Your Mind Deserves a Sanctuary and Here’s How to Create One

As spring unfolds across the mountains, I find myself drawn to quiet moments – to the hush between birdsong and breeze, to the sun slipping through pine branches. It’s this season, more than any other, that reminds me how much can grow when we clear space. Lately, I’ve been sitting with the weight of procrastination, not as something to fix, but as something to understand. When I find myself circling the same task or avoiding the page, it’s rarely laziness. It’s usually a gentle warning, a sign that my emotional landscape is cluttered, that I’ve drifted from the present moment and lost touch with what matters most.

I recently watched a TED Talk by author Simone Stolzoff, and one phrase stayed with me: mind sanctuaries, “the parts of your inner life that are sacred and not for sale.” These are the moments and spaces where our worth isn’t tied to output, performance, or anyone else's expectations. They are places of refuge and return. A mind sanctuary might be a quiet morning of journaling before the world intrudes. It could be an unstructured afternoon walk or a creative hour spent making something just for the joy of it. These aren’t indulgences. They’re essential. They’re where presence is restored and creative energy gently gathers itself again. 

Creating a mind sanctuary begins with intention, not perfection. It’s about carving out even a small space in your day or week where you can step away from noise and return to yourself. This space doesn’t have to be physical, though it can be. It might be a corner of a room, a walk beneath open sky, or even a few sacred minutes in the early morning light. What matters is that you enter it with presence, leaving expectations, obligations, and outside roles at the threshold. Over time, these simple moments become portals, tiny doors back to your inner life. In these spaces, something softens. The inner critic loosens its grip. There’s a quiet inside that feels both alive and expansive, like stepping into a forest clearing after a storm. Worries recede to the edges. In their place: a simple sense of being. A ‘remembering’ of who I am when no one else is looking.

Coming Home to Yourself

Many of us have been conditioned to see rest, reflection, and unstructured time as wasteful. But what if those quiet pauses are where the real insight lives? What if slowing down isn’t falling behind, but finding your way home? Mind sanctuaries invite a different pace. They shift us from reacting to life to intentionally responding to it. From striving to listening. From burnout to connection. They remind us who we are, beyond our roles, our goals, and our carefully curated calendars. In honoring our mind sanctuaries, we also learn to be more discerning about where and how we share our creative energy. Sometimes, we encounter people who seem uninterested in truly knowing us, yet eager to claim our ideas, mimic our creativity, or diminish our light. These experiences can clutter our inner world with confusion, resentment, and self-doubt if we let them.

Many creators, artists, and innovators experience this at some point: the moment when others would rather replicate a creation than engage in the vulnerable work of building something truly their own. Sometimes it’s dismissed as coincidence, explained away as a shared download from God or Source, or framed as part of a broader trend. And while overlap can be natural, it can also be difficult for creatives to process the feeling of being unseen even as their work is echoed. Moments like these remind us why it’s essential to separate our identity and worth from what we create. Our ideas, projects, and expressions are extensions of us, but they are not us. They are offerings, not definitions. Protecting our mind sanctuaries isn’t about closing ourselves off but  about staying rooted in who we are, beyond the ebb and flow of external recognition.

And here’s the deeper truth: no one can replicate who you are. They might imitate the surface of your ideas, but they cannot recreate your approach, your discernment, or the spirit behind your work. They can't fully realize the depth of your vision, or the lived experience that shaped it. Your creative life is not just about what you make but also about how you see, how you feel, and how you bring something new into being. That essence is yours alone. And that’s why protecting your sacred spaces matters so deeply. It’s not about shutting the world out. It’s about tending the soil of your inner life with care, knowing that what grows there deserves to be honored, not harvested. Creating boundaries around your inner life isn't selfish. It's stewardship. It's choosing to preserve the ground from which your truest and most meaningful work arises.

