How Mobile Sanctuary Began

Michelangelo: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it; it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

Seasons Greetings, Everyone!

With the holidays fast approaching, I wanted to let you know that Gift Certificates are now on sale and you can purchase them HERE.

Recently, I did an INTERVIEW with Voyage Raleigh, an online magazine focused on sharing inspiring stories from local entrepreneurs, artists, and small business from around the Triangle. They wanted to talk to me about my career in the Healing Arts and how my Mobile Sanctuary Project evolved. If you'd like to check it out, feel free.

Or, keep reading to find out more about it.

You may remember the blog I wrote about a year ago entitled Mobile Sanctuary for the Office. In this blog, I describe how to transform a room in your office space into a temporary sanctuary where employees can disengage from work for 10-20 minutes, decompress, receive a short bodywork session (from me), and then go back to work feeling refreshed and re-centered.

Since then, I've had several clients ask me how it all began and I'm finally getting around to writing about it. But before I begin, I just want to thank you all, once again, for allowing me to b a part of your wellness routine. I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday and hope to see you soon.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, I developed the idea of creating a personal sanctuary in my home—a separate space devoted entirely to self-care and self-healing on the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic levels. This is how it all began.

What is a Personal Sanctuary? 

When the idea came to me, I decided to search the term sanctuary online to see what was out there. 

Oxford Languages defines Sanctuary as:

1. A place of refuge or safety

2. A nature reserve

3. A holy place; a temple or church, or the inmost recess of the holiest part of a temple or church

I liked the idea of creating a separate space in my home that would embody all of these elements. In addition, I wanted to incorporate a healing component as well. So, my contribution to this list was:

4. A place of healing 

Why did I feel the need to create this kind of space in my home?

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The Backstory

The Face Cloud (TFC) in action - Courtesy Dave Tingler

During the quarantine, I began experiencing insomnia and anxiety on a nightly basis. One night after my 3 a.m. sojourn to the bathroom, I grabbed two throw pillows from the couch on my way back to the bedroom. I got back into bed and put one pillow on each side of my face, leaving a space in the middle to breathe. Instead of tossing and turning indefinitely as per usual, I drifted right back to sleep. 

I began doing this every night and discovered that the face pillows were gently comforting. Having that fluffy barrier between me and the outside world made me feel safe, quieted my mind, and allowed me to sink back into slumber. It dawned on me that I could create one pillow that might perform this same function. It was the perfect quarantine project.

After a few weeks of experimentation and several prototypes, I came up with The Face Cloud (TFC), a weighted pillow with a breathing hole in the middle that lays directly on the face. This nifty little pillow became my new best friend. Not only did it ease my anxiety and insomnia at night, but I soon found it to be an effective tool for meditation and mindfulness training during the day.

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Holding Space: It's What We Do

As a licensed massage and bodywork therapist (LMBT) with over twenty-five years of health and wellness industry experience, I consider myself a fairly mind-body oriented individual, but prior to creating TFC, I rarely meditated. I often recommended it to clients, but hardly ever took my own advice.

The pandemic, however, changed all that.

Once the North Carolina Board of Massage Therapy had given LMBTs the green light to reopen our doors, my schedule was jam-packed with clients even though the vaccine was still weeks away for non-essential workers. 

These folks were so tense, they were willing to literally risk their lives to receive bodywork, and I was willing to do the same in order to work on them. In all honesty, I needed the income. My unemployment compensation had run its course and I needed to work. 

While filling out my treatment notes one day, it hit me just how taxing the simple act of holding space for people can be. Creating a safe haven, being fully present, actively listening without judgment, and offering unconditional emotional support and validation—all this plus the physical work itself was turning into a tall order. 

Normally these aspects of the job come naturally to me, but something about the pandemic was kicking it up a notch. Not only were clients unloading a lot of mental and emotional baggage, but their muscles were tighter than ever.

I found myself writing the terms hypertonic and holding space over and over. In reference to muscles, the term hypertonic means “in a state of abnormally high tension.” But that definition perfectly described their mental and emotional states as well. It was as if their physical, mental, and emotional layers were more amplified than usual. In fact, their entire energy field just felt denser, in general.

After weeks of working at such an intense pace, I realized all of my layers were becoming hypertonic too. I was a superstar at holding space for other people, but who was holding space for me? Evidently, I needed to figure out how to hold space for myself. 

What I needed was a meditation practice, and I needed one ASAP.

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Developing Conscious Intention

Something clicked for me when I pondered the idea of purposefully tuning out the external world and turning my focus inward. I decided to try an experiment: What would happen if I used TFC in an intentional capacity—as a tool to regulate my own mental and emotional wellbeing? 

The first part of the experiment consisted of creating a sacred space. It seemed more meaningful that way. My bedroom is the most private space in my home, so I began by decluttering and tidying it up. I set the tone by adjusting the blinds to create some diffuse light, closing the door to keep out the household noise, and turning off my phone.

The second part involved developing a ritual I knew I could stick to. If I didn’t push myself to do this activity with conscious intent, I knew it would fall by the wayside like so many other mindfulness practices I’d tried in the past. I made up my mind to do it twice a day—in the mornings before my workday and in the evenings when I got home. Since my partner’s morning routine is a bit noisy, I opted for a meditative walk in nature instead during this time. 

