What Creates a Felt Sense of Sanctuary?

A felt sense of sanctuary is the experience of feeling held enough to show up exactly as you are, in that moment, without pressure to perform or conform.

It expands beyond safety. Safety is complicated. We don't always know what will feel safe to another person, and we cannot guarantee that an experience will remain comfortable or predictable.

This is especially true in trauma work, brain-body processing, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), and other experiential approaches. A felt sense of sanctuary is possible when there is enough support, choice, connection, and space to meet whatever arises during a session.

Sanctuary is personal

What helps one person settle may make another person feel more exposed.

Silence may feel spacious to one person and unsettling to another. Closing the eyes may support an inward experience...or create disconnection. Direct guidance may feel containing for one person, while for someone else it may feel intrusive.

There is no universal setting, script, or intervention that creates sanctuary for everyone.

A felt sense of sanctuary has to account for the person’s nervous system, history, identities, culture, relationships, environment, current circumstances, strengths, and resources. It is something we listen for and create together.

This requires curiosity:

• What helps this person feel accompanied without feeling crowded?

• What gives them more access to choice?

• What makes it easier for them to remain connected to themselves?

• What signals that we need to pause, adjust, or try something different?

• What does support actually feel like to them?

Sanctuary does not require calm

A person can feel grief, fear, anger, uncertainty, or activation and still experience sanctuary. The idea is to create enough support around the intensity so that a participant does not have to meet it alone.

Sometimes sanctuary feels grounding and peaceful. Sometimes it feels like permission to say no. Sometimes it is the realization that you can close your eyes, move your body, decide not to talk about something, ask for more support, or stop entirely.

I experience a felt sense of sanctuary when someone tells me, "There is no rush, take your time". "You are allowed to change your mind." "You do not have to explain..."

Sanctuary includes the environment and extends beyond it

Let's talk about set and setting: the room, lighting, sound, privacy, physical comfort, technology, timing, and people present can all shape an experience.

We bring our histories into the room. We bring culture, identity, previous experiences with care, and expectations about what will happen when we express a need. We bring the practical realities of our lives: finances, caregiving responsibilities, health needs, physical space, and the support available afterward.

A perfectly curated environment does not replace a relationship in which someone feels seen and heard. The physical setting is part of a larger relational and contextual setting.

Sanctuary is relational

Practitioners' attunement supports the environment we are trying to create. Our pace, tone, expectations, comfort with uncertainty, and responses all become part of the setting.

We might know a great deal about trauma and still move too quickly. We can believe deeply in client-led work while subtly steering toward the experience we think should happen. We can offer choice with our words while subtly communicating urgency with our body language.

This is part of why we also need opportunities to notice what happens inside of us when another person becomes quiet, activated, or "difficult to read". We need spaces to explore our own internal responses; to get curious about the moments when our own desire to be helpful starts shaping the process.

This is where experiential learning and consultation allow us to explore sanctuary as something we experience, practice, and continue learning how to cultivate.

Exploring sanctuary in practice

On Friday, July 31, I’ll be offering a workshop exploring elements of the SANCTUARY framework: Set + Setting, Attunement + Authenticity, Nervous System States + Neuroplasticity, Capacity, Trust, and Uncertainty.

Then beginning Monday, August 3, a small group of practitioners will enter a three-session Experiential Consultation Series. Across preparation, experiential exploration, and integration; we will have space to explore how these ideas show up within our clinical work and within us.

The workshop offers language, structure, and practical tools for creating a felt sense of sanctuary in group KAP. The consultation series offers a more personalized space to experience and integrate it.

They can be attended independently. Together, they create a natural movement from learning about a felt sense of sanctuary to discovering what helps us create it for the people we work with and for ourselves.

Learn more about Sanctuary Workshop here.

Learn more about Small Group Experiential Consultation here.

View all current and upcoming learning experiences at IntegrativeJourneyLearning.com