ISSUE NO. 05 | April 9, 2025
Rather the podcast version (more ad lib'd + with a touch of warmth and extra bits)? Click the SoundCloud player below... Otherwise, read on and hello!
This is a bit of a mini-series for the next 3 weeks with an invitation to Sanctuary Social Club. Shall we?
You Can’t Control the World, But You Can Create Sanctuary
The world is loud right now.
Endless scrolls, urgent updates, full inboxes, emotional storms.
And beneath it all—our nervous systems whispering,
Please… a pause. Please… a place.
Maybe even a Please… let me wake up from this.
While we can’t control the chaos outside, we can root in the sacred power of choice.
And choice? That’s a potent healer.
Research by Roger Ulrich (1984) showed that when hospital patients were given control over something as simple as their seating position in a garden, their stress visibly decreased. Not from big changes—but from being able to choose where and how to place themselves in natural beauty.
Small, yet significant changes to their immediate environment. The sense of control of those changes where to adapt to the climate. To feel more comfort. To feel tangible, actionable, immediately impactful control as they related to nature and their circumstances.
This is the medicine of Sanctuary.
In a world that often seems to be screaming into the void,
Sanctuary kindly suggests, Here, love. Let's listen in.
"You don’t need to wait for permission to feel peace, to create beauty, to choose joy."
— Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
And so we turn inward and outward at once—
To create spaces that are not escapes,
but holy returns—spaces of reunifying self, circle, community, world.
Spaces that hold who we are now,
and offer gentle room for who we are becoming.
And a re-remembering of the medicine - and magic - that each of us holds within us
—the Sanctuary Within™.
This is what we practice together in Sanctuary Social Club —
a soulful circle for women in midlife “coming home” ready to reclaim beauty, rhythm, and deep support through our sacred spaces.
We take design education and inspiration deep, growing our intellect and refreshing our wisdom about our options for what Sanctuary means and looks like to each of us not based of trendy trends.
We take our sanity, senses, and spaces seriously, nurturing our wellbeing in spite of old patterns, circumstances, current events, media...
✨ Part book club, exploring a specially curated literary work often found on a best sellers list,
but we don’t just read—we harvest.
✨ Part garden and design club, translating profound personal growth insights lifted from these pages and design sages into acts of intentional nature-infused sanctuary space-making moves around us
but we don’t just style—we soulfully take good care and attune space to our wellbeing.
✨ Always an empowerment circle, reflecting and nurturing our transformations, personal work, our authenticity and the refill of our divine reserves
but we don’t just gather—we commune.
✨ And we share the bounty of this all from a place of choosing, returning to, and replenishing ourselves.
As though a Divine prescription form Nature Herself:
Take control of your peace, joy, and harmony right where you are planted.
Open a gateway to beauty around you to replenish the light, creativity, wildness within you.
We're a sacred, design-forward study group for women in midlife, expanding and evolving, crafting community, and engaging healing nature for replenishing space, spirit, and self.
And this is my heart-felt, wild designerly invitation to this intimate circle where, monthly, we intentionally, reverently, and yes, rebelliously choose…
✨ A soulfully selected rhythm of books, seminars, and sanctuary design—each piece chosen to stir something sacred within.
✨ Each element—books, botanicals, teachings, and design and styling —is attuned to our season and aligned with the deeper pulse of our becoming.
✨ To gather with like-hearted women redefining “home” from the inside out.
✨ No gatekeeping. No fluff. Just authentic transformation through nature, beauty, and belonging.
This is an invitation to breathe deeper, soften shoulders, shift your chair from over “there” to over “here” to mingle with healing nature and in an intimate community, to create life-changing space, explore just for the sake of YOU exploring and by that tap into more joy. And make space to replenish peace.
"You were born to create. And when you create from a place of peace, you bring that peace into the world." — Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
You and me, we may not be able to stop the storm,
but we can become the calm inside it.
And you can create Sanctuary.
If fact, you must.
The world needs your piece of peace in it, and the big magic that comes from expanding and exploring your connection with nature and space-making is what you can and must control, for the creative sake of healing.
✨ Doors are now open for the Sanctuary Social Club ✨
We begin our next 6 month adventure on May 8, 2025.
Sign ups close May 4.
Space is limited.
👉 [Click here for more info and to join now.]
Thank you for gifting me your time and for the opportunity to be of good service.
Until next, take good care of your precious Self,
Footnotes:
Ulrich, R. (1989). "View through a window may influence recovery from surgery." Science, 224(4647), 420-421.
Big Magic is one of our selected 2025 Sanctuary Social Club Book Club reads! What an honor it will be to be in community with you as you nurture and share your big magic with the world—your piece of the peace that we need in this world. I'm here for that! Are you?
. . .
Have questions? Book your 20-minute complimentary Sanctuary Discovery Chat.
Did a fellow sanctuary seeker forward this to you? Well then, welcome to the flock!
SUBSCRIBE HERE to become a regular.
More Sanctuary, you ask!? Welcome in. Welcome out... over HERE.
