Where is my Inner Sanctuary?
This blog covers inner listening, people-pleasing patterns, and boundary-setting, with reflection and creative prompts to help you nurture your inner world and reclaim your energy.
“Loneliness does not come from having no people around one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.” — Carl Jung
I love this quote by Carl Jung. This captures why many people come to therapy—not because they’re physically alone, but because they feel unseen — in relationships, at work, and even in the communities where they invest their energy. They don’t always come saying, “I feel lonely.” More often, they come saying they feel drained, frustrated, or even resentful of the spaces and relationships they inhabit. You might have noticed in your day-to-day life or work, people talking but no one really listening — not even to themselves? It’s like the radio has been left on, and no one is tuning in to the broadcast. And who could blame them for struggling to listen when there is so much noise from the outside world. Hearing others is not possible is you can’t tune into your inner world and hear yourself.
Let’s follow this tangent for a moment. If you struggle to hold boundaries, you might recognize patterns of people-pleasing. People-pleasers often developed this way to stay safe, sensing unsafety in their environment. This might look like prioritising someone else needs or wants over your own to keep the peace or to keep them happy. But what can happen is a loss of contact with yourself — your needs, wants, and desires. You can feel lost in space, disconnected, and sometimes even unable to feel into your own body.
So when you finally gather the courage to set a boundary, and it’s challenged, negotiated, or even ignored, it’s easy to slip back into people-pleasing. Boundaries aren’t about getting the response you want—they’re about being able to tolerate the discomfort of pushback. They’re about taking in the information of the response, reflecting on it, and then deciding what happens next in the relationship. Most importantly, boundaries are about knowing that you get to choose when and how you act.
Coming back to the initial point: if people aren’t really listening to you, they aren’t truly hearing your boundaries. Supportive relationships involve listening — really tuning in, noticing even subtle signals, and honouring them. Listening to someone’s no, even when it’s quiet or hesitant, is a fundamental way we show respect and care.
"Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others." by Brené Brown.
And here’s the thing — sometimes, no matter how clear or direct you are, you may be in relationships where the other person simply doesn’t have the capacity to receive or honour your boundaries. Sometimes they may just not care. That can feel incredibly hard to digest.
One of the first steps is simply to notice this dynamic. To acknowledge the impact it has had on you — on your inner systems, your energy, your sense of safety. This awareness is the most important first step: listening to your inner world. Listening to yourself first, being on your own side first, and resisting the urge to spiral into questions like Why won’t they listen? Instead, the question becomes: Why am I not listening to myself? Why am I not honouring what I feel and need? This is not about assigning blame to yourself or the other person but seeing the dynamic clearly and choosing what is right for you.
Often when we stay in these dynamics, it’s because we are unconsciously getting something from them too — maybe a sense of purpose, familiarity, or distraction from our own pain by trying to fix someone elses problems. If this has been an ongoing pattern for you in life then seeking therapy can help. Seeing a therapist offers a safe space to explore this very challenging and tender issue with gentlness and compassion. And therapy helps you cut through your own noise and inner conflict, creating a space to actually hear yourself and reconnect with your lived experience. It allows you to learn to take responsibility and stop you getting stuck in blaming or shaming patterns.
Transpersonal art therapy can be especially helpful here; a mix of talk therapy and creative process help bypass our usual ‘logic loops.’ Through creative practices, you can map and unpack the roles you play in life, noticing patterns and habitual dynamics in a tangible, visual way. The process encourages curiosity without forcing answers or outcomes, because making changes happens slowly as you start to inhabit yourself more often and even truely enjoy being in your own presence. It can feel unsafe at times — messy, intense, or painful — but this is part of the process of finding balance. With radical acceptance and compassion, you can keep returning to yourself, tending to your inner world, and gradually building a place of calm — an inner sanctuary.
This inner sanctuary becomes a space where you feel seen, heard, and free — without relying on external validation to trust your feelings and decisions. And when you cultivate this relationship with yourself, you begin to have the best friend you’ve ever had — within yourself.
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton
Evidence shows: Creative expression and visualization, like mapping inner roles or imagining a safe sanctuary, can increase self-awareness, emotional regulation, and stress reduction (Kaimal, Ray, & Muniz, 2016; Posadzki et al., 2016; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016). Engaging with your inner world through art and reflection isn’t just comforting — it actively supports building resilience, clarity, and a grounded sense of self.
Creative Prompt: Postcard from your Inner Sanctuary
Start connecting with your inner sanctuary.
Journalling & creative prompt:
Where in your life do you feel unseen or unheard?
What roles or patterns are you noticing in yourself when you give away your energy?
Imagine you’re visiting your inner sanctuary. Write a postcard to a friend describing it - what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, or how it feels to be there.
Create your postcard. Feel free to us any medium you like e.g. drawing, collage, painting, or journaling, digital collage. There’s no right or wrong answer — allow your response to be free.
After creating your image or postcard, reflect: what message does your inner sanctuary have for you? Write it down.
Put the image of your inner sanctuary somewhere safe where only you can access it. Do not share it with anyone.
Allow yourself to stay with whatever emerges, even if nothing comes. If no image comes, then honour the depth of the work that is waiting for you. If you’ve never felt safe enough to venture inside your inner world this process might feel too challenging to approach on your own and perhaps its time to seek the support of counsellor.
“The greatest journey is the one inward.” — Unknown
Cultivating your inner sanctuary is an ongoing process. But this is a good start. At first, it can feel uncomfortable or even confusing as you begin to tune in to your own thoughts, feelings, and needs — unlearning patterns of people-pleasing and habitual self-neglect. If you’ve spent much of your life prioritizing others’ needs, truely listening to yourself may feel unfamiliar or even challenging. This process can also reveal where some relationships may need to shift, or even end, to make space for honouring your own inner world. Over time, however, it becomes more natural to tune into your internal signals and take steps to protect both your inner and outer sanctuary. If you’d like support exploring this process with curiosity, compassion, and creative guidance, 1:1 transpersonal art therapy provides a safe space to reconnect with yourself, map patterns, and nurture your inner sanctuary.
