tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18929784779667290752024-03-18T11:44:28.226-06:00A Healing Space... reflections on love, meaning, and the aliveness of immediate experienceThe purpose of this blog is to provide a holding, attuned, and provocative space for the mysteries of your heart to unfold. All of you is welcome here, in all of your glory - the painful, the joyous, the heartbroken, and the weary. The invitation is to see your entire life as an expression of high-voltage, creative guidance, and for you to offer yourself to the endless and infinite dimension of love that is emerging within and around you right now. Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comBlogger711125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-22698164154042030422024-03-18T11:43:00.003-06:002024-03-18T11:43:39.451-06:00The heart knows<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The specific forms that love take in our lives arise and pass in time, for this is the way of form. Time is the great dissolver. But love itself is that which never comes and goes.<br /> <br /> We never know what form love will choose to take in the future, for there is no love in the future. Love is only now. But it can take a cleansing of perception to see through the veil, behind the scenes where love is always at work… giving birth to one of its forms, one of its children, while recycling and dissolving another.<br /> <br /> If we become too fused with a specific form we believe we need love to take—a particular person or way of finding purpose and meaning—our heart will inevitably break when love obliterates that form for something new, which it always will. This shattering is the great gift of form, evidence not of error and mistake, but of wholeness and profound compassion.<br /> <br /> This dissolution and reorganization is a special kind of grace that the conventional mind struggles to know. But the heart knows. The body knows.<br /> <br /> May we be grateful for the forms of love while they appear, standing in awe at the ways the beloved takes expression within this chaotic, messy, and glorious sanctuary of time and space. While simultaneously allowing the forms to make their own journey, to depart this place and move into another realm. <br /><br />While we may have a bias for unity, union, and oneness, the Beloved will manifest itself equally as multiplicity and differentiation. Each of these are equal ornaments of its presence as it unfolds and incarnates into the world of time and space, finding its way into the secret chamber within the human heart. <br /><br />Conscious, embodied, devoted engagement with multiplicity and differentiation is just as holy and sacred as attunement to oneness; each are pieces of the divine body.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaa8zwAQY6vG1om7HH9n82GWFIlQbK3HDD8hg5WIX_rANtXMsbIBmYSAJWQIlRPD5H3uIrlWAq7lkrOODzeyEp6ay-3JIh7jQ3NpbjR3-kz9y0D3uW1i0enWhKKdMuuqV0dbE2BRTKQyWKZ2XR79ke4XcxCzeSeKe3u-HsYgRPCki1MK1HfBnq7ELQeA/s1920/mushrooms-2798150_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaa8zwAQY6vG1om7HH9n82GWFIlQbK3HDD8hg5WIX_rANtXMsbIBmYSAJWQIlRPD5H3uIrlWAq7lkrOODzeyEp6ay-3JIh7jQ3NpbjR3-kz9y0D3uW1i0enWhKKdMuuqV0dbE2BRTKQyWKZ2XR79ke4XcxCzeSeKe3u-HsYgRPCki1MK1HfBnq7ELQeA/w400-h266/mushrooms-2798150_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/mailing-list/" target="_blank">Mailing list </a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/" target="_blank">Website </a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@mattlicataphd/videos" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> </span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-54378799019225633032024-03-11T10:22:00.002-06:002024-03-11T10:22:34.841-06:00VIDEO: Safety on the Spiritual Path, Relational Trauma, and Tending to the Lost Orphans of Psyche and Soma<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uvkmp-sLCu4" width="320" youtube-src-id="uvkmp-sLCu4"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We can’t ask the spiritual path to always feel safe, at a feeling level, as it is oriented in the archetype of death and rebirth. When it comes to trauma, however, safety is everything.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s vital that our relationship with spirituality and healing not remain generalized and abstract, but concrete and embodied; we can’t open our hearts to a concept, to an abstraction.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />But we can ask psyche to image itself, to appear as a figure and to enter into relationship with that figure, hold them, and help them to return home.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />We can’t stay on the sidelines in a safe position of “witnessing” our deepest unresolved experience; those interior ones carrying that experience have no interest in our clear witnessing, but only in our embodied, ensouled presence.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">>><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/" target="_blank">Access a free webinar from Matt</a> - <i>Turning the Light: The Mystery of Presence and Attuning the Creative Unknown </i></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-37558142877039919842024-03-09T09:39:00.001-07:002024-03-09T09:39:00.133-07:00An element of the mystery <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The path of the heart is not only one of transcendence – ascending and rising above – but also one of descent: into underworld, earth, and shadow, and into relationship with the figures who we find there. <br /><br />As our personal and collective ancestors, they have something to share with us, that needs to be incarnated, indwelled, and embodied in this time, an element of the mystery that has been forgotten in a world that has grown weary. <br /> <br /> The lunar way isn’t as clear as its heroic or solar counterpart. It is unclothed: of fixed concept, a precise map, and knowing how it’s all going to turn out. It has a way not of confirming but of dismantling the spiritual persona. <br /><br />The gates inside the mandala, that once used to be visible, are now hidden. They can no longer be see with the eyes, but only with the heart. <br /><br />These gates cannot be revealed if we already know what is “real” and what is “true,” or if we’ve mistaken the map for the territory. <br /><br />Inside the temple are the holy images of our broken dreams, disappointments, hopes, and fears – the entirety of our unlived life; the grief of the ancestors, the lamentation of the earth, and the sensitivities of the soma. Along with the lost joy, wonder, beauty, and awe. <br /> <br /> Here, in the center, the wound is opened and no longer bandaged, which is what allows the tincture to enter. The wound need not be cured, transformed, or even healed but allowed to reveal. <br /> <br /> The feast is laid out before us, sprinkled throughout the inner and outer oceans, stars, forests, and beams of moonlight; and all through the eyes of the one in front of us. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbALHrAV7WUT0Jv3iL13XNHuv1ZtcX2UNenTeZ48mw1gIuYEgoRRp0cW0LNcw0lKge9EBm6m3r__oPmf3XkD1B17k-ExKUdW6drNMAN2bDdcITec3YtqyzDIfoSs3j_rnM3RXNamHHBImidLkKTG4C4UPH6vRzsYqi08sbhXZWZgBgNsCmIFg_HCRF7JE/s3600/erik-mclean-0PtTH5HwmVQ-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="2400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbALHrAV7WUT0Jv3iL13XNHuv1ZtcX2UNenTeZ48mw1gIuYEgoRRp0cW0LNcw0lKge9EBm6m3r__oPmf3XkD1B17k-ExKUdW6drNMAN2bDdcITec3YtqyzDIfoSs3j_rnM3RXNamHHBImidLkKTG4C4UPH6vRzsYqi08sbhXZWZgBgNsCmIFg_HCRF7JE/w426-h640/erik-mclean-0PtTH5HwmVQ-unsplash.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Photo by Erik Mclean</i></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-45039287526275431182024-03-04T10:01:00.005-07:002024-03-04T10:01:57.766-07:002024 Spirituality & Healing group - closing to new members on Wednesday, March 6<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dear friend, <br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I’ve been receiving some questions about whether it’s still possible to join the new 2024 <a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">Spirituality & Healing online inner work group</a> and community that started a few weeks ago. <br /><br />We have decided to re-open enrollment up until the start of the first live session in March (Thursday, March 7). At that time, the community will remain closed for the remainder of the year, so that the group can make the journey together in a contained, boundaried, and cohesive way (the sealed vessel in alchemy, the <i>vas hermeticum</i>). <br /><br />If you do choose to join now, you’ll be able to catch up on what you missed in February by reviewing the videos, meditations, and teachings for the month, and join us for our ongoing live sessions. Remember that you need not participate live to fully enjoy the benefits and support of the group; many are not able to do so due to other life commitments. <br /><br />I created this community in response to an inner call that I’ve felt as well as many requests that I’ve received over the years to spend a year together where we can (re)commit to our healing and spiritual path in a new and deeper way, with the support, holding, and containment of a dynamic relational field. <br /><br />Over the last 30 years (including many years in meditation and my own therapy, analysis, and