Monday, March 29, 2021

The wise activity of boundary


At times, the most wise, skillful, and soulful action is to establish a boundary with another. To stand up and assert what it is that we need and deserve. To move in an empowered and swift way to protect our own integrity.

To privilege our own autonomy. To meet narcissism, abuse, misattunement, and neglect with a fierce, embodied response.

This is not only the case with “external” others, but also with the multitude of “internal” others as they emerge as voices, figures, and images of the interior landscape.

As we wake in the morning, wander through the day, in liminal states and at the entryway to sleep and dream… we may notice their presence, arriving quietly in one moment and as firestorm in the next.

“There is something wrong with you. You have failed again. You have done life wrong. You are unworthy of mercy, of grace. You are beyond redemption. You are unlovable and unwanted. You do not belong here.”

The images and the voices of the past, shadow emanations of authorities, cultures, and lineages of intergenerational trauma and trance. The voices of a realm that has forgotten the holy, the sensitive, the eccentric, and raging uniqueness of one human heart.

But in a moment when perception is cleansed and a glimpse is given from behind the veil, it is seen that the visitors come not to harm, but to reveal.

But they, too, must be met with boundaries of clear seeing. To not accept what they say at face value, but to enter relationship, into dialogue and to find the way into what is most true.

To not merely accept their conclusions, proposed tunnels of reality, and the psychic lenses through which they have come to see and organize.

But to step into what you are. To live in and from that as your poetic offering to a weary world.

To take the risk of telling a new story, dreaming a new dream, and weaving new cloth. And to allow yourself to be toned and tuned by the great Weaver herself… breathing and sensing and listening as new vision is unearthed.


Photo by Jacub Gomez


Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Feel your feet on the earth


The next time you notice you’ve turned against yourself, tangled in a looping storyline about how you’ve failed, how you’re not enough, how there is something wrong with you…
Slow way down. Allow your center of gravity to drop, directing your energy and awareness toward the ground. Feel your feet on the earth.

Before you abandon yourself and your embodied vulnerability – parachuting into the unstable waters of rumination, shame, and blame – sense the roots extending out of the bottom of your feet and into the mud and the womb and the holding field underneath you.

In just this one micro moment, you are being asked to care for yourself in a new way, to see behind the veil, to cleanse your perception, and with compassion, to encode a new pathway. To provide a home, a sanctuary for the emotional and somatic world to unfold and be held.

With the ally of the breath, shift your precious life energy out of the overwhelming narrative, for it is no longer safe there. It is neither nuanced, nor subtle, not majestic enough to honor what you are and the intelligence of the ally and Friend as it courses through you.

Open into your belly, your heart, your throat, and the holiness of your nervous system. Place your hand onto the rippling life and listen.

Taking a few deep breaths, ask: what is wanting to be met now? To be known? To be birthed and touched in this moment? What is the wisdom of the soul, in its creative unfolding, longing for me to feel and metabolize?

In what way am I being asked to care for the vulnerable, the tender, and the shaky within me?

With curiosity, patience, and mercy, see the ways you leave the embodied world of pure feeling, bailing on your vulnerability as you escape back into the conditioned, old, unsafe narrative of complaint, resentment, shame, blame, and self-attack. Return home.

While it may seem you are longing for something outside you, in these moments you are only longing for your own presence. For safety where it was unsafe. Companionship where you were lonely. Reassurance where you were afraid.

For you need yourself now more than ever. This world needs you now more than ever.


Photo by Ervin Gjata

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Weeping and the secret tears


As I was preparing for a talk yesterday, a line from Rumi came to me - “There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.”

So much of this work of the heart involves the unearthing of this “secret medicine” – the mystery of befriending and of the Friend. But the nature of what that substance is can only be revealed to us in that high-voltage laboratory of the body, by way of direct revelation.

Often hidden just outside conscious awareness, just beyond the veil, tucked away in our cell tissue and neural pathways – and in the images and moods and dreams and colors of the soul – it awaits discovery.

The alchemists had a vision of this “secret medicine,” the ruby red philosopher’s stone, that elusive jewel buried in the human heart and simultaneously in the womb of the earth.

It’s a tincture or restorative solution flowing within the psychic landscape, but also out in the natural world. It’s seeded in both locations simultaneously by way of a mysterious and invisible connection, unveiled at the intersection of spirit and matter.

This secret substance cannot be found in a wound that is already healed, but only in one that is weeping.

I know many are in touch with this “weeping” now, not only by way of personal tears, but in attunement with the tears of the culture, those of the collective, and those of the earth herself.

Even the stars and the galaxies have tears which we can sense in certain moments.

