Luxury Reimagined
This season inside The Sanctuary, we’re exploring the richness of simple luxury.
But while the world is quite literally on fire, you might be asking yourself:
“Who gives a fig about luxury?”
I hear you—I’ve been wondering the same.
Luxury is often defined as fancy yachts, velvet rops and designer everything, but settle in with me for a moment on this velvet pouf of a thought:
What if luxury was less about having and more about a state of being—an overflowing, soul-deep more than enough-ness?
In today’s episode, I’m peppering your palate with a whole new perspective on what it means to live luxuriously.
You’'ll receive gems on:
꩜ Luxury in chaos—how to find richness and nourishment, even when life feels chaotic to say the least.
🍯 Simple, sumptuous practices—small ways to infuse your days with ease, beauty, and delight.
🕯 The quiet extravagance of embodied presence—and how to slowly create days in your life that feel like a million bucks.
Press play, exhale, and receive. Enough is just one breath away.
With love,
Mary
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Hello beautiful beings, and welcome to come to Your senses. Welcome to today's episode, which is all about redefining luxury. So right now in the sanctuary, which is our Come to Your Senses online community, we are exploring a whole season of luxury. I'm a little under the weather, by the way. So in case my voice sounds a little more husky and luxurious today, that's why. So each season in the sanctuary, we explore a different theme. We just wrapped a Season of enchantment for autumn and winter of 2024 and January through March. We are exploring a season of luxury. So everything we do, all of the audios, all of the lessons, all of the classes, all of the practices center around reimagining and redefining our relationship to luxury. And I use that language very intentionally because luxury is commonly associated with. Boat trips to Capri and $25 cocktails and designer handbags and all of those things. And if those things are your jam, jam on however, luxury solely through things and experiences actually limits the full spectrum and the full breadth of the level of luxury that our human bodies and minds and hearts and spirits are capable of. And so in today's lesson, we are skimming the cream off the sanctuary top, and I am bringing you some of the key gems when it comes to reimagining your relationship to luxury from something that might be exclusive and that you have to center around things. You have a state of having more into a state of being. And so let's begin where we often do, which is with the word that we're studying in each episode, and this word luxury.
So the root word of luxury is luxe and luxe. The etymology of luxe means light. So when I think about luxurious moments, luxurious experiences. There's a radiance to them. And the word luxury actually stems from the word luxus, which means excess. And when I first read that, it turned me off a little bit because it didn't exactly align with my experience of luxury, which is an inherent abundance in all things. But when I refined and thought about it some more, I now understand that luxury, like a simple definition of luxury, is simply having more than enough. And so a way that you might try that on for yourself is looking around your life and kind of the kneejerk response, especially in a capitalist environment and culture, is to look for what we don't have. Oh, I'm wearing cheap $20 leggings. I should be wearing something more luxe. You know, I'm just looking at my own space in my own self. If I were truly living in luxury, I'd be recording this from some stonewalled chateau in Toulouse. You know. But when I look around, I'm in Northern California at the moment. And as we know, Southern California is going through immense and trauma. And the earth, the animals are going through trauma. And when I look around through those eyes, it's like, oh, my goddess, I have clean air to breathe, I have shelter, I have clothing, I have a general sense of safety in this moment. I have electricity to light my space. While I record this for you, I have the ability to record this for you. You know, even though I'm a little under the weather, my voice is okay. There's layer upon layer of people in my life who I love and who love me. And I share all of this not necessarily to, you know, privilege brag because I do have an extreme amount of privilege, but more to shift our mindset from never enough, which is, I think, the capitalist viewpoint of luxury. There's always some higher level on the cultural ladder of hierarchy to climb. But in this moment, I have so much more than enough.
And I know that this might echo something that I grew up with, especially having grandparents who raised kiddos during World War two when there was a lot of scarcity with food and resources. Is like, clean your plate. Don't be selfish. Be grateful, you know? And while I understand that messaging, the impact that it had on me was sometimes to override my body's cues around eating an appetite and to feel gratitude by way of shame and guilt. And I say that because I imagine that for some of us, there might be hints of that in what I'm saying here, that by reimagining our idea of luxury, it's just being grateful for what you have. God damn it. But when I'm really saying is giving ourselves the gift, the luxurious gift of a present moment reality check. Because that engine of the capitalist hierarchical mindset is constantly gnawing with a feeling of not enough, not enough, not enough. Get more, get more, get more. Climb higher, climb higher, climb higher. And reimagining our relationship to luxury is a way of smoothing a rose hip balm over the inflamed part of ourselves that has just been constantly gnawed on, and choosing a different track, which is to see our lives through the lens of abundance and luxury and more than enough, which paradoxically, leads to more.