supervision), I’ve come to see how important it is to bring together the essence of psychological healing, working with early trauma, the wisdom of the body and nervous system, and spiritual and meditative realization together to catalyze a truly integral approach. <br /><br />We’ll spend the year making a deep dive into the nature of a contemporary, embodied spirituality, in a safe, nurturing, and provocative holding environment, with friends and fellow travelers around the world. I’d love to have you join us. <br /><br />You can learn more about the new group and community here:<br /><br />>><a href="https://go.mattlicataphd.com/c/s/XU1/6E0xL/s/6mwR/6vr/6I1GRr/veyaxXiCgv/P/P/WN">Learn more about Matt Licata’s Spirituality & Healing inner work group and community</a><br /><br />If you have any questions, please write to <a href="mailto:support@mattlicataphd.com">support@mattlicataphd.com</a>. <br /><br />Thank you again for your interest in your own unique path of transformation and healing. I hope to see you online soon or to stay in touch in other ways over the months to come. Please take care of yourself. <br /><br />With appreciation, <br /><br />Matt </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN1RaxiO8kgPNalubtBLtOKAnJ8LfJWJKPCW_9vHxkSRyxUGH-T8MEUWecABFIsO-nYCBKnAd2dH1P0NRmtZW9S208UHZ-FhnDvZc_W0n2lZgXnTzanRbrtI-Tk-JxtuAnRoao5DLEsRlLSiS0Qqi9tQd9L7nz2gpKfbjkG8yc8ckgn55FRTvXye-8Lk/s1597/IMG_0183.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1597" data-original-width="1170" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN1RaxiO8kgPNalubtBLtOKAnJ8LfJWJKPCW_9vHxkSRyxUGH-T8MEUWecABFIsO-nYCBKnAd2dH1P0NRmtZW9S208UHZ-FhnDvZc_W0n2lZgXnTzanRbrtI-Tk-JxtuAnRoao5DLEsRlLSiS0Qqi9tQd9L7nz2gpKfbjkG8yc8ckgn55FRTvXye-8Lk/w469-h640/IMG_0183.jpg" width="469" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-83036933547687064322024-03-02T04:30:00.001-07:002024-03-02T04:30:00.131-07:00The path is everywhere<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />There are times when the ground will fall out from underneath us, when an old dream dies… me and my life and the way I was so sure it would turn out. A person we thought would be with us forever, meaning in our work and creativity, even our deepest realizations… shattered into the vast.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />An invitation is presented into the landscape of grief, into the purifying waters of lamentation, deep into a well which has been hidden in soul. But this structure can be seen, felt, and sensed, by way of engagement with the imaginal.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Once located, we can sit by that well and grieve the ending of one world so that another may begin.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The well is located in the very center of the mandala, which is paradoxically where we always, already are, but it can be so easy to lose track of our home base, whether imaged as the palace of the soul, the light of the spirit, or the ventral passageways of the holy human nervous system.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The path is everywhere but it can take slowing down and a cleansing of perception for this revelation to ground in our bodies. Our sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and eccentricities are not obstacles to our path, but are the very path itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It is natural to long and ache and burn for answers, but at times we’re taken into the vastness of the question and asked to stay there.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />In the language of alchemy, transmutation is a process where the lead of habitual consciousness is converted into the emerald, silver, and gold of aliveness, creativity, and new vision.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />This unfolding evokes the image of the elusive philosopher’s stone, the ruby red doorway into the mystery and the majesty of inner and outer nature.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The stone is here now but is outside ordinary view, and longs in its own way to come here and share its qualities and fragrances. Hidden in the moon, in the sand, in the stars, and the heart-cells, it wants you as its vessel.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijLKQKlXa0pVAEk1ysunWxiEs1JKYv-B0KOAHSZMUlKQ733H91Ot3dpGUaBtobgEohvl8m4q79LqHYNvetTuxx8SJbD8e06-w-tmJ2YAasFqLFzK2qLbjPhX5_S0-7x1CX7dVMvpFQVde3jwpUOaYq0nVqcLQVCI4anlLh_4XoTFvoJAn0EnN9WFp5Xc/s2400/john-fowler-aaIN3y2zcMQ-unsplash%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1589" data-original-width="2400" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijLKQKlXa0pVAEk1ysunWxiEs1JKYv-B0KOAHSZMUlKQ733H91Ot3dpGUaBtobgEohvl8m4q79LqHYNvetTuxx8SJbD8e06-w-tmJ2YAasFqLFzK2qLbjPhX5_S0-7x1CX7dVMvpFQVde3jwpUOaYq0nVqcLQVCI4anlLh_4XoTFvoJAn0EnN9WFp5Xc/w400-h265/john-fowler-aaIN3y2zcMQ-unsplash%20(1).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-80165657643397070242024-02-24T04:00:00.001-07:002024-02-24T04:00:00.145-07:00The ancestors and the unlived life<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Deep in the somatic unconscious, the ancestors continue to live within us, emerging-into-now by way of their sensitivities and gifts, as well as through the shards of their unlived lives.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Their lost joy, broken dreams, and unfulfilled creativity have a way of taking up residency in our cell tissue, subtle bodies, and in our bellies and hearts.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As we enter into the mandala of descent – downward into body, mud, roots, and Earth – these ones begin to appear: as symbol, image, feeling, and synchronicity. They have a way of shifting shapes in order to find us, through color, tree, water, and sound.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />What is it that we’re carrying on their behalf? What dreams remain undreamed and unmanifested for them? What are their deepest longings? What secrets have they never been able to share?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />What keeps them awake at night? What brings them alive and unleashes their creativity and unique essence? What visions are not permitted to take form, of the divine within and of the divine world?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />What were they required to disown in order to fit in to a place that had lost its sensitivity and soul? What became buried in the shadows? What story were they unable to tell, what feelings were they unable to feel?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />In what way are we being asked to open a portal into re-emergence, re-enchantment, and revisioning?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As we open to receive this offering, an inner sanctuary forms to illuminate and transmute this transgenerational soul-material. Inside that structure, the seemingly solid lines between past, present, and future begin to fall away.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Being “in the present moment,” we share this moment with the ancestral ones and the spirts of the Earth who are with us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />In this way, past, present, and future co-emerge and interpenetrate, opening a diamond-like passageway into the mysteries of self and other, being and becoming, and a new alchemy of separation and union.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The individual self is an emanation, a manifestation, and an ornament of the Totality, a unified expression of the clear-light nature. Unique and differentiated, while at the same time non-separate and one.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlft4Ccf8RkQFIP0rsRbEEePWgtxcuZvdJLqX0jwLTD4ZhnrkuH9Viw9QMoQQMBOF43fpZwTedbWI4icDvo9w4JiALoHkqobrvwdzoR-3xXx06JafD7XL27yrGwFDzKDtmmIsOT20pUPApUznHbnl0fBiE0L3Tvc7OdmzrI4RYKHIoqSfODiEx3m5JkP0/s1920/hortensia-8472151_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlft4Ccf8RkQFIP0rsRbEEePWgtxcuZvdJLqX0jwLTD4ZhnrkuH9Viw9QMoQQMBOF43fpZwTedbWI4icDvo9w4JiALoHkqobrvwdzoR-3xXx06JafD7XL27yrGwFDzKDtmmIsOT20pUPApUznHbnl0fBiE0L3Tvc7OdmzrI4RYKHIoqSfODiEx3m5JkP0/w400-h266/hortensia-8472151_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-61495976775785192482024-02-17T09:26:00.001-07:002024-02-17T09:26:00.273-07:00Overwhelm and the inner friend <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />In moments of overwhelm - when we’re unable to access the internal resources or relational support to process what we’re experiencing – fragmented shards of emotion and pieces of soul are stored outside conscious awareness in soma and shadow holding areas, where they remain available for metabolization at a future time.<br /><br />Though out of conscious awareness, this material continues to color our perception and polish our heart with its energies and fragrances. In its unilluminated form, it affects our capacity to feel, play, imagine and dream.<br /><br />Prior to the ages of 4 or 5, we’re not able to repress that which is potentially shattering and have no choice but to experience it directly, or sequester it deep in the underworld, by way of those more archaic defenses of dissociation and splitting.<br /><br />The lost ones who carry the material for us long to release this burden and return home. Sometimes we hear or sense them around us; they appear in our dreams, fantasies, and unexpected moods and physical symptoms.