E-mail service for Matt's blog being discontinued

Dear friends,

Please note that moving forward, we have decided to discontinue the email service associated with this blog (this will be the last post that will be emailed out). 

I will not be discontinuing the blog itself, though!

If you are interested in receiving periodic emails from me regarding new writing and upcoming online courses and events, and information about free videos and webinars, please sign up for my main mailing list here. We do not mail out very often, will never share your email, and will never include any spam or ads. 

>>Sign up for Matt's mailing list here

In order to continue to read the posts made here at the blog, you'll simply need to visit manually at https://alovinghealingspace.blogspot.com/.

Thank you for your interest in sharing this path with me. I look forward to staying in touch over the months to come.

Warmly,

Matt

P.S. I'll be relaunching my online course on "Resting Your Nervous System" with new live sessions starting in September. Please stay tuned for more information about it, and also a new ongoing study-practice group that will begin in the new year. 

Seeds of holding and light

Over time, as we deepen in our practice, we may come to discover that taking care of our unresolved emotional wounding and unprocessed trauma, and resting our own nervous systems isn’t something we do only for ourselves. 

It’s something we do for others and also for the world.

Untangling the trance of disembodiment and self-abandonment is itself the activity of love, for the earth, the ancestors, and also for the ones yet to arrive here.

Through our own unique play of embodied compassion, seeds of holding and of light are planted which then ripple through the neural circuitry of our star.

Photo by John_Nature_Photos

***Thank you for your emails regarding the next online course. We're going to be relaunching the Resting Your Nervous System course, with three new live sessions, to start in September. I'll be sure to post details here or you can sign up for my main mailing list to ensure you receive all of my updates. 

Untangling the circuitry of self-abandonment

Some are put in the position of emotionally caring for an adult early in their lives at a time they themselves need more than anything to have their own inner world mirrored back to them. To be seen as a subject with an interiority, not merely as a narcissistic reflection of the other. Until reorganized, this template orients the way we see ourselves and engage in close relationship.

In these early configurations, the little one’s sense of self becomes tangled up in the other’s moods, anxiety, and injured self-esteem. The job of the little one is shifted from unstructured play and discovery into tending to the unlived life of a caretaker, a task that is not designed for a young nervous system, nor for a tender little heart.

If interested, we can explore how this template might be at play: in our phobias around having/ expressing needs, in the fear around disappointing someone, in the hesitation around allowing another to matter. In the terror of relationship, on the one hand, and in the painful longing for it on the other. In the existential confusion about where we end and the other begins. In the ancient conclusion that caring for another requires primordial disavowal of our own psyche, body, and heart.

Having come to see our own self-worth through the changing psychic states of those around us, we find ourselves wondering: Have I disappointed them? What can I do to make them feel better? Should I take more responsibility for the unfulfilled longing in their hearts? They are upset, surely that is somehow traceable back to me, right? I’ve failed somehow, right? As a little one longing for any sort of empathic connection, we’ll do anything to receive even a limited amount of psychic (and physical) holding.

Accessing, illuminating, and untangling the tentacles of this template can go a long way in healing chronic feelings of shame and unworthiness, where we begin to differentiate our worth as a person from the moods, suffering, and unlived life of others. To withdraw the projection of our own basic goodness from others and locate it inside ourselves. This withdrawal is a great act of kindness – for ourselves, the other, and for the world.

It is by way of this disentangling that we can truly love ourselves and others and act from the radical force of true compassion, not merely re-enact the old pathways of self-abandonment and empathic failure.

Today may not be the day for answers

The contradictory feelings of hope and hopelessness, meaning and flatness, anxiety and rest. The shakiness and uncertainty in the belly. The tightness in the throat. The raw breaking inside the heart. The joy that at times is there, but never can seem to be sustained.

All the techniques, the teachings, the things to manifest, the new beliefs to take on, the worn-out ideas about the true source of peace, aliveness, and flowing abundance. Perhaps there were once answers to these questions, but now there is no answer to be found. Only a burning where the questions once existed.

This burning is the doorway, the portal, pure evidence of the connection.

A cosmic sort of exhaustion can come at times, where we find ourselves in the bardo between one moment and the next. We can’t quite go back to the way it was, but the rebirth has yet to appear. There is a creativity in the liminal but it can seem out of reach. We are asked to marinate in the womb of now, tend to the groundlessness, and find refuge in the unknown: to be midwife to the darkened illumination. There are signs and symbols and guidance all around and inside us, but their appearance is governed by a timeline written somewhere else.

As we bear witness to a new day, in awe at the gift that has been given… the breath is here. The heart is quivering. The birds have come. Sounds from the other world, another opportunity to hear, to behold the miracle of the senses. The sun has come up again. The moon is hiding nearby waiting her turn. For just one moment, the veil parts and the perfection is there awaiting our participation.

Your life is not an unending self-improvement project and your heart is not a venture to be undertaken, mastered, and completed. Perhaps today was never going to be the day when you figured it all out, got all your questions answered, or resolved the contradictions. It's just too wild for all that. Just too creative. Just too alive.

Today may not be the day for answers, but to let your heart break open to the vastness of the question. To fall to the ground as a humble lover of the mystery. And listen once again.

Disappointing another

In any meaningful relationship, we will inevitably disappoint our partners, families, and friends. To skillfully navigate the energies of disappointment is a real yoga that can take quite a lot of awareness (and compassion). The landscape of disappointing another can be incredibly challenging, especially if our role in early relationships was to set aside our own needs for another, where caring for them was the primary way that we received love and attention.

What is it like for you to disappoint someone? To let them down? To not be able to save them? To feel that you could be doing more to care for their unlived life? To not be able to mend their broken heart? What does it mean about you if you disappoint them? What are the consequences if you are not able to “make them happy” or remove their anxiety, meaninglessness, or uncertainty?

Will you be abandoned if you disappoint them? Will you be the target of rage and judgment? Will you be shamed? Are you unsafe? Should you just go ahead and try to make them feel better at all costs, even if detrimental to your own self?

What are the feelings and emotional conclusions you are asked to tend to in the wake of your letting another down, when you aren't able to help them, see them, and be there for them in the way they need in a given moment? When no matter how hard you try, they feel that you have misunderstood and let them down.

Aren’t we supposed to meet their anxiety, heartbreak, phobias, and symptoms in a way that is consistently helpful, empathic, and supportive? Say insightful things? Give wise advice? Fix them? Cure them? Heal them? Make it all go away? What if we fail and they become disappointed? What does it mean about us as humans (and healers) if we are not healing, but disappointing?

It’s some very rich territory that we can explore.

Photo by Guzi11