Reclaiming sacred space

My stomach hurts. My hands are shaking.

The lighting in the room is just as I like it, but it seems dark. The temperature is cool, but I’m sweating. My comfort-music playlist is on shuffle, but the songs sound foreign.

These feelings are familiar. This has happened many times before. This is an anxiety attack. I know this.

This is the first time I’ve sat down in my office in about eight months. In the weeks leading up to going to treatment for my eating disorder, this room served as a sacred space. I’d spend evenings alone in here, drawing, writing, pleading with the universe to heal me, to help me get help.

This space has become a makeshift storage area, but pieces of the room are the same as I left them. I’m struck by a drawing I started while trying to will myself to get better. It’s covered in dust, still sitting on the table. It simply says, “Eat food.”

I’m anxious to be in this room in my own home because of the memories my brain is associating with it: the physical pain I felt lying on the plush carpet; the many tears shed; the very real fear that I would fall asleep in here and not wake up.

My once-sacred space has been marred by memories of pain and fear. But what makes a space truly sacred, and how can I reclaim this space for the me I am today while still honoring the me I was yesterday?

This room used to be a place I went to shut out the world. It was sacred only to me. Perhaps the way I sanctify this room is to invite people in instead of shutting them out, for as Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Sacred.

Perhaps opening our doors and our hearts is what makes any space sacred.

Perhaps that’s where the healing begins.