What is your definition of Sanctuary?

An invitation to create your own experience

When introducing Dreamtender in my first post on Substack, I wrote “I am creating a space for connection, sanctuary, creativity and dialogue.“

It had been a long dream of mine to identify some context for all the different work I do. My declaration about creating space for connection, sanctuary, creativity and dialogue began to ring true, as it acted as an intention for the way I approached everything in life.

At this time I was recognising both my passions and my chosen antidotes for the world I was living in. I looked around me and saw social conditioning toward workaholism and productivity, broadcasting instead of conversing; a culture of information saturation, disconnection from nature, social isolation, mental exhaustion, physical depletion, and fragmented attention. Normalisation of all the above.

I was beginning my Developing Your Creative Practice project called “Dialogues for the Future” and asking myself how to build a sustainable practice that connected with people in the context of all these worldly conditions.

It had come into my awareness that I was holding myself to expectations as if this wasn’t my cultural context.

I noticed that seemingly simple steps of rest, care, and listening could be seen as radical acts in a climate that is often hostile to a human nervous system.

On one occasion my expression of rebellion took the form of long and tactile Instagram Lives. (17 and 26 October 2023, @ maijaliepins)

Commitments to a quality of relating emerged. I sometimes saw them as a positive disruptive force that rather than being combatitive, it was as persuasive as sunshine on skin:

Presence as the antidote to disassociation, distraction, fight and flight.

Sanctuary is the antidote to not having places to feel and be your authentic self.

Intentional Practice as not just the antidote to repeating conditioned patterns over and over, but intentional practice as creativity itself.

I’m not saying these qualities of relating felt easy to practice at first, but I chose them for myself so that I could recover from exhaustion, have more energy, more freedom of choice in my life, less tension in my body, more joy in my relationships.

I applied for training as an RBM breathwork practitioner around this time. The two year journey that followed only deepened my capacity to connect to my body, feel my feelings, and respond to life’s challenges with authenticity and creativity.

A regulated nervous system feels like spaciousness in the body.

I found sanctuary in my body. In my breath.

But what is sanctuary?

I found a book on my Mum’s bookshelves last year with a title of that same name. The author had interviewed and researched many different people’s experiences of sanctuary and found enough material to write a whole book. I think that intuitively we all have an idea of what sanctuary is for us.

Why not take a minute to write down what sanctuary is for you? It will likely hold a message about what you desire to create for yourself. Dare I say, what would feel sacred. Does it involve connection to something important to you? A feeling?

Here’s what I wrote in the early months of 2023 which still rings true today:

Sanctuary is… a place to rest

to not produce, to not know; a place to fill up on connection to self, nature and community.

"Let’s just be with what comes up."

Sanctuary is… a place to care

tending to self, and other, and environment.

To hear oneself.

Listening and learning about what is needed.

Getting curious about who people are and their experience.

Sanctuary is… a place to be yourself

with your own process.

Aligning your work and income with your talents values and interests.

(More and more aligning your attention with what brings you relief, joy or enthusiasm)

Learning what is important to you through dialogue.

A place where you are celebrated and loved.

Creating Space for Connection, Sanctuary, Creativity and Dialogue

My first public RBM breathwork group is being launched with the name of Sanctuary.

Coming up in May 2025, this experience is for four individuals who want to nurture their creativity through self connection.

For more information or to sign up, please visit: www.creativeselfmastery.art