Unblocking trauma

The story of transformation

“The secret to looking and feeling good starts with self-love and knowing your self-worth.”

Rebecca Rose, founder of The Modern Sanctum, is no stranger to trauma, she is open about her past abusive, controlling, toxic relationships, but rather than letting her trauma define her – it’s made her stronger and the empowering woman she is today. The Modern Sanctum rose out of the ashes of her challenging life experiences and reflects everything she stands for.

Unlike some experts, Rebecca has experienced first-hand the damage trauma can have on her own mental well being; she had to sink to the depths of fear and despair to rise to the top. Through research, healing retreats and her own personal exploration, she has discovered the tools – which have transformed her life. The Modern Sanctum has an experienced team of experts specialising in; yoga, life coaching, mediation, personal training and mindfulness to help you perform at your best.

The Modern Sanctum can make a positive transformation a reality for you. It’s the place to be if you have suffered a past trauma and you are; seeking to unblock the subconscious, discover real relationships as well as exploring and believing in your own your self-worth – which can often be easier said than done!The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Rebecca – The Early Years

Looking back, Rebecca’s family life was, to put it mildly, chaotic: Rebecca said: “Life growing up wasn’t conventional. Age 11, a very impressionable age, the chaos started in the home. My mother divorced my father and re-married his older brother. It caused anger with my father, who violently attacked my mother before leaving the family home. My uncle (step-father) had undergone treatment for cancer and survived. Ten years later, my father got cancer and unfortunately died in his 50s. I had been carrying resentment and pain on my shoulders for 15 years.”

From an early age, Rebecca carried the heavy burden of trauma, she was; fearful, alone and mentally unstable; her outlook was bleak. She lacked strong, relationship role-models and was there for was attracted to, controlling, damaging partners who preyed on her insecurities – she didn’t question this because this was her normal. Every one of her bad relationships chipped away at her self-worth, until she was left an empty shell. She felt unworthy of love and was on a downward spiral, unconsciously rejecting any commitment.

“This lack of love for me meant I couldn’t let love in and dismissed the good guys, and self-sabotaged with the broken ones.”

The “Chain of Pain”

Rebecca tried plant medicine as a means to end her “chain of pain”, but unfortunately, the revelation was short-lived. Rebecca, bounced back to her controlling ex-partner. She craved; unconditional love and stability – at any cost. She desperately wanted a family of her own, but after becoming pregnant, this joy didn’t have the “happy ever after” she dreamed of. Rather than her partner nurturing and making her feel secure, he became even more controlling and violent. The turning point came when he had a meltdown, took Rebecca’s car keys, threw her in the passenger’s seat, drove her to the edge of a cliff, dragged her by my hair and verbally abused her. Sadly, for the safety of her un-born child, Rebecca took the incredibly painful decision to have an abortion, one of the hardest decisions she ever made. She came to the very uncomfortable realisation: “If you are forced to alter your behavior because you are frightened, you are being abused.”

Rebecca describes this traumatic episode as “The death of the old Rebecca.” She had a choice, she could curl up into a ball and block out the world or change the negative cycle – she chose the latter.

So, what changed?

Rebecca spent the first six months in silence, paralysed by the pain, she hardly spoke. It took around two years for her to recover, and this is where she discovered paint medicine, energy healing, life coaching, psychotherapy, mediation, positive affirmations, and training the subconscious mind to remove thought patterns. She preserved her eggs at 39 and nurtured her soul and finally believed she was worthy of happiness.

“I have healed, and through my pain, I’m starting to understand who I am; life is intended to be easy, for the ones that think it’s hard you are wrong.”

For the record, Rebecca, isn’t a man-hater! She now openly goes into relationship knowing that her happiness is not dependent on anything her partner does. She’s honest enough to admit, she still doesn’t really know what “love” is, but she knows it’s not just that warm and fuzzy feeling, its actions, it’s what you do.

Attracting a partner, according to Rebecca, can be simple, but the real effort comes from unblocking, expanding, stepping into your worth, listening to red flags and, most importantly, NOT SETTLING for second best. The key is showing your subconscious over and over again that every little aspect of what you want is possible.

“Love blossoms under the freedom of not having to complete us and expands what is already inside of us.”

If you have experienced a trauma in your life and would like to work with Rebecca or visit The Modern Sanctum please get in touch. www.themodernsanctum.com

Positive Affirmations

What are Positive Affirmations?

(aka Self-Affirmations)

At The Modern Sanctum, we practice using positive affirmations to help you overcome barriers and self-doubt. This effectively means writing a list of affirmations personal to you, that inspire and motivate YOU – which will be used to as a tool to help you become the best version of yourself.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of positive affirmations, I’ll try and shed some light on what they are and how they work. In simple terms, affirmations (sometimes called “self-affirmations”) is basically ‘repeating positive sentences to yourself’ as a way to build your self-belief within your subconscious mind. This could be something like:

“Life brings me only good experinces. I am open to new and wonderful changes.”

“Abundance flows freely through me.”

“Through courage and hard work, I can achieve anything that I set my mind to.”

At first, saying phrases that you may not necessarily believe in can make you feel a little self-conscious, however, at The Modern Sanctum affirmations are used to help you reflect what you want to be true. Over time, the consistent repetition of these daily affirmations will help to reshape your inner-beliefs and assumptions about yourself and in-turn the world around you. This reshaping will give you a more positive perception of who you are and where you stand. So most importantly, you have to decide to truly believe an affirmation to be true. It’s important to understand that any limitations you have are simply ones you have placed on them and are not necessarily true. Watching you grow in confidence through affirmations is nothing short of magic for us!