Part three entailed finding a vehicle to still my mind. That ever-present, restless chatter in my head needed to stop, and the pandemic had only made it worse. After experimenting with different types of sound therapy, I found the simple, resonant tones of singing bowls very calming, clearing, and centering, so I started there. Naturally, I didn’t need sound therapy for the walks—the sounds of nature were instantly therapeutic.

For the next several weeks, I started my day communing with nature in the woods behind my house and ended it stretched out on my bed with TFC, listening to sound baths at night. I even developed a conditioned response to this ritual just anticipating it. It was as if the vibrational frequency of every cell in my body began slowly shifting into meditation mode when the screen door slammed behind me in the mornings, and again in the evenings, when the side door opened in front of me. 

Before long I was able to regulate my mental and emotional states more consistently and feel more grounded, centered, refreshed, and energized. Some days were easier than others, but I was finally getting the hang of self-regulation, that is, the ability to control one’s thoughts and emotions internally. Energetically, I felt that my vibrational frequency was also lifting.

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Bedroom Vibes ≠ Inward Expansion

After some time, I began to outgrow the bedroom. I berated myself for being so sensitive about it, but at the end of the day, the last thing I felt like doing was tidying up before getting into the zone: the bedroom vibes were just too strong. There was simply too much stuff and too many distractions. My OCD would kick in, and by the time I got everything just so, I would be too tired to meditate. Which lead to…

Dropping off to sleep. I WAS lying on my bed after all. Finding that meditative sweet spot while lying on my bed began to feel a bit counterintuitive. The purpose of the bedroom and the bed itself is to provide a space for the body to completely let go so that unconscious, involuntary processing can take place. Since the body repairs itself on the physical, mental, and emotional levels while we sleep, it just felt more appropriate to allow that space to remain what it was originally intended for. 

Simply put, the external environment was becoming too convoluted for the internal environment to thrive. I was beginning to embark upon a new level of inward expansion through meditation that required a different space and a different aesthetic altogether.

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A Room of One's Own

I set my sights on a spare room in the back of the house. As I began to declutter this room, I found myself making mental notes of what this sacred space would be and what it would not be. 

What the Sanctuary Would NOT Be:

𑁍 A she shed, man cave, or any other type of space with an “occupation” in mind. The goal here is TO BE rather than TO DO.

𑁍 A place to eat or drink. No food or drinks allowed (except water).

𑁍 A place for electronic devices (unless small and used as a meditative tool, like a cell phone or tablet with apps for guided meditations, sound therapy, etc.). 

𑁍 A meeting place for friends and family to hang out. 

𑁍 A place with too much stuff.

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What the Sanctuary Would Be :

𑁍 A quiet, comfortable space with ambient lighting and a minimalist aesthetic.

𑁍 A room of intention. Since The Bedroom was for unconscious, involuntary processing, it seemed apropos for The Sanctuary to be about conscious, voluntary processing. Whether the intention was to relax and center oneself or to delve deep into the inward processing of one’s personal issues, this space would be about leaving the external world behind and engaging the internal world. 

𑁍 A natural space that would incorporate the elements in nature (air, water, earth, fire) and soothe the five senses.

𑁍 A healing space with a massage table, yoga mat, floor cushions, or other vehicle for self-care and self-healing.

𑁍 A holy place, that is, a holding space for oneself that incorporates an altar or some other type of focal point where one could place symbolic objects used as tools to aid one’s personal development or spiritual journey.

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The Giant Compromise

As these bright thoughts, ideas, and plans for The Home Sanctuary danced in my head, I got a reality check from my partner. The spare room was HIS domain as well. His AND our six cats, he reminded me. He wasn’t really on board with this idea—that is, at first. (After all, what was HE getting out of it?)

So, I came up with an offer he couldn't refuse: what if I promised to show him some basic massage techniques so that we could work on each other from time to time? That way, we would BOTH benefit from turning the spare room into a Sanctuary.

This idea pricked his interest and felt more in alignment couple-wise. Regular Partner Massages would not only benefit us both physically, but might even foster a more emotional connection as well. The idea was temporarily sanctioned.

As is often the case, something even better came out of this bump in the road: Not only did my partner and I begin working on each other on a regular basis, but it became clear to me that Partner Massage could be a component of The Sanctuary. Moreover, the word "partner" didn't have to mean romantic partner; it could be a sister, daughter, friend, or other loved ones partnering up to massage one another.

The Sanctuary could be a space for both Self-Healing and Healing One Another.

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This idea prompted me to develop 2 separate Partner Massage Tutorials:

• Basic Swedish Massage: a "traditional" massage whereby the Receiver is unclothed and massage oil/cream is used

  
  

• Basic Integrative Bodywork: an integrative massage whereby the Receiver is clothed and basic "dry" massage techniques are used including acupressure point/meridian work and stretching.

To find out more about Partner Massage, click HERE.

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So that's the story of how Mobile Sanctuary began.

If you're interested in creating a Sanctuary in your home or office, please contact me for a free consultation at (718) 415-4610 or robincduffy@gmail.com. If you'd like to learn Partner Massage, please visit the SERVICES page of my website for more information.