I think we all can relate to the experience of looking through the lens of scarcity and only reproducing our current circumstances when we focus on what we don't have. And yet I know I have seen many times in my own life when I shift my perspective to not even appreciation, but again, simply a reality check of what I have, what is really going on. And the truth of our enoughness and the truth of this planet's enoughness in terms of its resources. When we are willing to work in harmony with it and to with our own inner resources, when we can call upon the multitude of strengths and capacities that we have instead of seeing ourselves as unfinished projects. That mindset has an extraordinary ability to take us from lack to luxury. And just last night, you know, so this is our first gem is a mindset for Enoughness. And last night I woke up around five. I was coughing and. I couldn't get back to sleep, and I started reciting in my mind because, you know, my head is really in luxury right now, and it's a perfect time. Because if you're like me, when you look at the news and you see all that's happening in our government, all that's happening to our trans brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings, gender queer siblings, all that's happening to reverse years and years of progress towards equity and equality and reparations for people of color and indigenous people. You might be thinking, who gives a shit about luxury? I mean, I know that's what I have been thinking, especially since, you know, at the start of the year, I'm like, hmm, what's gonna be our theme this season? Let's do a season of luxury. And it's really pressed me to redefine and reimagine my relationship to it, which I'm so glad for and so grateful for. And so to go back to the story of this morning when I woke up and I had luxury on my mind when I couldn't sleep. You know those worries that grasp at us at five in the morning that can sometimes pull me into an undertow of anxiety? What really helped me this morning was reciting gratitude for the luxury of. And so this is our first gem. First practice is I am so grateful for the luxury of clean water. I am so grateful for the luxury of my dear beloved housemate who's sleeping in the next room. I just adore her. After over a decade of living alone. I am so grateful for the luxury of having someone else that I love in my home so my nervous system can regulate in a different way. I am so grateful for the luxury of my three friends here.
I just moved here a couple of months ago and so far I only have. Well, I shouldn't say only so far. I have, I would say three close inner circle friends who are new relationships or at least deepening relationships. That is such a luxury. Three. Three. Heavens to Betsy. And so I invite you to try this ritual on for size. And as with all of the practices that we share here. Hold them up to the light of your experience and see how it impacts and gives you new insight into your relationship and experience of luxury. The second gem on luxury is one that is pretty well known quality over quantity. And this gem centers not just around the item itself, but the quality of the experience and the quality of the businesses that sell the items that we purchase. And I'll give you an example from earlier this week. I was in need of, well, in want of a plant for my front hallway. And I thought, well, let me just go to Trader Joe's or, you know, one of those big home stores. And one of the things that, you know, has just deepened my commitment to small business ownership is everything that's happening right now to, uh, Rip Dei from the womb of this nation. So. I chose not to go to a big box store. And I looked up plant shops in Oakland, California, and I went to the first one and it was by appointment only in someone's crush. And I thought that was weird. And I didn't feel totally comfortable going into someone's garage, and she didn't really seem like she wanted me to come in anyway, because there was a screaming child in the background. So bless her. Moving on, I went to the other plant shop and I will say that it took me a good 30 minutes of driving back and forth in 5 p.m. traffic, and so I was a little cranky and agitated when I got there, and I found a plant that I liked that was pretty. Immortal in the sense that my, uh, pink thumb couldn't kill it, and it was way more expensive than what I would have paid in the big box stores or the big home stores. But here's the thing. Here's where the luxury comes in.
I mean, first of all, it's a luxury to even have the time, the spaciousness, the resources to make that choice. And I want to acknowledge that. And even though there was a greater investment of resources, of my time and of my money, the luxury that I feel when I walk past it in my hallway, and I see the smile of the woman who sold me the plant, and the way that she referred to all the plants using she her pronouns. And the fact that I know that by investing in that plant, I have supported a small business in my local community. Ah, what incredible luxury that is. And there's a different emotional resonance when I walk by that plant where I'm invested in that plant, you know, quite literally, and where with something more transactional than I might buy in a jiffy, in a hurry, without a lot of intention. I notice there's just kind of a deadened sensation. There might be a small sensation of, oh, that looks good there. But there's an emotional richness and resonance and alignment with my values when I pass this plan in the hallway now. So quality over quantity in what we purchase is kind of already synonymous with luxury. But now, more than ever, as we commonly read in the news almost every day, I am appreciating the luxury of quality over quantity in my values and in how I vote with my dollars. And the final shift is luxury is little.