<br /><br />At times they even appear as natural phenomena - the sun, moon, wilted flower, or star - even as our lovers, friends, and (real-life) children.<br /><br />An alchemical, cellular healing would then require that we send our awareness and devotion into the neural-soul network which is holding the shattered one, containing its unlived life, and infuse that network with qualities that weren’t available at the time of the fragmentation - empathy, warmth, centering, and companionship.<br /><br />Where, instead of disintegration, there is reintegration. Instead of dissociation, re-association. Instead of a necessary dis-embodiment, re-embodiment. A re-imagining where imagination was once foreclosed. A relinking of psyche-soma.<br /><br />At the root of this wounding is the absence of a companion to make the journey with us, the Friend that we long for to bear witness as the shards disassemble and then come back together.<br /><br />The nature of who and what this “Friend” is must be discovered in the fire of our own direct experience.<br /><br />May you discover and come to know this Friend, living with it as an inner partner, in its infinite forms and expressions in your life. Though it can seem otherwise, the Friend may be nearer than we think.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQ1AgE9VCJq4lGPHD7ARTu7r9qqHZb-ADLdcItB7avt_0G2LRAV2oqaetnnZpywZ7CIqygUjzaknXoxaGNkZtJqDIhb1m8uEx9UUZ9e4mLeqpy7wka17y6YDpNsgQvk2Zp0wRGvLTaSWaTC0ip5-UuhnANSqa7eScUZBTuSTPAKwUbBo1HCjjTeytKYc/s1920/child-438373_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="1920" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQ1AgE9VCJq4lGPHD7ARTu7r9qqHZb-ADLdcItB7avt_0G2LRAV2oqaetnnZpywZ7CIqygUjzaknXoxaGNkZtJqDIhb1m8uEx9UUZ9e4mLeqpy7wka17y6YDpNsgQvk2Zp0wRGvLTaSWaTC0ip5-UuhnANSqa7eScUZBTuSTPAKwUbBo1HCjjTeytKYc/w400-h255/child-438373_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-81811580923858806052024-02-10T09:26:00.003-07:002024-02-10T09:26:32.576-07:00Into the healing temple <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The tragedy of relational wounding presents itself as a cellular fragmenting, more primordial than a mere cognitive dissonance, neurally-encoded and rooted in the soma-soul temple.<br /><br />Here, we simultaneously long for and are terrified of “the Other,” not knowing whether to move toward or turn away. This sort of disorientation runs through the entirety of our psychic and bodily circuitry.<br /><br />For a young child, the attachment figure is God(dess), magician, and idealized best friend - without them, the end is near. But when this figure is also the very source of terror for the little one – or are traumatized themselves – we find ourselves in uncharted waters.<br /><br />It takes everything to sit in this field with another who has been touched in this way, an “other” outside us as well as the “other” within. If we really allow that in, the vessel may shatter.<br /><br />In addition to empathic failure and narcissistic injury which goes to the very core of our sense of self, even more devastating is a deep, cellular knowing that “I’m alone in this.” The absence of companionship, the lost friend, is at the heart of trauma and devastating to a human being wired to rest and play within a relational field.<br /><br />To provide even a sliver of hope, a moment of safety, where the other can feel felt and understood; just one moment when there can be a relinking, re-association, and re-imagining; to bring into the shared neural network a new experience, can soothe, repair, and open a new way forward.<br /><br />Never underestimate the power of love and what we can do to help, listening and trying to understand how another is making sense of their experience and the meaning it has for them.<br /><br />Attuning not only to the verbal narrative, but the story of the body and of the soul, of the shattered spirit. It, too, has a story to tell, but by way of image, dream, feeling, and symbol.<br /><br />And to provide a sanctuary in which it can all be illuminated and held.<br /><br />In the inner room of that temple, we may notice that the veil that appears to separate self and other begins to fall away, revealing the beauty and the mystery of this place and the endless depths of the human heart.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85KoCbZIKSpgItaZDAtwF8KwzP5wbUKTR-j6OK6AtZv5oRdAuO6tBfmg2JcyxRBymGfQpHyqtv9dqomR9H2rH0cD7ZOthXaaLQ4oc1POpWGDwFsgkEg5o-OMmMZ1GwqxcfAtWbqZGxxvmHjF_Qt21OBEbtupZJ_-e2TKAu3nlTT2GE3yYB5vbrDlvRL8/s1920/water-1283963_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85KoCbZIKSpgItaZDAtwF8KwzP5wbUKTR-j6OK6AtZv5oRdAuO6tBfmg2JcyxRBymGfQpHyqtv9dqomR9H2rH0cD7ZOthXaaLQ4oc1POpWGDwFsgkEg5o-OMmMZ1GwqxcfAtWbqZGxxvmHjF_Qt21OBEbtupZJ_-e2TKAu3nlTT2GE3yYB5vbrDlvRL8/w400-h266/water-1283963_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-65013138179972764132024-01-30T10:44:00.003-07:002024-01-30T10:44:24.513-07:00Starting Soon: Matt's 2024 yearlong Spirituality & Healing group <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dear friends, </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> My new 2024 (yearlong) Inner Work Group & Community will be getting started later this week on Thursday. We’ll meet live a few times each month, entering into a holding relational field, and explore together the mysteries of spirituality and healing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">>>Learn more about the group and community here</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The vision for the group is to spend a year slowing down and attuning to the depths of who and what we are, listening to the wisdom of our bodies and emotions, opening to the imaginal, resting our nervous systems, and attuning to our essential nature.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />We’ll explore an embodied, soulful, psychologically- and emotionally-grounded spirituality that includes not only meditative and transpersonal experience, but also the realities of our relational wounding.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />And how the entirety of our unlived life, all of the unprocessed and unmetabolized somatic, emotional, neural, and imaginal material is a (required) doorway to the sacred.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />And how the real power, mercy, and grace of this work is a felt-discovery that this material is not in the way of our healing and awakening, not obstacles to our path for us to enter into some imaginary battle with, but are the very path itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />We can’t just accept this as yet another spiritual aphorism or wise sounding saying for us to believe in; it has to come alive in the very fiber of our being, in our muscles and cells, in our nervous systems and in our hearts, in our relationships, in our bellies and in our imagination.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Our live sessions will involve a practice of embodied attunement, to ourselves, one another, to our world, and also to the mystery itself, to the Ally, the Friend, and the Inner Guide, who we may discover is closer than we have ever thought.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIpEc0JFFap88XUwuNOfuIY-yyUFADcaPSceYLYRV1BcrZbFen26VCYH1rBwTliP1Wyj4D39FJc8jZef77yex4ukza2im9M1iH9WIurS84TLX4m8-HIzoaX0L8cLf4VxvPWceF0nYIw-DbKRnnNrreGyvSwmn1Es3WAAwJHgUo2DGYfF-dfIUbykOqbY/s1080/SHI_salespage_IG4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIpEc0JFFap88XUwuNOfuIY-yyUFADcaPSceYLYRV1BcrZbFen26VCYH1rBwTliP1Wyj4D39FJc8jZef77yex4ukza2im9M1iH9WIurS84TLX4m8-HIzoaX0L8cLf4VxvPWceF0nYIw-DbKRnnNrreGyvSwmn1Es3WAAwJHgUo2DGYfF-dfIUbykOqbY/w400-h400/SHI_salespage_IG4.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-76327902324173014522024-01-17T09:17:00.001-07:002024-01-17T09:17:13.405-07:00Free live webinar with Matt next Thursday the 25th<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />I'll be presenting a free live webinar on January 25 at 9am PT/ 5pm in London, on "Turning the Light: The Mystery of Presence and Attuning to the Creative Unknown."</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" target="_blank">>> Register for the webinar at no cost here </a></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s so easy to lose contact with the experience of mystery and aliveness, where we’re spending time each day in play with reality, and in those nourishing organic embodied states of imagination, awe, wonder, and the joy of Being itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Things have gotten so speedy, shaky, and uncertain in the collective. It’s as if there’s a slow drip of cortisol or adrenaline coming out of the matrix and into our sensitive bodies and nervous systems.