On Sanctuary

Thoughts from our CEO and Co-Founder, Amy Elizabeth Fox:

On Sanctuary, I would like to say a word about the notion of Sanctuary and its relevance for those of us in the healing arts and transformational leadership work.

When things are as chaotic and scary as they are right now, being prepared to let your heart live in hope, possibility, faith, and remembering will mean you can be a sanctuary of safety and ground for other people who will need you more and more.

As my friend Dr. Shai Tubali puts it: “Life isn’t meant to become safe, stable, and unchangeable—it is YOU who is meant to become your own sanctuary. It is in your power and hands to create an inner rock-like stability." The implication for leadership development and change practitioners is the utter prioritization of self-care and mystical nourishment. We must constantly care for our own physical and energetic well-being to feel anchored, vibrant, and resourced.

We must consistently place ourselves in contexts and containers that invite us to look beyond the evidence of a struggling and fragile world and rest in the beauty and majesty of the blessing field. We must have a practice that helps us to avoid being consumed by immediate inputs or distracted by the news of the day. We need teachers and settings that expand our awareness and grant us a felt sense of the Divine’s imminence. We need an oscillating rhythm that moves from active engagement and acts of service to periods of contemplation, devotion, and Eros.

To a novice eye, self-care can appear as self-indulgent or a bypass. However, this rigorous commitment to building the vessel that can receive, witness, agitate, confront, and respond to life's injury is an act of great importance. At this time, it is an urgent requirement for anyone who wishes to be a guardian of life.

We must build true communities to walk within and infuse them with generosity, mutuality, and intimacy. None of us can walk alone anymore. Things are too fractured, reactive, and heartbreaking.

The understanding that we must tend to our vessel, bring conscious and constant attention to our inner resourcing, and do so in the context of real interdependence with others and embedding in an eco-system of connection is the path to becoming a Sanctuary. My friends Paul Gorman and Ram Dass wrote a beautiful book years ago called How Can I Help? It is a classic record of acts of generous servant leadership.

Its companion question for our moment in time is: How Can I Become a Sanctuary?

We must seek the practices and places that will enable us to keep our hearts available, our spirits soaring, and our arms wide open to life.