I remember it well.
I was at the Santa Anita Race Track in Southern California.
The horses were warming up.
I had arrived early in the morning.
This was a tradition in my family growing up.
I was in town visiting my parents.
I remember talking to a woman who had been going to the track for several years.
She had an excitement about her.
A spark.
In her 50s, she shared how her husband passed 4 years ago.
She shared how she had been going to the race track to watch the horses warm up in the morning every week for years.
She said she used to be a quiet person who often kept to herself... but at the race track, she began to converse with others.
She became someone who started conversations.
She became someone who allowed herself the space to be who she wanted to become.
She did all of this at the race track and mostly keeps it there.
Feeling her growth in this space of where we were, I asked a question.
"I bet you grew up going here?"
She shared her earliest moments with her grandparents where she would often go to the race track and bet on the horses.
She did this as a child.
It was a time of belonging.
Later on in our conversation, I said, "This place must be a safe place for you."
She said it was and she rarely feels this safe anywhere else, including in her own home.
She was doing most of the talking that morning.
She was excited and proud of who she was becoming.
Our growth can happen in safe places.
Not the growth of life that is often described as a "wake up" call.
But the growth that happens on our terms.
The growth that we proactively create for ourselves.
The growth that we want to happen in ourselves.
I wonder, what happens when we do not feel safe in our home?
What happens when we do not feel safe with others?
What happens when we do not feel safe in our body?
I believe this affects our ability to grow and transform into who we can become.
To evolve, we must learn how to first become safe.