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s vital that we take time each day to slow down, to shift our awareness out of the collective trance and the urgency of the spin, and into the body, the heart, and the imaginal world, where we can truly listen to the Soul and the guidance it has for us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />During our time together, I’ll speak about:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />-- Stepping out of the matrix of the collective and attuning to the wisdom of the body and the imagination</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />-- Creating an inner holding environment for ourselves and the scattered pieces of soul in times of transition, liminality, and stress</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />-- The mysterious link between relational trauma, a broken heart, and the sacred; the wounded healer and the path of initiation</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />-- Trusting in the soul and the ways it relentlessly and wildly pulls us toward wholeness, including by way of our sensitivities and “symptoms”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />I look forward to spending some time with everyone on Thursday, January 25!</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaP_rae7uaz0R-EiGWZ5XXnnWgVNcnYc8dSCCn744f0xYJDpu_mWKsbQZHifK1lQ88HlhSSFdXAoJX11gyrRMksT7eRH8k574yntJjlqKqDjSu-KAw2wWjz3ysUrF8LCQtPsY6q0ZFLgCodsTbeGNiJHeyxHfV-8JDcG9D5GoDYgGaTMNnHcIlGbKHRKI/w400-h200/MattLicata_Webinar_Jan_25_Headerpromoimage.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To learn more about Matt's upcoming 2024 Inner Work Group & Community, please visit the information page <a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-46499891333545057982024-01-12T09:17:00.002-07:002024-01-12T09:18:27.561-07:00Matt's 2024 Spirituality and Healing group <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />My 2024 Inner Work Group & Community is now open for a limited time. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">>>Learn more about the group and community here<br /></a><br />The vision and the intention for the group and community is to discover a healing relational field in which, together, we can move into the unknown and explore the mysteries of an embodied, emotionally-alive, imaginal, relational spirituality. <br /><br />One that includes not only attunement to meditative and transpersonal experience, but also the depths of what it means to be an open, sensitive human being who has been touched by relational wounding, attachment and narcissistic injury, loss, and betrayal. <br /><br />For the truth is that we've all been given experience in this life which has overwhelmed our capacity to process and metabolize it. As a result, it has come to be held in the body, in the imaginal field, and in subcortical circuitry, awaiting ripe (love) conditions when it can return in the holding of a new consciousness. <br /><br />To paraphrase Jung, not only a path of imagining figures of light, but one of making the darkness conscious – to go into the body-vessel and to illuminate the pieces of soul and the lost orphans of psyche and soma, and to help them back home, as portals into Being. <br /><br />In this way, we provide a sanctuary for the entirety of our unlived life and all of the unprocessed and unmetabolized somatic, emotional, neural, and imaginal material to come back into consciousness, into the body, where it can disclose its wisdom, creativity, and essence. <br /><br />This path of illumination, holding, and making sense of our experience in a new way is an experiential process that must come alive in the very fiber of our being, in our muscles and cells, in our nervous systems and in our hearts, in our bellies and in our imagination. As we dream a new dream, and to be dreamed by the Great Dreamer (herself). <br /><br />And, together, as relational beings, in a way that isn’t always possible on our own, to perceive and listen to the Self, the Guide, and the Ally, which can reveal itself within the interactive field, and to receive its wisdom and guidance. <br /><br />From the side of the psychotherapeutic traditions, we will tend to the wounds around love; while from the meditative/ spiritual, to explore our essential being; and also open into the imaginal world, the province of soul, that in-between liminal area where a new kind of healing and self-realization may emerge.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="501" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpnw9yrP4rJAriWvI6gFyupCDbeuBX_7zjXJuFZAbi4UzeLnGEUP2aOX9TGI8MgOVWDGv8utWctGhx96zVU9yqAczOdBy_1oxV33d7ugs4XCcOMBJbx7gVUePDWS4gyFhGtRz-sTwtngWl591Jtor46f4cgL8dUWE0bP_pYrkpckg4agjDit37khc3Tw/s16000/banner2.png" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-16297884745758435152024-01-09T09:14:00.003-07:002024-01-09T09:27:00.672-07:00Free live video meeting with Matt - Thursday, January 25 <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxN1FYZWGs5a_qDi1T3gQ6hJBpHihNGR4piny8j7a_3vaaTbXb6H6EzgjhrJEVlv55O4zbcA9VL6c0xIV-8uA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'll be presenting a free live webinar on January 25 at 9am PT/ 5pm in London, on "Turning the Light: The Mystery of Presence and Attuning to the Creative Unknown."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" style="color: #d52a33; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">>>Register here at no cost for Matt's upcoming free live webinar </a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s so easy to lose contact with the experience of mystery and aliveness, where we’re spending time each day in play with reality, and in those nourishing organic embodied states of imagination, awe, wonder, and the joy of Being itself.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Things have gotten so speedy, shaky, and uncertain in the collective. It’s as if there’s a slow drip of cortisol or adrenaline coming out of the matrix and into our sensitive bodies and nervous systems.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s vital that we take time each day to slow down, to shift our awareness out of the collective trance and the urgency of the spin, and into the body, the heart, and the imaginal world, where we can truly listen to the Soul and the guidance it has for us.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />During our time together, I’ll speak about:</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0.25em 0px;">Stepping out of the matrix of the collective and attuning to the wisdom of the body and the imagination</li><li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0.25em 0px;">Creating an inner holding environment for ourselves and the scattered pieces of soul in times of transition, liminality, and stress</li><li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0.25em 0px;">The mysterious link between relational trauma, a broken heart, and the sacred; the wounded healer and the path of initiation</li><li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0.25em 0px;">Trusting in the soul and the ways it relentlessly and wildly pulls us toward wholeness, including by way of our sensitivities and “symptoms”</li></ul><div>I look forward to spending some time with everyone on Thursday, January 25. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqHfpN44qiRkdkGyQ9MStfHf0E3Kyt75xKztb2saLLl_ZmtaPgFIYOFRpy_PBEsgHxp-VNUMz0HJ2VGiZOSps974C4HVQyaaURB6BX0vn1dCQ1aQrkKw7rJOnc7EaY8Wun3UZuPx6jQghFNAtRNlqhNJ-Lb0piUp7to8e4h2AAOJOrSVXJVMbBIPGNJZk/s320/Webinar_FB.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div></span></div></div><p><br /></p>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-92123101033766729642024-01-09T06:30:00.001-07:002024-01-09T06:30:00.141-07:00Vulnerability, intimacy, and aliveness<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It can take a lot of practice, mercy, and an unwavering love of the truth to explore the various strategies we employ to take ourselves out of feelings we don’t want to feel.<br />To encode new circuitry requires a real devotion – to soul, to the materials arising within the body-vessel, and to the alchemical experiment itself.<br /><br />At times, it will seem as if we are inside the vessel, fused with the orphans of psyche and soma; at other times, as if we’re watching on the outside. At other times, as if self, soul-piece, and vessel are one.<br /><br />For each of us, there are certain felt experiences that have come to be associated with unworkable anxiety, triggering a survival-level sort of panic. In response, pathways are put in place to get away from the underlying vulnerability and back to safe ground.<br /><br />This was once a lifesaving response, an early attempt at self-compassion, and can be respected. In the dissociative split away from the tender, however, we cut ourselves off from the aliveness we so long for.<br /><br />In a moment of emotional activation, when we notice we’re starting to fall down the rabbit hole, sensing the familiar claustrophobia, the voices are getting louder, we can use this as an invitation into the experiment. The doorway to the laboratory is opened.<br /><br />In one moment of recognition, we can pause, slow down, feel our feet on the ground. Things are not always what they appear.<br /><br />Slowly, one moment at a time, with the help of the breath and the Ally, we can return into our embodied vulnerability, find the one there who is longing for us, hold them, listen to them, and ask them to show us what it is they need.<br /><br />In this, we cut into the habitual momentum and trance of self-abandonment. We begin to see that the intimacy and aliveness can only emerge in our willingness to touch the vulnerability and provide sanctuary for its embodied metabolization.<br /><br />Vulnerability and aliveness are not-two, and co-emerge together, each a pathway into the other, interpenetrating and balancing each other in union.