Stop for a second and take a look around you right now. Where are you? Are you at home in a comfortable clean environment surrounded by items that you love,with talismans that inspire you to create the world that you desire to live in? Or are you buried under clutter and chaos, dust and unattractive objects with little or negative meaning?
What does your environment sound like? Maybe you aren’t at home. Maybe you have left the clutter and have found a corner of a public coffee shop where the chatter of tables beside you keeps you distracted with their stories instead of yours. Or if you are at home, are the dogs barking, the kids talking and the phone ringing while the computer pings and dings? (Welcome to my world.)
What are you wearing? And sorry to be gross for a second, but how do you smell? Have you taken the time to shower this morning or brush your hair or teeth? Would you rather die than answer the front door? Come on, don’t pretend you’re the only one who has never done it. In the world of home-working creative entrepreneurs, anytime before 5:00 is fair game for a shower, right?
Well…maybe not.
Despite the myth of the crazy creative working artist who is half in the bottle of booze by noon, (If they are even awake) who does their best work prowling the house at midnight, smelling like yesterday’s ashtray and day-old sandwiches, the majority of us working creative entrepreneurs have functioning lives to live. We have families to take care of, food to put on the table and bills to pay.
We want to build a business, not a hobby—and we need to do it with a certain level of sanity, peace and systems.
Enter Sanctuary.
The word sanctuary comes from the Latin word, sanctuarium, which, the ending ”arium” is used to mean a container to keep things in. “Sancti”, Latin for holy, gives us a container to keep things that are holy, or sacred. Another way of putting that could be: a place for that which is sacred to us.
Is your creative work sacred to you? Does it bubble up from the very cells of your body and heart as the mission of your life? Are you are here to serve the earth with your business and life in this manner?
If you can say yes to that, then your business deserves a sanctuary to be conducted in.
Here is why:
Our outer world affects our inner world.
There is no way of getting around that truth. If you are conducting your business in chaos, your business will have a chaotic energy around it. If you are operating in clutter, it will be haphazard and fragmented and frustrating for you. Your creative energy will be distracted and the channels fuzzy. It will be like talking on a phone with a bad connection. You may be getting the info, but who knows how much you are really missing?
Two Kinds of Sanctuary
Physical: The first one is obvious. You need to clear away the clutter and the ugly vibes and restore your physical workspace to an environment that you can breathe in with feelings of happiness and serenity. The creative mind thrives in a physical place of order and structure, despite the old myth of the distracted starving artist. There was a reason he was starving! We don’t want that! Place tokens, candles, pictures or inspiring poetry around you. Consider what scents and music calm and focus your mind. Personally, the sound of flowing water kicks my creativity into high gear. Water fountains in my creative sanctuary are a must for me, but experiment and find out what works for you. While you are at it, don’t come to the sanctuary smelling like yesterday’s old socks. Would you show up to anyone else’s office like that? What kind of message are we sending to the universe when we don’t take our own business seriously enough to put forth any effort? I’m not saying that comfort clothes can’t be on the agenda, but if we don’t feel our best, we aren’t performing at our best. Period.
For those of us like me— with kids and dogs and phones and noise, what has worked for me is to establish sanctuary/work hours. Times that they all know are sacred times. (Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that Fridays are sacred creative time. The Do Not Disturb sign is up and respected.) If you communicate clearly and are consistent, your family, friends and clients will get the message and respect you for it.
Mental: The second kind of sanctuary is more subtle, but even more important than the first. This is an area I discuss with clients in our coaching program, Mindset Matters. This is the area of the Mental Sanctuary. This is the place you create in your mind that is untouchable by anyone else. Your personal mental go to place where you can hit the reset button, find your center, your purpose and your important WHY.
Before beginning your work session, take a few moments to clear your mind of all the scattered thoughts, all of the negative hurried energy and take a few cleansing breaths. Focus your mind and heart on the WHY of your creative business. This is the reason you do this in the first place. Concentrate on the love and creative goodness that you are here to share with the world, and the method that you are going to use to do it. Get centered. Let that sense of purpose fill you and focus you. Become that container and vessel for that Divine Mission and watch the shift in energy flow from you.
Sending a message to the universe that our Creative Business is worthy of sacred space, both in our outer world and in our inner world is a a much different energy than the message that it is an afterthought, a message of ”I’ll get to it when I get to it, when I can fit it in, in the midst of this chaos and clutter and day-old underwear.”
We tell the universe and our subconscious that this is an A+ Priority. Mission Critical. Top of the Line Importance and that we would like the Universe’s support. And guess what?
Where our Focus goes, our Future goes.
The Universe pays attention to Sanctuary. Maybe we should too.