Positive Affirmations: How They Can Change the Way You Think

Daily affirmations are also proven to change the way you think in lots of ways. In fact, did you know psychologists and neurologists are increasingly interested in how positive affirmations affect the brain and subconscious mind?

Benefits of Daily Affirmations;

When you’re stressed and let’s be honest, it happens to us all. You can boost your problem-solving skills by using self-affirmation. Affirmations can help you perform better under pressure in career and love, so useful for pre-job interviews and first dates!

Greater awareness makes you more likely to challenge negative thoughts as they arise. This also enhances your self-knowledge, making you better at knowing what you want in life.

Reconnecting with your feelings of gratitude and enhance your perspective on the good things in life, so boosting your happiness

Recent research indicates that optimistic people tend to have better cardiovascular health. So if your affirmations make you more optimistic, they could help you live longer too, so that’s an added bonus!

Why use affirmations and when is the best time to use them?

At Modern Sanctum, we say there is no right or wrong answer to when is the best time to use affirmations. However, the early bird catches the worm and if you start in the morning, you are effectively setting your day up by starting out in a positive frame of mind. Plus, saying powerful affirmations when you wake up can help you shake off any negativity from dreams or block your brain from filling up with any problems or difficulties you may be facing. In truth, the best thing to do is affirm yourself constantly throughout the day to maintain that way of thinking.

I advise my guests to always try these things and notice the difference in their life and the impact it has. When starting out, it would be best to make this the first thing you do and many successful believers will have affirmation cards or post-it notes in view as soon as they wake up.

At Modern Sanctum, we give our clients postcards to write the affirmation statements which can be stuck on the mirrors in their room and we advise them to rehearse each morning, until they have mastered the practice and it becomes part of their daily morning routine and they csn continue their affirmations after the retreat.

In summary, self-affirmations are good for your body and your subconscious mind. By changing the way you think, affirmations can help you to slowly transform your whole life. The best way to see if it works is to try! I hope this helps gives you a small insight into the positive affirmation ceremonies at The Modern Sanctum and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Cacao ceremony

What is a Cacao Ceremony?

At Modern Sanctum, we provide safe spaces for people to connect with each-other in new ways. Our guests have an opportunity to reconnect with ancient parts of themselves. Sounds a little mystical doesn’t it!? Le’s demystify the ritual a little, and breakdown exactly what happens at a Cacao Ceremony:

Pronounced “Ca Cow”, Cacao is, in its purest form, a chocolate drink, but with a difference…

In essence, the ceremony is a unique place to connect with people in a safe, nourishing, open environment. It’s a gathering to drink cacao, which is prepared, with love, at our retreat. Drinking cacao helps create healing, connection and inspiration.

Engaging with chocolate as a ritual, rather than eating it like a candy bar, has a positive impact on our individual well-being. This may seem a bit “out there”, but it’s similar to going out drinking with all of friends – you are all on the same journey together.

Why are Cacao Ceremonies becoming more popular?

At our retreat, cacao has become an important focal point of our routine ritual for self-renewal, as it keeps us centred and connected to our hearts. Cacao is interwoven with an embodiment, creative expression and guides us in navigating through any loss, pain, or suffering we have experienced in our lives.

Along the way, we have found healing and connection to ourselves, experienced depth and profound healing in our family and discovered a deeper connection with the elements, land, and ecology that we haven’t experience before. I believe you can find the same at our retreat.

Why Should I Join a Cacao Ceremony?

Being in a safe, sacred space helps you get out of your normal frame of mind, allowing you to experience new insights and perspectives.

Sharing cacao brings us into the same energetic frequency which can often result in a deeper more intimate connection with ourselves and with each-other. When a group share cacao, they have a shared experience of mood elevation, increased vitality, enhanced intuition and empathy, and a more open, present heart. When this happens it’s truly magical!

Cacao increases the energetic field of our hearts, and when we join together, the field is amplified and woven together by the multiple hearts in the room. We each carry unique medicine and messages for each other, and even if you are in a ceremony with strangers, they may share something about their personal experience that provides more clarity or inspiration for where you are in your life. When a group all drinks cacao together, they are shifting their energy into the same frequency or vibration.

What will I Experience In Cacao Ceremony?

While every cacao ceremony is different (depending on the different energies of the group) there are some general experiences you can expect when attending a cacao ceremony at The Modern Sanctum:

– First and full-most, a safe environment for you to connect with yourself, the spirit of cacao, and other people in deeper ways than one can usually access alone

– Our ceremonial cacao is sourced, made, and prepared with love and intention

– As a group, you will be will be led through a cacao blessing, where you’ll learn about the cacao you are going to drink and how it is prepared

– You will be guided through various exercises and experiences based on the intentions of the event, for example: guided meditations

– During the ceremony is there will be an “opening and setting of the container”, a shared group experience, followed by the “closing”, where you’ll give thanks and acknowledge what the group created during that time

If you would like more information about our Cacao Ceremonies, or if you would like to book a space at our next retreat to experience a Cacao Ceremony for yourself, please do get in touch at info@themodernsanctum.com