Although it’s become a common joke to say we need to go to our “happy place” when we’re feeling irritated, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the need for sanctuary.  For me, sanctuary is not necessarily a happy place, but a place where we can be in relationship with ourselves in whatever mood we’re in.  By knowing more about what we feel, we can better tend to what we really need.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, sanctuary is “a place of safety or refuge.”  It can also have a religious or spiritual aspect, when we think of sanctuary as a holy place.  Where is your Sanctuary?  Is it your home, your room, a nook, or spot by a tree? Or is it a time of day, lying in bed in the morning or watching the sunset?  Each of us needs to have a time and a place where we can find safety, both physical and emotional in nature.  It is amazing how difficult this can be.  Sometimes our homes are places of chaos and conflict.  Where do we go?  And even if we have a quiet space in our lives, the boundaries of this sanctuary are difficult to maintain.

Sanctuary is where we cultivate our reflective self, an experience increasingly hard to do in our Information Age.  The 20^th century philosopher Martin Heidegger was concerned about the influence of technology on self awareness back in 1954.  (Don’t be too impressed, I got this from the author James McWilliams in his article Saving the Self in the World of the Selfie.)  Heidegger expressed his concern about the loss of “nearness,” which he defined as a mental island where we can stand and affirm the phenomena of our own experience.  He didn’t even know about smart phones or Facebook .  With social media, the boundaries of our lives have been permanently altered.  Even when we’re alone, we’re exposed to the social world of comparisons.  I think about a young woman who wasn’t asked to the prom.  She had to be happy for her friends all day at school, but even when she came home, she couldn’t escape it.  Her friends sent her pictures of their dresses and hair style ideas.  While I am definitely not anti-technology (I’m writing a blog for heaven’s sake) I do think we need to be aware of the loss of sanctuary when the boundaries between social and private are so permeable.

I also like to think of sanctuary not just as a noun, but as a verb.  It can be an active inner process allowing our experience to emerge without judgment.   Am I sad, am I feeling rejected, am I lonely or am I excited?  The more we can create sanctuary for our feelings, the better we become at tolerating a full range of emotions. This is a very important component of mental and physical health.  When we can face our discomfort, we learn that we can feel it and tend to it without having to drown it out with alcohol, a cigarette, or a trip to the refrigerator.  We can gain more control over our behavior by being more aware of its emotional roots.  In Alcoholics Anonymous they use the word HALT:  when you crave a drink, you ask yourself am I hungry, angry, lonely or tired?  How would we know unless we have “nearness?”

So how can you create sanctuary?   Is there a place in your home you can claim and make your own?  Is there a time of day you can make sacred?  You don’t have to empty your mind in deep meditation or do some fancy visualization.  Just be you, with only you.  My hope is, maybe over time, this “you experience” will become your happy place.