So again, when we think of luxury, you know, I did a search of images for luxury and. Caviar and aged champagne. And all these things came up, and those things are very luxurious. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am in no way turning down an artisanal, peppery, fragrant olive oil made by the hands of some nonna in Italy, you know. But luxury is often so associated with these big, grand things. But deep down, luxury is about the little things I keep on my art table a beautiful spicy sandalwood mist. And when I pad out there in the morning and I crack open my watercolour journal, I shower myself with oils that smell like they come from some Moroccan tomb. You know, just an enormous luxury in that. I have a friend whose husband passed away recently, and I had a card from when Winnie, my dog, died. Mary Lynn, if you're listening, I love you. I will never forget that card. And she sent me this card with paw prints in the sand. And it said there are no goodbyes for us. There was a quote from Gandhi and I used. An image from this Rose catalogue from like, the 80s. Just this. Like ancient. Well, I'm from the 80s, so maybe I shouldn't say ancient, but it looked kind of ancient. And I tore a piece of paper out of that and used this beautiful glittered collage paper. And on the inside, cut out a phrase that says, allow yourself to receive. And gold leafed a little star on the back. And anyway, the luxury of not only sending a card, but sending a card with the imprint of my heart and my creativity. And, you know, just like what a gift to me it was, how much I received from making that card. Extraordinary luxury. And I want to acknowledge that I don't have currently dependents. I don't even have a dog at the moment. I'm not fostering anybody at the moment, so I have my time completely to myself. And I know that's not true. For everyone who listens to this podcast, you might be caring for an animal, or a human child or an elder, and with luxury being little.
The good news about that is something as simple as what you're already doing. Like clean sheets on the bed is luxurious. I'll close by saying that when my mom had knee replacement a couple years ago, she was, you know, really in a lot of pain after the surgery. And I was like, mom. I'd really love for you to take a shower. And it had been, you know, a couple of days since the surgery and she could barely stand up. You know, shower was really not on her radar. And somehow I convinced her. I'm good at convincing my mom sometimes to allow me to give her a shower. You know, with a stool and with this shower head. And, you know, we just worked it out. We worked it out. And I helped her every step of the way. And she got back in bed and there was this delicious body cream, lime and basil body cream. And I gave her a full body massage and, and esthetician. And so I have a lot of skill when it comes to therapeutic, relaxing massage. And afterwards I said, do you feel like a human again? She said, I feel like a woman again. And that was such a poignant moment of the difference between, okay, I'm alive, I'm a human, the vitals are okay versus the luxury of the simplicity of some touch, some warm water, some emollient cream, and that these simple indulgences of the senses have the ability to take us from just surviving to really living and thriving in luxury.
So my pets, my loves, my luxury. Lappers. It has been a pleasure to share these gems on luxury with you. And if this approach to luxury resonates with you, I'd like to invite you to join us in the sanctuary, where there's a special savings for listeners of the podcast, and I just want to share with you a few of the things that. You'll find in our charm library. So the charms every week you get a new charm, which is essentially a private podcast dedicated to the topic of our season. And so you receive the Gilded Mindset charm, the art of luxurious eating charm, velvet mornings, and luxurious approach to prayer that I call the honeypot of compassion. Coming up, we have how to wear the luxurious color red in your wardrobe, in your home, on your lips. In honor of Valentine's, we have a luxurious pantry to bring more simple luxury into your kitchen. We have the art of luxurious connection and Conversation to bring more of this slow, honeyed radiance to your relationships. And this is all, of course, in addition to our weekly embodiment practices. And each week you also receive what's called a Tuesday treasure. Which is this little newsletter style? I mean, it's just one of my favorite. Aspects of the program is every Tuesday you start off the week with a playlist. Or a book recommendation, or a love note or a recipe. And it is just so luxurious. And you know what I love about the sanctuary, too, is that, like I said, luxury is little. Like, these are small charms and delights and doses where we layer droplets of this grace and radiance into your life. It's not a whole life. And so if that titillate your appetite. I invite you to join us at School of Sensual Living. Com slash sanctuary. You can join us for one month at a time, or you can dive in for the whole year. And when you dive in for the whole year, you get a special 30 minute tea date with me on zoom. Because I love to have a personal connection with each and every member of the sanctuary.
And at checkout, if you enter the Code Pod, you'll receive 10% off for the life of your membership. Schoolofsensual living.com/slash sanctuary. There's also a link below this episode. And I love you my luxury pets. I'm so grateful to talk to you to explore these topics at five in the morning, in my own head, and deliver them to you through this microphone. So thank you for that luxury. Thank you for listening and I will see you in our next episode.