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjby2zfxayEbu-5W3eyW6u8o8cSrRu-vOj5HrcHTjt24qohdRFRZZhICSj9A7baH5Fp6rN45QQCP43Pnqz885JeTJG5AioOtUCvQ_dqibs97rxVJNNqBmBcnBTISXzFHRUHAoThtxCrCy6Fot4985ccK1vPH0A9YRIz5yz9IIgoyukahhzrkr0RWBOSeCU/s3000/andrew-gloor-ujKtiquD3pI-unsplash%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="1987" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjby2zfxayEbu-5W3eyW6u8o8cSrRu-vOj5HrcHTjt24qohdRFRZZhICSj9A7baH5Fp6rN45QQCP43Pnqz885JeTJG5AioOtUCvQ_dqibs97rxVJNNqBmBcnBTISXzFHRUHAoThtxCrCy6Fot4985ccK1vPH0A9YRIz5yz9IIgoyukahhzrkr0RWBOSeCU/w424-h640/andrew-gloor-ujKtiquD3pI-unsplash%20(2).jpg" width="424" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">Learn more about Matt's 2024 Inner Work Group & Community</a></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" target="_blank">Register for a free webinar with Matt on January 25 - Turning the Light </a></span></div></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-17187230514448994962024-01-06T09:24:00.001-07:002024-01-06T09:24:06.379-07:00Falling apart and coming back together <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Allowing ourselves to fall apart, to deintegrate, to de-fold, and then come back together in more cohesive ways is the very essence of the alchemical unfolding of the soul. <br /><br />Me and my life and who I’ve come to imagine myself to be… the death of an old dream, how it was all supposed to turn out: what a relationship is, what will bring me meaning, what the substance of this world is. <br /><br />To participate in this cycle without pathologizing or prematurely transcending it is the activity of love. And will ache and burn as in the body and the heart, and can turn us to dust. But that dust is of the golden. <br /><br />Death and rebirth are not two separate processes, but one, death-rebirth. They co-arise and co-interpenetrate. <br /><br />The Divine, or the Beloved is not only present in states of union and oneness, but unfolds itself by way multiplicity and differentiation, incarnating its body in and as ours. It is the at the same time the alchemical vessel and the materials inside that vessel. <br /><br />Form is equally as holy as the formless. It is in that union that the mystery reveals. <br /><br />Inevitably, ruptures will occur within the relational field, in that tender intersection between ourselves and another, and between the shadow and light parts within us. These ruptures are natural, creative, and carriers of quantum-potential wholeness.<br /> <br /> The invitation is into the aliveness of paradox and contradiction, into intimacy without fusion, not unconscious merging into some homogenized leaky middle.<br /> <br /> Embodiment to the cycle of rupture and repair, and containing it in the heart, is what allows the relationship (to Self, Other, and Divine) to unfold, deepen, and disclose its secret essence. <br /><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI_3_7d1Wx5IGVOCxy_nCFeXkHOF9HLTs8rqHK7tsVYp2lhcxiNwYzjAlnSEjDdXED6auDKD1BxJTPJFIMEmpubRJQDNiT-2LSLj1oBVzWu8khtb-9GLb4CgD_JOa-qp3Io2FgggQGA-UafXJTqGL3tFXWlilrn8Oq2XEEX-d6hdvK_87HTbC3od8G4EY/s1280/autumn-2857032_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI_3_7d1Wx5IGVOCxy_nCFeXkHOF9HLTs8rqHK7tsVYp2lhcxiNwYzjAlnSEjDdXED6auDKD1BxJTPJFIMEmpubRJQDNiT-2LSLj1oBVzWu8khtb-9GLb4CgD_JOa-qp3Io2FgggQGA-UafXJTqGL3tFXWlilrn8Oq2XEEX-d6hdvK_87HTbC3od8G4EY/w400-h266/autumn-2857032_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">Learn more about Matt's 2024 Inner Work Group & Community</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" target="_blank">Register for a free webinar with Matt on January 25 - Turning the Light </a></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-9036874734920749542024-01-04T04:30:00.001-07:002024-01-04T04:30:00.134-07:00Into the mandala of the wounded healer<div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The wounded healer isn’t only a myth to learn about, but a living reality inside you, with its own images, feelings, fragrance, and modes of vision. It is more like a mandala or inner atmosphere that you can enter into.<br /><br />Or perhaps more accurately, it will at times find you so that it might draw you nearer to itself, through your dreams, unexpected moods, a color, a friend who irritates you, or through unexplainable symptoms in your body. Just as you may be longing for the Beloved, he or she (or it or they) are also looking for you, and will do whatever it takes to find you.<br /><br />Within the center of the mandala, to speak mythologically, we find Chiron and his merry band of travelers, as well as each and every person who has been initiated into the mysteries by way of the sacred wound.<br /><br />Perhaps the fact that you are reading this post may indicate that you are somehow part of that lineage, the stream coming down by way of the Asklepian dream temples of ancient Greece, where wayfarers and travelers would go to receive vision.<br /><br />But this isn’t only an anthropological or historical matter. Chiron and the dream-vision incubation temples are alive inside you right now, infusing your muscles and cells, hidden in the chambers of your heart, and wired into the strands of your DNA.<br /><br />We might open our imagination and discover that these mythological figures are not trapped back in ancient Greece, but are alive in the collective fields which play out in our personal lives through our relationships, creative work, spiritual practice, and health challenges.<br /><br />Because the energetic imprints of the wounded healer are alive in the collective, we can be in relationship with these figures, their qualities, and ways of perception that they represent.<br /><br />Through our practice and prayer and silence and being in nature and in the chaos of relationship and work, we can enter experientially into the center of the mandala, or interior garden. In this sense, the wounded healer is an actual “place” that exists in the landscape of the soul, that we can find our way to in the imaginal world.<br /><br />You might start to sense or hear it, feel or see it, or know it is there in some unexplainable way.<br /><br />You won’t be able to “find” this place within your physical anatomy or with a high-powered microscope, but you may very well find it in the anatomy of the soul. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGhDw_vnJiCoH5SqxwZlHE00R1ES8L4wPvcPNF3oeVGQvWVi3u5rS8aZmH3aOJPbyxS0QIUznidRJTuqkuXW7efQWfOGIdADWkHCtp2l4ERNcw1XDU7hjyZXADQtTEpwf7b6ZhJ8vl_LgW0OO9jcTV3bzrJwBMvJ3pTwoKt4qnbWYoCYf2ZsD3Kn8MfQ/s1920/leaves-4673997_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGhDw_vnJiCoH5SqxwZlHE00R1ES8L4wPvcPNF3oeVGQvWVi3u5rS8aZmH3aOJPbyxS0QIUznidRJTuqkuXW7efQWfOGIdADWkHCtp2l4ERNcw1XDU7hjyZXADQtTEpwf7b6ZhJ8vl_LgW0OO9jcTV3bzrJwBMvJ3pTwoKt4qnbWYoCYf2ZsD3Kn8MfQ/w400-h266/leaves-4673997_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" target="_blank">Register for Matt's free live webinar on January 25</a></span></div></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-21459115334278034742024-01-02T14:25:00.004-07:002024-01-02T14:27:23.638-07:00Matt Licata's new 2024 Inner Work Group & Community<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dear friend, <br /><br />I wanted to let you know that the new 2024 online Inner Work Group & Community is now open for enrollment for a limited time. We'll be getting started officially on Thursday, February 1. <br /><br />You can learn more about the group and sign up here:<br /><br /><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">>>Learn more about Matt's new 2024 online Inner Work Group & Community<br /></a><br />We'll meet live three times each month to explore the nature of an embodied, soulful, trauma-sensitive approach to spiritual transformation and healing, integrating the fields of depth and somatic psychotherapies with the wisdom and experiential discoveries of the yogis, mystics, and alchemists. <br /><br />It is not necessary to attend live in order to participate fully in the teachings, meditations, and holding of the relational field itself. Many are not able to attend live due to other commitments. <br /><br />To stay up to date on details regarding the group, please be sure to sign up for my <a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/mailing-list/" target="_blank">mailing list</a>. <br /><br />I hope to see you inside the course soon. <br /><br />Warmly, <br /><br />Matt</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">P.S. If you're already a member of the group, please stay tuned for details on how to continue (or unsubscribe), or write to the team at support@mattlicataphd.com. You do not need to re-register via this new link. <br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMjFDgttEb7Eh64VUsXFf-DPN0B_2WAJPzJPaS0TfIk4H3_ePdnbZ4vqI_yJ2gU8ZTcA7snPK-cgruTx99w3_LCZCHKw_06gwNxR8tf_2vvyj1HPK9nBwmRUTUGGUyjNi5DoTn8WnRSU-iHiJTIbH4pKujqmr5SPEWPobySlPnIdZiEualkWzRwRY72g/s501/banner2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="501" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMjFDgttEb7Eh64VUsXFf-DPN0B_2WAJPzJPaS0TfIk4H3_ePdnbZ4vqI_yJ2gU8ZTcA7snPK-cgruTx99w3_LCZCHKw_06gwNxR8tf_2vvyj1HPK9nBwmRUTUGGUyjNi5DoTn8WnRSU-iHiJTIbH4pKujqmr5SPEWPobySlPnIdZiEualkWzRwRY72g/s16000/banner2.png" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-13708473750985117342023-12-30T13:05:00.000-07:002023-12-30T13:05:04.571-07:00Free live webinar with Matt on January 25 - Turning the Light <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dear friends, <br /><br /> </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'll be presenting a free live webinar on January 25 at 9am PT/ 5pm in London, on "Turning the Light: The Mystery of Presence and Attuning to the Creative Unknown."