Safety Quilt Block — Women’s Health & Wellness
“Safety doesn’t happen by accident.”
How can safety improve your health & wellness? Let’s talk about it!
“Better safe than sorry.” ― Jake Runyan
Safety Quilt Block
I designed the safety quilt block to be setting triangles upon setting triangles that give the look of safety after they are combined. The match stick quilting of the quilt block confirms the safety & security of the quilt block.
“A soul thrives in safety”– Deanna Wall
Types of Safety
We could think of an many different types of safety that we could work on. There could be safety at the beach, in your home, workplace, infant, child, car seat, seat belts, driving, computer, internet, or fire to name a few.
Inherent Basic Human Need of Safety
There are different core safety aspects that is important to any person on the globe. Four different aspects of safety to focus on could include home, personal, health and economic. Having ones basic needs being met is crucial to a feeling of safety. We need food and shelter. We have a very basic need to feel accepted, loved and that we belong. We need preventative care, environmental safety from hazards along with healthy foods & exercise. Economically children need access to an education, opportunity to build work skills too. If there are extreme deficiencies for long periods of time then our health and wellness can struggle.
Lack of Safety Impacting Health
For instance, a family living in a worn torn country that is constantly exposed to bombings and threats is in a difference circumstance that would have a direct impact on their health and wellness. Most of us may not live in that setting but we need to be aware that deficiencies in our overall ability to feel safe and secure can impact our health. We also want to lead an example for our own families that the absence of violence, abuse or being committed to a stable job will improve the welfare of our loved ones. That example can carry forth for future generations.
I am not intending to create any kind of paranoia about safety. I want to introduce the crime triangle concept and then teach you to apply in other aspects. Please be patient with me.
Crime Triangle
A lot of crimes can not happen without three components. You need 1. a victim 2. a predator and 3. opportunity. If one of the three points of the crime triangle are not present then the crime triangle can not close and the crime can’t happen. We can’t control what a predator might do but we can certainly try to eliminate opportunity. Right?
For instance, we can reduce opportunity by locking our doors, keeping the exterior of our home well lite, trimming back bushes or trees that have overgrown. I’ve had my car window bashed in (more than one time) because I left my purse on the passenger seat when running a quick errand. I went into a business establishment with my car keys to pick something up and left my designer purse sitting on the passenger seat visible to anyone that walked by. You would have thought I’d learn the first time but it took me two times of this happening to me to hide any valuables in my vehicle.
I’ve hopefully reduced the possibility to be that victim again by not leaving something enticing for a smash and grab. But… now let’s take the Crime Triangle a set further.
Health Triangle
Below is the Health Triangle taking that same concept as the Crime Triangle. Let’s change the triangle points to now be 1. Your Health 2. Disease and 3. Vulnerability. Let’s think about heart health! We can reduce the vulnerability for heart disease with exercise, healthy eating, increasing heart rate with cardio 3 times a week, regular checkups with your physician and even taking action to reduce stress in your life.
Taking these actions can build confidence in our lives that we are doing everything we can to avoid a negative health disease. How we treat our bodies and health can improve safety in our lives too.
Intentional choices towards a healthier lifestyle can reduce our risks and improve basic safety and stress for ourselves and family members. Not only can it have a direct impact on our own lives personally but our example can impact the health of our families, children and grand children.
‘The Safety Quilt Block is multidimensional with many triangle and pieces coming together to build safety in our lives. Of course we also need to consider that we don’t want our families to tolerate violence or abuse. We don’t want to be an abuser either. We need to model our home environment to be something that our children or grandchildren will want to strive for.
Developmental Copy Process
There are copy processes with who children grow up that is connected with who raises them and how they identify with their caregivers. It is a slow gradual process that happens over a long period of time. We imprint on our children and grandchildren.
There are three parts of the Copy Process:
- 1. Identification where the child repeats the patterns of their parents. (the child grows up to act like us) Example: They were beat and will beat their children.
- 2. Recapitulation where the child recreates an environment that they grew up in. (the child grows up to recreate a similar environment) Example: They were beaten and don’t raise a hand to someone else but they marry someone that will beat them and their children.
- 3, Do the opposite is where the child does not raise a hand to anyone and does not allow another to raise a hand to them.
The examples above are drastic right? I pray that none of you are experiencing any kind of violence or abuse. I wanted to introduce the Copy Process because how we take care of ourselves has the potential to impact many generations. Our taking action to be a healthier person with healthy eating and exercise can also be part of a copy process that carries forth in generations to come. There are statistics to support that children with educated parents are likely to want to be educated themselves. Values, actions and routines can be part of a copy process too.
Let’s get back to talking about Personal Safety! The Personal Safety info-graphic has concrete suggestions of things to focus on to improve your personal safety in daily life.