Ways to Protect Your Mind Sanctuary

• Trust Your Timing: Before you share a new idea, creation, or dream, pause and ask yourself: "Is this ready to be seen?" Some things need time to root and strengthen in private before they’re shared with the world.
• Gather Your Inner Circle: Share your inner life with a trusted few who nourish and respect you. Not everyone is meant to be part of your creative unfolding.
• Honor Your Energy: Notice who energizes you and who drains you. Invest your time and creativity where there is mutual inspiration, support, and authenticity.
• Listen for the Quiet No: If a space, collaboration, or conversation feels off, trust that inner knowing. Protecting your mind sanctuary sometimes means stepping away with grace.
• Keep Something Just for You: Maintain a journal, ritual, or creative practice that exists beyond public view, a space where no validation is needed, only presence.
• Return to Your Root Purpose: Reconnect often with why you create, why you dream, why you build. Let your deeper "why" be the ground that holds you steady.

Letting Go to Grow

Let what you’re ready to release become compost: fuel for a life more aligned with your values and truth. In this way, emotional release is not about discarding or denying what we’ve experienced but about transforming it. As writer Kelsey Day beautifully notes, “when emotions rot, they compost.” Just like fallen leaves nourish the soil, our grief, confusion, and old stories can decompose into wisdom, clarity, and creative energy. This inner composting becomes part of the rich ground from which our future self grows.

Here’s one of my favorite practices to support this process:

The Compost List

• What beliefs, habits, or expectations are no longer nourishing me?
• What can I release to grow in a new direction?
• What do I want to plant in its place?

Simple Rituals to Return to Yourself

These small rituals can help you return to yourself, especially when life feels noisy or off-center. Start simple. Let presence be enough.

• Create a Daily Pause: Choose one moment in your day: sunrise, midday, or dusk, and claim it as sacred. Use that time to breathe, notice, and simply be.
• Journaling Prompt: “What does my inner world need right now?” Write freely. Let the words arrive unedited.
• Movement as Reset: Walk, stretch, or take a few deep breaths without an agenda, headphones, or to-do list.
• Unplugged Creativity: Set a timer for 20 minutes. Paint, write, draw, or collage, not to produce, but to feel present.

You might also nourish your inner life in community. Visit a museum. Join a craft group. Browse your local library or attend a play or performance. These simple acts connect us to shared beauty, to inspiration, and to each other. Sometimes, being with art is what brings us back to ourselves.

Begin Building Your Sanctuary

Presence isn’t about getting it right. It’s about returning to the places within you that feel alive and rooted. In a world that asks us to be busy, creating room for your inner life is a quiet act of rebellion and healing. If you're feeling called to begin, start small. Choose one moment this week to pause, breathe, and reconnect with your own mind sanctuary. No expectations. No performance. Just presence. Every quiet return strengthens the roots of who you are becoming.

If you’re looking for tools to support your journey: 

• The Soulful Living Wheel is a free self-discovery tool designed to help you check in, reflect, and realign with your values. It encourages honest self-inquiry and intentional growth.
• The Soulful Living Workbook is a 54-page digital guide filled with journaling prompts, creative exercises, and mindful practices for intentional living and personal growth.

You can find both on my website. Wherever you are in your season of life, may you find quiet corners to breathe, reflect, and return to yourself. Because the most powerful journey you can take is the one that brings you back home.

Sources & Further Reading

• Day, K. (2022, October 11). When emotions rot, they compost and transform into something new. Psyche. https://psyche.co/ideas/when-emotions-rot-they-compost-and-transform-into-something-new
• Galla, B. M. (2016). Within-person changes in mindfulness and self-control predict enhanced academic achievement. Journal of Adolescence, 49, 204–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.03.014
• Greater Good Science Center. (n.d.). Greater Good Magazine. University of California, Berkeley. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/
• Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Hyperion.
• Magsamen, S., & Ross, I. (2023). Your brain on art: How the arts transform us. Random House.
• McKeown, G. (2021). Effortless: Make it easier to do what matters most. Crown Currency.
• Mindful Communications. (n.d.). Mindful. https://www.mindful.org/
• Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Opening up: The healing power of expressing emotions. Guilford Press.
• Pychyl, T. A., & Sirois, F. M. (2016). Procrastination, stress, and chronic health conditions: A temporal perspective. In F. M. Sirois & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination, health, and well-being (pp. 105–126). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-802862-9.00006-0
• Stolzoff, S. (2024, October). How to reclaim your life from work [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/simone_stolzoff_how_to_reclaim_your_life_from_work