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/turning-the-light/" target="_blank">>>Register here at no cost for Matt's upcoming free live webinar </a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s so easy to lose contact with the experience of mystery and aliveness, where we’re spending time each day in play with reality, and in those nourishing organic embodied states of imagination, awe, wonder, and the joy of Being itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Things have gotten so speedy, shaky, and uncertain in the collective. It’s as if there’s a slow drip of cortisol or adrenaline coming out of the matrix and into our sensitive bodies and nervous systems.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s vital that we take time each day to slow down, to shift our awareness out of the collective trance and the urgency of the spin, and into the body, the heart, and the imaginal world, where we can truly listen to the Soul and the guidance it has for us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />During our time together, I’ll speak about:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Stepping out of the matrix of the collective and attuning to the wisdom of the body and the imagination</span></li><li>Creating an inner holding environment for ourselves and the scattered pieces of soul in times of transition, liminality, and stress</li><li>The mysterious link between relational trauma, a broken heart, and the sacred; the wounded healer and the path of initiation</li><li>Trusting in the soul and the ways it relentlessly and wildly pulls us toward wholeness, including by way of our sensitivities and “symptoms”</li></ul><div>I look forward to spending some time with everyone on Thursday, January 25. </div><div><br /></div><div>Warmly, </div><div><br /></div><div>Matt</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJCg1U7jKEWZofKaLfFKnIO7_Qs7Jqf5p6nymNb7n1MblcwpYzTPCOznk7lfUgFJPNKPs6UVGmLeacvoikTz0GGXhcAipsE4VFF91WjC8AgjdA-r3kNReU0HGvB_sRw-zB3U-bZWaA0Q-_slIsmWWd4mpijumKLC4sOnYvx6x1KzrvLgMw6FBtyEhsKRw/s1200/Webinar_FB.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJCg1U7jKEWZofKaLfFKnIO7_Qs7Jqf5p6nymNb7n1MblcwpYzTPCOznk7lfUgFJPNKPs6UVGmLeacvoikTz0GGXhcAipsE4VFF91WjC8AgjdA-r3kNReU0HGvB_sRw-zB3U-bZWaA0Q-_slIsmWWd4mpijumKLC4sOnYvx6x1KzrvLgMw6FBtyEhsKRw/w400-h209/Webinar_FB.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-81807256432036195542023-12-29T10:44:00.006-07:002023-12-29T10:44:53.929-07:00Early relational wounding and trauma <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Much of our wounding occurs prior to the acquisition of language and is not able to be healed through the questioning and reorganization of patterns of thinking. In other words, we can’t think our way out of trauma, attachment, and narcissistic injury.<br /> <br /> When our capacity to process unbearable terror, panic, and shame is overwhelmed, unmetabolized pieces of soul are held subcortically and in our cellular circuitry, unreachable by thinking which is a layer removed from the fires of the alchemical body.<br /> <br /> Encouragement to “just get over it, it’s just your ego, just let it be, it isn’t who you really are” is experienced by an inflamed nervous system as the activity of empathic failure, aggression, and psychic violence.<br /> <br /> It’s like a neural form of gaslighting and reflects a deep misunderstanding of relational wounding and implicit memory, and only contributes to the intergenerational transmission of trauma.<br /> <br /> In addition to shattering and unendurable experience – which is painful and terrifying enough – there is a profound sense of aloneness that goes with this, the disorganizing reality of the missing Friend, and no accompaniment into the dark night. “I am alone in this.”<br /> <br /> This is devastating to the soul.<br /> <br /> When the lost orphans of psyche and soma come surging to be held, they’re not all that interested in our crystal-clear analysis, detached witnessing and fantasies of “mastery,” or powerful spiritual insights.<br /> <br /> They’re longing for something else… for you, for your heart, for your holding. To know that you will stay near, that you will not abandon or shame them, that you will do your best to provide sanctuary and safe passage for them to come Home, to be helped out of that frozen, crystallized state and to live once again.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOX6CiHRlD6Urk6OKHGlN0A5DnjzXGzTq_7diKOtrWtRDT3ZG9xR0eSpg0cd_X_Qvs406matgcGJ0i5FjCrIhLM06xhdOAmq35hJVmt8LKsPtloK9aVYrU5Ffnh-2npYtt3okcZ-VBTHdaXor6LBBiO2QnMCSpLShBa-9JWrob2pBm-dCsUwAQtDPOFRo/s1280/girl_train.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="962" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOX6CiHRlD6Urk6OKHGlN0A5DnjzXGzTq_7diKOtrWtRDT3ZG9xR0eSpg0cd_X_Qvs406matgcGJ0i5FjCrIhLM06xhdOAmq35hJVmt8LKsPtloK9aVYrU5Ffnh-2npYtt3okcZ-VBTHdaXor6LBBiO2QnMCSpLShBa-9JWrob2pBm-dCsUwAQtDPOFRo/w482-h640/girl_train.jpg" width="482" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-4906858672749518202023-12-22T18:38:00.005-07:002023-12-22T18:38:57.282-07:00Trauma, dissociation, and relinking psyche and soma<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Healing from trauma and any form of relational wounding involves a relinking of that which has become unlinked. In this way, trauma is the experience of unlinking.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />To re-associate that which has become dis-associated.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />To re-embody to what which has become dis-embodied.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Or, to speak more alchemically, the word dis-aster involves an unlinking from the stars, from our own stars, from the sparks of light that form the human soul.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />To reconnect with the stars which have been scattered will ask everything of us, and more.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dissociation is natural to the psyche and serves a vital adaptive function, keeping us out of states of profound, unworkable, unendurable fragmentation, terror, and an annihilatory sense of panic.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />To re-associate and to re-link soma and psyche occurs by way of relationship. In this way all healing is relational in its essence.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />But the nature of what this relationship is, is of the Mystery. Relationship unfolds inside the psyche as previously dissociated pieces of soul are brought back together; and interpersonally though a safe, attuned, empathic relational field.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />And also transpersonally, a re-association with the Divine, with our essential Being, with that part of ourselves that was never wounded and was always Whole.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Somehow, reunion with the missing companion, with the lost Friend, whether inside, outside, or in between, for the great union and re-linking to occur.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />To bear witness to this dissociation and re-linking and to offer a safe, holding, and dynamic vessel and inner Temple, where the other can feel felt and understood, can take us to the ground.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As we weep and lament together, somehow in that, in the purity of those tears, the stars are returned, the splitting is healed, the rupture is repaired, and the dissociated pieces of soma and psyche are reunited.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s only love that can foster that sort of reunion, a love that belongs not to a “healer” or a “patient,” but to the field itself; all we can do is allow our perception to be cleansed and our heart to be polished so that we can perceive it and be a vehicle for its embodiment and incarnation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIU5MxPN8aWfv7_9b_pkGG5fjwUp26SRhU0XlDVn8turatNjkIRU21YTmyUqpXHLngCm2FfoZJIqosIjs0V2LKqf1448f1Sssbli1X4nO0Pz5SkmFkKJ32hYS5hIpCO8u4nGEC1vbg9S2yjO1E7mS-FrDtai-l5ssW7gXHM0AWdJVBSeuHH4CRe154KHY/s1920/book-863418_1920.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1920" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIU5MxPN8aWfv7_9b_pkGG5fjwUp26SRhU0XlDVn8turatNjkIRU21YTmyUqpXHLngCm2FfoZJIqosIjs0V2LKqf1448f1Sssbli1X4nO0Pz5SkmFkKJ32hYS5hIpCO8u4nGEC1vbg9S2yjO1E7mS-FrDtai-l5ssW7gXHM0AWdJVBSeuHH4CRe154KHY/w400-h250/book-863418_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/online-courses/">Learn more about Matt's online group and community</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/@mattlicataphd">View Matt's YouTube channel here</a></div></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-76045189167524065622023-12-20T09:06:00.003-07:002023-12-20T09:06:59.882-07:00When meeting with a friend who is down... <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />When we meet with someone who is feeling melancholic, empty, shaky, or confused, we can quickly become convinced that something is wrong, and that our role is to act urgently to fix them - to spin off into techniques, theories, and ideas to help them replace the actuality of their experience with what we believe they should be having instead.