Photo Courtesy of Ende

This is the third and final part of an ongoing series – Find Your Own Sanctuary.

Find Your Own Sanctuary Part 1 – With Nature focussed on spending time in nature, absorbing the beauty, the stillness, the calmness, the sounds at different times of the day to relax and rejuvenate.

Part II – 11 Refreshing Ways to Find Your Own Sanctuary – is all about getting refreshed and re-energized in totally unexpected places. Unexpected because we have not really seen these places/activities as a possible relaxation option. Unexpected because inspite of knowing these places/activities work, we sometimes forget about them and loose out on some simple refreshment options.

Find Your Own Sanctuary III focusses on finding your sanctuary within. The technique mentioned can be done at any place with whatever time available and is still effective. Think how wonderful it would be if in an increasingly busy and stressful day, you could relax and freshen up within a span of five minutes. And that too without being dependant on anything external to relieve your stress. This technique offers you exactly that. I have experimented and mix-matched a lot of meditation techniques to come up with this one which suits me.

Select a quiet place.
Select a place where you can be with yourself without any distractions for atleast 5 mins. Initially, you will have to sit in one place while practicing this. Choose your location accordingly.

Breathe in and breathe out.
Sit in any comfortable position and close your eyes. Now breathe in and breathe out. Focus on your breath through mind. Focus on the sensation of air moving in and out of your nostrils. Feel your belly rise and fall. Don’t think of anything else. Simply focus on your breath. Continue doing this till you notice that your mental chatter has reduced.

See yourself on a spiral stairway
Now see yourself on top of a spiral stairway. You can either see the stairway through your eyes – as if you are seeing the stairway from top of it. Or you can see yourself standing on the stairway from a distance – as if you are seeing a movie featuring you. The latter is easier to do.

Once you can see yourself and the stairway clearly, get down slowly. Avoid going fast, skipping the walk or fast forwarding the walk. As you near the end of the stairway, you see a closed door.

Open the door leading to your private sanctuary

Photo Courtesy of bbsc30

This door leads to your private sanctuary – a scenic, beautiful, soothing place. This could be a garden, a mountain side, river bank, lake side, forest … whatever you like. You are free to create your sanctuary the way you want.

Open the door and enter you sanctuary.

Savour your sanctuary
Savour everything around through all your senses. Hear soothing sounds/music playing in the background. Feel the freshness in the air. Let yourself be in awe and inspiration of the beauty and serenity of this place.

Find your favourite spot to relax. And enjoy. My favourite spot is to sit near a water body with my feet in water. Sometimes, I love sitting on a swing as well.

Create bubbles
As you are enjoying your sanctuary, don’t allow external thoughts to come in and engage your mind. Everytime you catch a thought, put it in a bubble and see it slowly go up towards the sky. See it … till it disappears. And again relax and enjoy. When you begin, you might find that all you are creating is bubbles. But that’s all right. With practice, this reduces. If you feel too distracted, focus on your breathing for a while and start enjoying your sanctuary again.

Slowly open your eyes
Stay in your sanctuary for as long as you like. And smile as you get relaxed and feel soothed. Whenever you are ready to get back, slowly open your eyes. Give yourself a minute to get back completely.

And get started with the rest of your day.