Ink in water: a framing of possibility

I know, I know. This is getting quite existential. But you know what? I'm here for it. The deepest truths are the ones that liberate us.

Think of it like dropping ink into water. The water represents the totality of possibility. The ink drop represents your life's journey. There are an infinite number of permutations available to the ink, but it's all shaped through the minute interactions the ink particles have with the water particles in the moment where they meet. Any path is possible in the right conditions.

So, what am I getting at here? Why do I need an existential framework to allow myself to feel safe?

If I'm not in immediate danger, I'm safe

Because I realised that if I am not in immediate danger, then I am safe. I can allow myself to feel safe in the moment, because right now is what matters. I have no control over what has happened, it's done. And the only control I have over the future is how I choose to behave right now, in the present.

Once again I come home to the very simple act of awareness. When you are aware of yourself in the present moment, you can recognise how your thoughts impact your state of being. So very often we create our own feeling of un-safety simply by choosing to believe our unexamined thoughts. We take them for granted as the truth. It's almost as if anxiety and fear are habits of the untrained mind.

But here's the thing: our intellect mistakes our stories for the truth, and they then become our truth.

Anxiety as a habit

So when you suddenly feel anxious out of nowhere, it is quite important to recognise it, and then notice if you are finding a story to attach to the feeling. See, because the sensation of anxiety is almost like a habit, it arises throughout the day not because there is necessarily a legitimate cause, but rather because the feeling itself wants to exist.

Wait, hold up. Feelings have agency?

In fact, I believe they do. You can tell by the way they are able to take over your thoughts. But the thing is, they only have agency because they are given it, by you, the feeler of the feeling.

Turning the dial on your feelings

Ok, I know I'm getting abstract again but just try to stick with me.

You see, our feelings are amplified through our imagination. You can turn the dial any way through your conscious effort. It requires you to concentrate on what you want to feel, and imagine it within yourself. To do this you have to know what the feeling feels like in your body. Or alternatively, you need to know what would make you feel the way you wish to, and imagine that happening in as vivid detail as possible. And once again, you need to feel it in your body.

This is how we create our own desired feelings — by actively imagining the feeling itself, or the scenario that would arouse it. This happens within you in the present moment. You do this already when you imagine something exciting you're going to do or eat, or when you dread something. It's all the same mechanism, it's just about practicing active control over it instead of letting it do the driving.

If you can learn to work with your imagination instead of letting it rule your thoughts, you will be in a very, very beneficial state of being. This is where our power lies: in how we meet each moment, and in how we choose to move forward.

The glass cage of unexamined thoughts

I know and understand full well the drudgery that everyday life can become when I don't make the effort to check myself. It's easy for negative thoughts to drown out your peace of mind. If they are habitual, as they often are, we're likely to take them for granted as the truth. When we don't take the time to examine these thoughts and beliefs we end up confining ourselves to a very narrow window of often self-defeating expectations. The real issue is that you don't realise this is happening, which traps you in the belief. It's glass cage you can only see from the outside.

"I can't" closes the door

A lot of people have quite a strong reaction to the idea of meditation. I hear "I can't do that" very often when I bring it up. People will tell me about how they can't focus, can't sleep, can't remember what they're busy with, and when I ask if they meditate they love to say they can't do that either.

At the risk of sounding judgey, I would like to point out that it is incredibly difficult to grow your level of consciousness from such a negative state. To declare "I can't" is to close the door. It limits your experience to the frame you are familiar with, and familiarity feels safe even when it's suboptimal for you. Yet all potential lies in the unknown, so embracing it with a positive attitude is the best option for you if you don't want live a fear-based life.

A word on fear

I haven't really touched on fear in this piece, but I think it would be a mistake not to. Many, many choices are motivated by fear, and that fear is very likely to be based on assumption rather than reality. Fear as a mechanism functions to keep us safe by alerting us to present danger, so we can act accordingly to reach safety. But when the fear is pervasive, linked to a system and not a present situation or experience, it becomes a cage. Acting solely from a place of fear will only reinforce that fear within you. Being able to introspect enough to uncover the root of your fear will free you. When you can see something clearly, you become freed from it. That's where you need to start if you are serious about shifting your experience.

Meditation is a practice, not a task

And so I come back to meditation, and the erroneously belief that it's something you "do" and not something you "practise". It is the act of observing your own mind and creating distance between yourself and your thoughts. The practice is to pull yourself out of thought and witness it without judgement or attachment — that means you don't reprimand yourself for the act of thinking or the content of the thought, and you actively let the thought pass by without indulging it. It doesn't mean "no thinking" — it means awareness of thinking. This is the most common misconception I've come across from people who don't practice.

Choosing safety in a broken system

In order for me to feel existentially safe in today's context, where we are hyper-exposed to information and stimulation, living in systems that exploit us for our energy and time, and where little is guaranteed, I must be able to create my own peace of mind. If I am waiting for it to come from this broken system, I will be waiting a very, very long time. Part of the system's power lies in people buying into it not consciously but by default. That is not a conscious choice — that is an unconscious belief. I can choose to feel safe. I can give that to myself, and when I recognise that I have this power, I realise that I can give myself so much more beyond that.

I truly hope this can bring some clarity, a new perspective or just plant a seed of hope and optimism within you. We are only doomed if we give into doom. There is so much potential for positivity, and such a desperate need for it, that I honestly believe it is the catalyst of monumental change in today's world. The powers that be would like you to believe otherwise, but I ask you, who does that benefit? Certainly not me, and very likely not you either.