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s totally natural to want relief for those we care about and to do whatever we can to help; we don’t need to pretend this isn’t the case. We can hold that larger intention that they feel better, while simultaneously staying open to a call emerging in the field between us into deeper territory.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Perhaps it is something more subtle, nuanced, and merciful than relief that they’re most longing for. For the Friend, for a companion who will go with them into the dimly lit, endarkened landscape of the soul.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />There is wisdom and guidance in the images, emotions, and somatic data arising into the relational field between ourselves and another, vital communication from psyche serving an initiatory function beyond what we can perceive. We don’t want to short-circuit that, especially as a result of our own anxiety and discomfort.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />If we slow down and reflect, we might discover how much of our “fixing” activity, the movement toward relief, arises out of an unresolved relationship with our own shadow, untended historic core vulnerabilities and complexes, and from the spinning of the ghosts of our unlived lives.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It is possible that the most skillful and kind thing we can offer our friend is to sit in the charged energy with them, bearing witness to pure feeling together, in that claustrophobic or restless space, and stay near; to remove the burden that they come out of their experience, “feel better,” or heal in order for us to stay close.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Perhaps they don’t need to be healed, but to be held, to be heard, and to feel felt and understood, for someone to companion them as the hidden wisdom unfolds.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Where, together, we can make sense of their experience and discover the meaning in it, crafting a safe and empathically-attuned home where the shards of a broken world can reassemble.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX8bg444aQgXcY8Y982OKhTLPSaclgTVS9Pha2Nx_mHbR4jvqp66WuCCgaG1F1rggT3jnH8FqlnTU-9VLkm2iOD_4HwbJgFOUwtzTT7sMtB0kGFaVe-9_oy5PFEEXWF3FHmCIlPuYHM009YfKvYMPsB4HnGsZkUuSuiiOHt-uFESy2F4ECgGnOZVEGmwI/s1920/winter-8431488_1920.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="1920" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX8bg444aQgXcY8Y982OKhTLPSaclgTVS9Pha2Nx_mHbR4jvqp66WuCCgaG1F1rggT3jnH8FqlnTU-9VLkm2iOD_4HwbJgFOUwtzTT7sMtB0kGFaVe-9_oy5PFEEXWF3FHmCIlPuYHM009YfKvYMPsB4HnGsZkUuSuiiOHt-uFESy2F4ECgGnOZVEGmwI/w400-h259/winter-8431488_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">Learn about Matt's new 2024 inner work group and community </a></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-54542341939777063142023-12-17T09:17:00.004-07:002023-12-17T09:17:52.237-07:00Return into the inner temple<div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">There is spirit buried inside matter, but we must open our imagination and allow our perception to be cleansed. <br /><br />Behind the veil, multiplicity is just as holy as oneness, sound as sacred as silence, form as pure as the formless, when embraced within the heart. <br /><br />Each an equal arrow in the quiver of the beloved, sent to pull us closer. <br /><br />Reality is neither dual nor nondual, but way beyond all that. Those distinctions fall away in union. <br /><br />In a moment when the emotions surge, a doorway appears. Sink into the earth, enter her colors, open your inner senses, enter the mandala of the imagination. The ally is near. <br /><br />We are conditioned to find a problem where there is an invitation.<br /> <br />Place your hands on your heart. Attune to the aliveness of the somatic flow. Follow the breath back into essence. Return into the inner temple. Stay there. And listen.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkfIUkQ7dS2hdq4xUyZIdfc3-g-x5lugJmBHXrb3IGTxtpujn2SY4KvjlxPi9B618yRYkhJNpb2etEXZRE3FdgMVJ_OkYMDyMthYIGo8e8ebm1UB17TylC9HV00qEcxRNug-6ERLQ3ttSYhyjfoFEpCVuI59BlU-6iDK5lc62JKfiEbotGSGqESkzYDNQ/s1920/winter-8431624_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1084" data-original-width="1920" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkfIUkQ7dS2hdq4xUyZIdfc3-g-x5lugJmBHXrb3IGTxtpujn2SY4KvjlxPi9B618yRYkhJNpb2etEXZRE3FdgMVJ_OkYMDyMthYIGo8e8ebm1UB17TylC9HV00qEcxRNug-6ERLQ3ttSYhyjfoFEpCVuI59BlU-6iDK5lc62JKfiEbotGSGqESkzYDNQ/w400-h226/winter-8431624_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">Learn about Matt's new 2024 inner work group and community </a></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-87157720969259708392023-12-12T11:18:00.001-07:002023-12-12T11:18:16.870-07:00The capacity to grieve<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />One thing I’ve discovered in my own life (pain) – and also in my clinical work – is that it’s the capacity to grieve that creates the linkages in psyche and soma that are at the very essence of neural integration.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />There is no true rebirth without passing through the portal of grief, which is not a solar journey upward into transcendence, but attunement to the descending current, into earth, body, and mud.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It is what allows us to hold and metabolize the fragments of the unlived life, held deep in the soul and the somatic unconscious.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />One of the hallmarks of unresolved relational trauma is the incapacity to mourn, to weep all the way down into our cells, and make the journey of embodied lamentation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As relational beings wired to co-regulate and co-enter the Mystery together, we’re not always able to do this on our own.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />We long for a Friend to bear witness to the subtle depth of our tears, emanations of the alchemical salt, which wash and purify the way ahead.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The nature of the Ally is that of a shapeshifter and will appear in a variety of forms, and may surprise us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As our perception is cleansed and our heart is polished, its form will become more clear, more vivid, and translucent.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIov2iSuOQkU_0OCGLEiytOOAjhFeeqhYAXidOxfl9JoDv8Hza-4kIrELDht9bVoM5GrS_lemG_73qG07unSo3MyOUpXgmZKqyU0GrlmoTm_76T7rFr0Uxq99KskXgzMHH_Twu2x3_J2bSFZ0xrdvcpowrZTc_MCDGnd_3tJFEV3uYAGnNO86wr8HPFs/s1920/winter-1835616_1920%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIov2iSuOQkU_0OCGLEiytOOAjhFeeqhYAXidOxfl9JoDv8Hza-4kIrELDht9bVoM5GrS_lemG_73qG07unSo3MyOUpXgmZKqyU0GrlmoTm_76T7rFr0Uxq99KskXgzMHH_Twu2x3_J2bSFZ0xrdvcpowrZTc_MCDGnd_3tJFEV3uYAGnNO86wr8HPFs/w400-h266/winter-1835616_1920%20(1).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/online-courses/">Learn more about Matt's online group and community</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/@mattlicataphd">View Matt's YouTube channel here</a></div></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-75723154664889117652023-12-07T02:07:00.003-07:002023-12-07T02:07:59.076-07:00Matt's 2024 Inner Work Group & Community <span style="font-family: arial;"><br />My new 2024 online inner work group and community will start on February 1 with registration opening for a limited time in mid-January. If you’d like to learn more and join the waitlist, please visit here:</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/spirituality-healing/" target="_blank">>> Learn more about Matt's 2024 Inner Work Group & Community <br /></a><br />We’ll meet live a few times each month, for meditation, inquiry, imaginal practice, and to explore the mystery of Being, healing, and spiritual transformation. <br /><br />Weaving together depth and somatic psychotherapies, relational neuroscience and trauma studies, and the wisdom of the mystics, yogis, and alchemists, we’ll explore an embodied, trauma-sensitive approach to deep soul healing, self-realization, and the alchemy of the heart. <br /><br />The purpose of the group is to come together in a true holding environment and to open to the power, beauty, and intelligence of the relational field itself as an ally and friend on your own unique path. <br /><br />Here is a sample list of topics we’ll lively cover throughout the year. The depth at which we go into any of these will depend upon the way the group is unfolding and evolving together, and new topics may be added based on interest and passion from the group and from the field itself. Together, we will listen to the Self, and guidance from the soul, allowing it to lead us through the year. <br /><br />While there may be a theme that emerges for each individual session, much of what occurs will arise spontaneously, creatively, and guided by soul and the Self, and the wisdom of the relational field, including much that is transmitted non-conceptually, by way of feeling, emotion, the body, and the imagination. This