Time needed: 5 minutes
7 Steps to Improve Personal Safety
- Be Aware of Your Surroundings
Also known as “situational awareness” Be aware of what is going on around you or in buildings, rooms, parking lots or vehicles that you enter.
- Don’t Allow Yourself to be Distracted
Put down your phone. Society tends to walk around looking at their phone non stop. When you are walking some place put down your phone and don’t be distracted. Don’t text message when driving. Look both ways when walking in a parking lot or crossing a street. Park in safe place. Release distractions when driving to be a defensive driver.
- Lock your Doors
We can often feel that our neighborhoods are safe and not lock our doors. Lock your doors, windows, vehicle. Leave a porch light on, trim back bushes or trees to your home. Be savvy with your computer and personal information. Protect your banking information. Be careful on the internet. Delete spam email and hang up on spam phone calls.
- Don’t allow yourself to be a Target of a Crime
Reduce risks to be a target of a crime. Possibly don’t wear expensive jewelry or carry an expensive purse. (We rather spend that money on a nice sewing machine or fabric right?) Don’t leave your purse locked in your car in a visual place. Eliminate reasons to be a target of a crime.
- Set Healthy Personal Boundaries
Don’t allow others to take advantage of you in real life, telephone, internet, friends or family. Don’t feel guilty abut setting healthy boundaries. Try to set healthy boundaries now so when you are approached you already have an answer for them. Set personal boundaries to avoid abusive situations. Don’t tolerate abusive language or physical violence.
- Trust your Instincts
If you feel like a situation isn’t safe then trust your gut. When at a grocery store late at night, ask a bagger to help you out to your car with your groceries. Truly trust your instinct and don’t push it away. If you are feeling uncomfortable then there is a reason why. If something is to good to be true; it usually is. If you feel someone is a bit squirrely or not being honest. Trust your gut and look up information on the internet about them. See if they might already have a criminal record or history of violence. I should create a blog post on how to do this. With my husband being an attorney we have access to databases to easily search information. You can do these searches without subscribing to a database or by hiring an attorney. If you don’t find anything, you might want to be careful anyways and set boundaries. You don’t have to let everyone know what your boundaries are. We will talk about this during the boundaries quilt block.
- Eliminate or Reduce Opportunity and Vulnerability
This takes up back to the Crime Triangle that we go into detail above. A crime triangle consists of three items: victim, perpetrator & opportunity. Eliminate as many opportunities or vulnerabilities that you can.
Remember our ability to feel safe takes on many different factors and small choices that lead to a solid foundation. Keep in mind that our ability to feel safe does impact our personal health and wellness.
We may never understand the full effect of choices toward safety that we make. Please enjoy the Safety worksheets for self reflection and to take notes. Please email me your thoughts about safety.
What aspects of life interfere with your ability to create safety? Write on the Safety Quilt Block things that help you improve safety.
Download your Safety Worksheets below and work through exercises as you focus on making your Choice Quilt Block this week!
If you haven’t yet, you can join in anytime on the Live Well Live Strong Quilt Sew Along! Purchase your downloadable pattern right now!
Safety Challenges could include:
- Be extra aware of your surroundings for a week. See what you notice.
- Eliminate Safety or Health Vulnerabilities.
- Change all your passwords on the internet to new ones.
- Be savvy of spam phone calls and hang up.
- Be savvy of spam emails and immediately delete them.
Reduce your stress level too as it will help improve your own personal awareness.
Workplaces certainly build safety into their routines. They spend a lot of money ensuring safe workspaces. We can invest time and energy into our own safety plans.
Share a photo of your completed Safety Quilt Block in the Everyone Can Quilt Facebook Group or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stitchesquilting/ and use the hashtag #livewelllivestrongquilt. If you feel comfortable share a photo that represents a positive step in an Safety Challenge. Let’s inspire each other!
Follow Stitches Quilting on Facebook, Instagram & YouTube for reminders to find the positive in life. Engage and make comments that can lift and empower others to a positive space. Comments on other people’s posts in the Live Well Live Strong Sew Along to encourage them too.
| The Live Well Live Strong Quilt includes 26 quilt blocks focused on Women’s Health in Wellness. The ideal form is to focus & build on each one of these topics is one at a time. Slow and steady growth is sustainable. Join the sew along at any time making each block and focusing on your own growth. |
Yes You Can do it! Yes you can when you know what you need to strengthen yourself. Tap into safety that can slowly and surely strengthen you with a solid foundation to lean upon.
Next week’s block is the Hope Quilt Block! If you haven’t yet, purchase your Live Well Live Strong Quilt Pattern! Purchase Your Pattern HERE!
Watch the Safety Quilt Block video above!
Many happy wishes for a week filled with Safety!
Live Well Live Strong! XOXO! Deanna