May we know this weeping in deeper and more intimate ways and may those tears wash and cleanse and open us, together, into the next phase. Tears of grief and tears of joy and secret tears which reorganize and reveal.


Image by Miriam Espacio

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

The water of life


It’s compassionate and also merciful to step back and acknowledge how much we’ve been through this year. Just to be alive as a human being on the planet right now carries with it a certain tone of activation in the body and nervous system.

It’s like there’s been a continuous drip of a soul-level cortisol or adrenaline, on the one hand, and a collapse into hopelessness/helplessness on the other – an alternation between hypervigilance and a numbing or shutting down.

Each of these responses and the bodily felt arousal that accompanies them are coherent and make sense. In addition to our verbal narratives and stories, there are the stories of the body (somatic narrative) and also those of the nervous system (autonomic narrative) that weave together worlds of meaning.

Underneath it all, a deep longing to rest and to feel safe again in our bodies, to re-tune and enter consciously into the next phase. Something has fallen away that we will never be able to return to, but the exact nature of what’s coming next has yet to be given.

This not-knowing where we’re headed can generate that deep, even cosmic sort of restlessness that many are experiencing. We are in that period of liminality and transitional space, in between the way things used to be and the birth that is yet to come.

The temptation is to get out of the in-between and into the rebirth as quickly as possible. But if we bypass the reorganization prematurely, we will not be able to receive the gold that is found only within the core of that which is falling apart. This is the invitation into the rich, alchemical yellowing.

This is a difficult realm to navigate as it is not held as valid and honorable in our conventional world. But it is one of potential and creativity, a doorway to experience that is not always available in times of certainty and flow.

In the very center of the paradox and contradictory energies is the water of life. It is a courageous journey into that territory and one that will surprise us.

It may grind us into dust, but it is the particles that survive that initiation that form the golden neural and soul-scaffolding of a new world.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

In a moment of liminality and transitional space


It’s compassionate and also merciful to step back and acknowledge how much we’ve been through this year. Just to be alive as a human being on the planet right now carries with it a certain tone of activation in the body and nervous system.

It’s like there’s been a continuous drip of a soul-level cortisol or adrenaline, on the one hand, and a collapse into hopelessness/helplessness on the other – an alternation between hypervigilance and a numbing or shutting down.

Each of these responses and the bodily felt arousal that accompanies them are coherent and make sense. In addition to our verbal narratives and stories, there are the stories of the body (somatic narrative) and also those of the nervous system (autonomic narrative) that weave together worlds of meaning.

Underneath it all, a deep longing to rest and to feel safe again in our bodies, to re-tune and enter consciously into the next phase. Something has fallen away that we will never be able to return to, but the exact nature of what’s coming next has yet to be given.

This not-knowing where we’re headed can generate that deep, even cosmic sort of restlessness that many are experiencing. We are in that period of liminality and transitional space, in between the way things used to be and the birth that is yet to come.

The temptation is to get out of the in-between and into the rebirth as quickly as possible. But if we bypass the reorganization prematurely, we will not be able to receive the gold that is found only within the core of that which is falling apart. This is the invitation into the rich, alchemical yellowing.

This is a difficult realm to navigate as it is not held as valid and honorable in our conventional world. But it is one of potential and creativity, a doorway to experience that is not always available in times of certainty and flow.

In the very center of the paradox and contradictory energies is the water of life. It is a courageous journey into that territory and one that will surprise us.

It may grind us into dust, but it is the particles that survive that initiation that form the golden neural and soul-scaffolding of a new world.


Photo by Kym MacKinnon


My upcoming online course on Resting Your Nervous System: Embodying a Trauma-Sensitive Spirituality and Discovering a Felt Sense of Safety, starting March 1st, 20202 - Befriending Yourself: Finding Safety and Rest in Difficult Times


Listen to two recent podcasts where I was interviewed:





Monday, March 1, 2021

Matt Licata's new Resting Your Nervous System online course starting this week


A quick note to let you know that my new online course - Resting Your Nervous System: Embodying a Trauma-Sensitive Spirituality and Discovering a Felt Sense of Safety - will start with our first live session this Thursday, March 4th.

>>Learn more about Resting Your Nervous System here

I look forward to making this journey over four months with you, as we move into the spring, a time of rebirth and renewal.

Please note that you do not need to attend the sessions live in order to fully participate in the course, as many are not able due to work and family commitments. After each session, you'll be able to re-watch the video as well as download audio MP3s as well as written transcripts. 

If we don't connect as part of the course, I hope to find other ways to stay in touch through the spring and into the summer and will keep you posted as to any free webinars or other announcements. Please take care of yourself.

With love,
Matt

P.S. Watch the replay of the recent webinar I offered on "An Invitation to Rest Your Nervous System"