Hello wonderful readers! It’s a brand new month and I don’t know about you but I’m excited for it. Not only is this Birthday Month (The big 3-0 is coming!) but it’s a chance for a new start. Every month feels like that, the changing of the date can change our mindset and that’s really important. So leave the past in the past (unless it has something to teach you then embrace it) and focus on making the best of these next 30 days.

If you’re following along in the 2015 Self Love Planner ( it’s only $5!) the theme for August is all about Sanctuary.

sanc·tu·ar·y: a place of refuge or safety.

You need to feel safe and secure. It’s one of those essential human things – food, water, and shelter. But it’s more than that. You need a place where you can be yourself, where you can feel embraced for who you are and comfortable in your own skin. Sometimes that feeling comes from a place and sometimes it comes from people but if you don’t have that, the intrinsic feeling of “I am safe right now” something will always be missing from your life.

Your mission this month is to create sanctuary.

Create a space in your home where you can go to be quiet or that’s set up for your favorite hobbies. Cultivate friendships, real, deep, nourishing friendships that traverse beyond surface topics. If you look around your home and it just doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, or it doesn’t feel happy to you, this would be a good time to do a bit of cleaning, re-organizing or decorating. Turn your attention towards creating that sacred space for yourself. Embrace safety and comfort and that deep sense of being. Work on your boundaries. Make sure that you are letting the right people in and keeping those people that interrupt your sense of safety and comfort at arm’s length.

Cultivate sanctuary within yourself.

Find a place of peace within yourself. Work on feeling comfortable and safe and at home when you are alone. If you feel incomplete while you’re by yourself, if it makes you feel anxious and ungrounded explore those feelings. Take a walk and lose yourself in nature, go sit at a park bench and read, or spend time in meditation. Do something self-nurturing.

This month, I’d also like you to be mindful of your need for solitude and quiet. Do you embrace it or push it away? Be very conscious of when you need to take a break and when you need to take time to reconnect with yourself. If you feel yourself feeling anxious or stressed out, make the time to check out for a bit and take a rest, whether it be curling up in bed with a good book or taking time to focus on your breath, whatever makes you feel good.

This is a time for introversion, so turn within.

What does sanctuary mean to you?