list is only meant to give you a sense of the possible territory:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The Contemporary Path of the Mystic: Union with the Divine and the Sacred World</span></li><li>Trauma and the Sacred: Exploring the Link Between Our Psychological and Somatic Wounding, and Spiritual Realization</li><li>The Alchemical Imagination and How All Transformation and Healing is Alchemical (and Relational) at its Core</li><li>Shadow Work and Illuminating Lost Pieces of Soul: Liberating the Frozen, Crystallized Orphans of Psyche and Soma</li><li>Dreamwork and Active Imagination: Opening into the Wisdom of the Soul and Living a Symbolic Life</li><li>The Role of the Body and Somatic Attunement, and How the Body and Nervous System Form the Root Alchemical Vessel</li><li>The Contemporary Path of the Wounded Healer and the Wisdom Within your Embodied Vulnerability, Tenderness, and Sensitivities</li><li>Cultivating a Daily Practice Unique to You and Your Individual Soul-Print</li><li>The Foundational Role of Mindfulness, Meditation, and Embodied Inquiry on the Spiritual Path, and Finding Your Own Way into the Contemplative Life</li><li>The Role of Relationship and the Yoga of Intimacy: The Beloved, the Ally, and the Inner and Outer Friend</li><li>Prioritizing Soul as we Age, and Aging as a Soul Practice: Death, Dying, and Illness as the Alchemical Prima Materia</li><li>Griefwork and Tending to the Blue Regions of the Spectrum of Consciousness; the Death of an Old Dream and the Emergent Coming-into-Being</li><li>The Various Forms of Psychotherapy, Meditation, and Inner Work as Types of Alchemical Vessels - as Experiments of the Heart</li><li>The Art of Befriending and Becoming a True Friend to Yourself: Cultivating the Healing Power of Self-Compassion and Providing an internal Holding Environment When Things Fall Apart</li></ul><div>I'll be posting more information here later in the year about the group and you can also join my <a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/mailing-list/" target="_blank">mailing list</a> to receive the most up-to-date notifications. </div><div><br /></div><div>I look forward to being with everyone starting in February! </div><div><br /></div><div>Warmly, </div><div><br /></div><div>Matt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUu81Wn4Knc_c6lQJZVrCacCOC-g0QiE2CO5aT_-AhFF1Sv598Eg2kSDtzbKS0M0U5C5pgphZh02Ng3Si60mnM4tresHUC2kRVcU565GOSonNsXJQBDsQCTHE-j_1N-1pxzA_CcToR0UWZ7XAofKF4_OvJxVVFjz31YEKnvPFUQceUrcPF_SQaMWJFGyU/s1920/2024%20Online%20Inner%20Work%20Group%20&%20Community%20Entering%20into%20a%20Healing%20Space%20Starting%20in%20February%20Join%20the%20Waitlist%20Now.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUu81Wn4Knc_c6lQJZVrCacCOC-g0QiE2CO5aT_-AhFF1Sv598Eg2kSDtzbKS0M0U5C5pgphZh02Ng3Si60mnM4tresHUC2kRVcU565GOSonNsXJQBDsQCTHE-j_1N-1pxzA_CcToR0UWZ7XAofKF4_OvJxVVFjz31YEKnvPFUQceUrcPF_SQaMWJFGyU/w400-h266/2024%20Online%20Inner%20Work%20Group%20&%20Community%20Entering%20into%20a%20Healing%20Space%20Starting%20in%20February%20Join%20the%20Waitlist%20Now.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div></span><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
</ul></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-5243304343139213922023-12-05T09:25:00.001-07:002023-12-05T09:25:15.363-07:00Attachment, fusion, and the yoga of relationship <div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">In close personal relationships, it is important to emphasize a secure attachment bond and the co-regulation of challenging emotional states. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">To practice kindness toward our lovers and friends, listen to the way they are making sense of their experience, attune to what they are feeling, and hold them during difficult times.<br /> <br /> It is also essential to be on the lookout for unhealthy fusion, honoring the reality that we are not only connected, but also separate. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Any secure attachment must include healthy differentiation, where at times the most skillful activity will be to establish firm boundaries, assert our independence, privilege our own personal integrity, and allow the other to struggle with feelings of aloneness, uncertainty, and confusion.<br /> <br /> At times we will disappoint those we love, and this will activate our historic core vulnerabilities… and theirs. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">For many of us, disappointing another is just not safe, and we will do whatever possible to ensure they do not come face to face with the surging material of their unlived life. But allowing them to meet the reality of their own heart is an act of profound mercy and compassion.<br /> <br /> While transpersonally we can speak about unity and oneness, within the relative we are also distinct, with our own histories and ways of organizing our experience. Each with our own fate and relationship with the divine, our own paths to travel; our own unique ways entering the mystery. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">To dissolve these differences into some homogenized spiritual middle does not honor the sacredness of form.<br /> <br /> If we do not consciously explore the reality of our separateness, it will inevitably manifest in less than conscious ways, unleashing unmetabolized shadow into the relational field. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Like all work of depth, this art form evolves slowly, as it marinates in the alchemical vessel of the body.<br /> <br /> May we be kind to our partners as we navigate this territory – especially during these challenging times – honoring the vehicle of intimacy as one of the most provocative, sacred, and holy that we have in our modern world. <br /><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrhWMRA2qcrMQEsqKGRZ4lQNjqSYJGfPKQmxKHMTX2Eb4zIzDQblHQGgfSF1l2vnba2PY4fw8dZN_Rr1dlN2lDVaoTgJJ83z_4EHTbxRve2zWqzJ3o5GXIUfqKI1fy1lM6I8z1BxrAmGZ1PppuBwSB8pvmywccdEw-V6bKPBmEdskY4V1hWgVOei_qi0U/s1920/freestocks-Gnxquq4oYQc-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrhWMRA2qcrMQEsqKGRZ4lQNjqSYJGfPKQmxKHMTX2Eb4zIzDQblHQGgfSF1l2vnba2PY4fw8dZN_Rr1dlN2lDVaoTgJJ83z_4EHTbxRve2zWqzJ3o5GXIUfqKI1fy1lM6I8z1BxrAmGZ1PppuBwSB8pvmywccdEw-V6bKPBmEdskY4V1hWgVOei_qi0U/w400-h266/freestocks-Gnxquq4oYQc-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><div style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/online-courses/">Learn more about Matt's online group and community</a></div><div style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/@mattlicataphd">View Matt's YouTube channel here</a></div></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1892978477966729075.post-49396226348555019952023-11-30T01:51:00.000-07:002023-11-30T01:51:24.898-07:00Tending to the Soul: A Self-Guided Online Course <span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /> My self-guided, home study course on Tending to the Soul: A Journey of Being and Belonging, and a Spirituality of the Heart is currently available: </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/tending-to-the-soul/" target="_blank">>>Learn more or register for Tending to the Soul <br /></a><br />There are times in each of our lives when a chapter comes to an end, when we find ourselves on the precipice of rebirth and renewal. <br /><br />Something has dissolved – the dream of me and my life and the way it was all supposed to turn out – but it’s not yet clear what’s going to arise from the ashes to take its place. <br /><br />As disorienting as these times of transition can be, they are evidence of a sacred process occurring deep in the personal and collective soul. For it is only from a shattering that the phoenix is able to emerge. <br /><br />The question now for so many of us is: what is it that the soul wants? Not what I thought I wanted, what I should want, or what others want for me, but what is calling to me from the depths of who and what I am, into a life of new vision, purpose, and meaning? <br /><br />As we engage in this holy reassembling, it can be so easy to lose track of our home base, whether we imagine this center as the palace of the soul, the light of the spirit, or the ventral vagal safety-pathways of the holy human nervous system. <br /><br />The great poets, alchemists, wayfarers, and mystics have declared that the path is everywhere but it can take a slowing down and a cleansing of our perception for this to become a living reality.<br /><br />Learn more about the course <a href="https://mattlicataphd.com/tending-to-the-soul/" target="_blank">here</a> or you can write to support@mattlicataphd.com with any questions.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHrm6F0UAHX8SXWegOHWVma1C47fCYcco_L2iv0kdlx77BzlL1Hcj9yawcSpUic9YNMu3yiXJIepYCNjEU4jiZsjI-VQCF-rG4wdk3hn1_N_yyLC6lkZOyZw40IW2syug4Va5yNebyIIIjBjbyHu20RzfNeg3VzHy9LVMx0AYRfXxxT4cokHnXIk7RyA/s510/TTS_Courses_icons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="510" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHrm6F0UAHX8SXWegOHWVma1C47fCYcco_L2iv0kdlx77BzlL1Hcj9yawcSpUic9YNMu3yiXJIepYCNjEU4jiZsjI-VQCF-rG4wdk3hn1_N_yyLC6lkZOyZw40IW2syug4Va5yNebyIIIjBjbyHu20RzfNeg3VzHy9LVMx0AYRfXxxT4cokHnXIk7RyA/w400-h300/TTS_Courses_icons.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Matt Licatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03737454478857554009noreply@blogger.com