We all know homicide shatters lives with its relentless aftershocks. Few places feel steady, safe, or even familiar. Survivors live in a storm of details, emotions, and unanswered questions, which are often amplified by strangers, the media, professionals, and even friends.
Yet every now and then, there are moments or spaces that bring a surprising shift: a quieting, a softening, a sense of something comforting and reassuring. Some have described it as a small island amid turbulence. It is a welcome pause in the midst of turmoil. These come unexpectedly. Some believe you don’t find them. They find you. It is a place or an experience that links where you are with what you need at that moment. To experience it you only need an open mind and a willingness to notice something out of the ordinary.
Almost everyone has felt it without naming it:
- Sitting in a hospital corridor late at night, when the hum of footsteps and machines gives way to a sacred stillness. The hallway feels suspended in time — a blend of hope and tension.
- Walking into an old church, courthouse, or library, where history lingers in the benches, chandeliers and windowsills, where important ideals and decisions still echo in the air.
- Observing the gush of water from a large urban fountain. The splash of the water that jets skyward is invigorating, pleasantly distracting and somehow reassuring.
- Standing alone on a wide beach at dawn, when the waves and the horizon blur into infinity. The sea seems to exhale its mist, and it softens boundaries.
Some people call these thin places. The phrase comes from Celtic tradition, but you don’t have to believe in mysticism to be comfortable with the concept. A thin place is simply a setting where the ordinary feels less solid — where the veil between the present moment and something larger seems unusually porous.
Why Survivors May Notice Them More
After trauma, most of us become more alert — sometimes painfully so. The world feels louder, harsher, less predictable. Colors are more vivid. Sounds are jarring. Subtle changes in temperature or pressure register more quickly.
That same sensitivity can also tune us in to the rare places that soothe instead of startle.
Thin places can:
- Give us permission to breathe when words won’t come.
- Offer a moment to remember a loved one without interruption.
- Help us feel steadier, calmer, and more grounded.
- Or, at times, help us feel connected to something larger than the immediate when the world falls short.
Everyday thin places don’t always look extraordinary. But they feel extraordinary.
Examples from My Own Life
I keep a tent in my garden. To anyone else it’s just green nylon and zippers. But to me? When I lie down and hear the forest around me, I feel closer to peace than almost anywhere else on earth. That tent has become one of my thin places.
Once, when my daughter returned to the beach at dusk after years away, she threw out her arms and exclaimed, “It smells like home!” That shoreline wasn’t just sand and water. It was a portal of memory and belonging. A thin place.
Even the smallest tokens can carry this weight. Perhaps it is a smooth, heart-shaped stone discovered beside a stream, or a piece of sea glass, once broken and discarded, now polished by tide and time into a satin softness. Such objects may hold little value in the usual sense, yet to the one who finds them they are rare treasures — calming, luminous reminders that despite all that has been lost, peace and hope still exist in the world.
How to Notice Your Own
You don’t have to travel far. Thin places often reveal themselves in the middle of ordinary life.
- Take a short walk in a quiet park on a warm day. Notice how the air feels under the dense canopy of trees.
- Sit in an aged church, museum, or courtroom after the crowd has gone. Listen to the hush. Look at the worn wood, the light fixtures, the imperfections on the walls. Let your breathing yield to the space.
- Pay attention to spots in your own surroundings where your body instinctively relaxes. Maybe it’s a chair near the radiator with your cat in your lap. Maybe it’s the privacy of a shower, steam wrapping around you. For me, it’s my garden. The familiar moss, ferns, dappled shade, hummingbirds, and the quiet music of windchimes instills peace.
These are not places we conquer or easily share. They are places we notice. Places that mend. Places we remember.
Closing Thought
Thin places are not about belief. They’re about experience. If a moment or a place helps soften your grief, ease your breathing, or remind you that you are not alone, it has value. Think of thin places as an invisible, comfortable layer of protection. You know it when you experience it. It is as unmistakable as it is memorable.
For survivors, finding thin places can be one more tool — not to erase sorrow – but to carry it in a way that feels a little less heavy, a little less impossible.
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