A sanctuary is any place you can retreat to in order to heal, rest or recover. Where is your sanctuary? What brings you that feeling of calm and bliss? Can you activate that memory and evoke the same feeling? If you can find stillness even while an emotional storm rages, that means you're in the center of the eye - in here everything is calm and anything is possible. When you've mastered the calm you can handle any challenge. Fear no longer controls your decision making. You're free to be exactly who you were born to be. Uniquely you.

We are all social beings who require contact for normal development. Significance and belonging are all we strive for as humans. I want to be accepted for who I am but am frequently afraid of what people will think. I realize the ridiculousness of this thinking, but it has caused me to withhold parts of myself to protect my image. It's hard to put yourself out there for all the world to see, but it's how it's meant to be. We're meant to see each other. We need to learn from each other.

We're conditioned not to value the experiences of others (i.e. self-centered, thinking your experience is the most important and valuable), which makes it hard to find common ground. We are all human, so it seems really ridiculous for there to be people in this world who fight so hard to do nothing but cause harm to themselves and others. Our mission is to create a sanctuary for people to retreat from their lives for a time in order to realign their thoughts, words, and actions with their deeply held values.

Creating a Sanctuary: Alaskan Oasis

The vision for Alaskan Oasis is to be a healing and transformative retreat for anyone seeking refuge from anything. It will be a place of healing the body, mind, and spirit so the people who visit have the strength, stamina, and courage to tackle life’s challenges head-on. They will leave as Fearless THRIVE Warriors, armed with new skills and a new sense of direction and purpose.

We want to be the place where you go to step out of your comfort zone in order to find your true path. We will use tools based on behavioral science to create an environment in which the body and mind are able to effectively recover from whatever is causing you pain and suffering. We will use behavioral skills training to ensure all staff and guests get the most out of their time spent within our Alaskan Oasis.

The measurable goals for Alaskan Oasis are:

• Open animal shelter and rescue
• Build lodge
• Build 5 cabins
• Build greenhouses
• Build a recreation room
• Build a creative art studio
• Build a shop, work, and craft rooms
• Install 10,000G ultra-filtration/UV water system
• Install wind and solar power generation system
• Install a variety of flying animal attractants
• Build barn and enclosure for livestock
• Build smokehouse for a BBQ restaurant
• Open BBQ restaurant at the lodge
• Construct ropes and obstacle courses
• Annual haunted forest charity fundraiser every October
• Annual holiday village charity fundraiser every December
• Open Warrior Club afterschool program
• Open Camp THRIVE summer program
• Host week- and month-long wellness retreats
• Host week- and month-long training retreats
• Offer long-term therapeutic retreats

If you're interested in supporting our dream of creating an Alaskan Oasis, please consider participating in our courses. A portion of the proceeds from our continuing education courses will be dedicated to the development of our Alaskan Oasis. The larger the community of Mindful THRIVE Warriors we create, the faster we can expand the reach of our dissemination efforts, all in the service of creating a more peaceful world for all of Earth's inhabitants. We look forward to collaborating with you on these and future projects in the service of using the science of behavior and learning to positively impact the trajectory of our society's progress data.