Dear friends,
On Wednesday, I’ll be announcing the opening of my new 2023 (online/
yearlong) group exploring a soulful spirituality and path of embodied healing.
Here's a description of one of the modules:
PROVIDING A HOME FOR THE LOST ORPHANS OF PSYCHE AND SOMA: HOLDING THE PIECES
OF SOUL WITH ILLUMINATION, PRESENCE, AND COMPASSION
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 relational wounding.
When our capacity to process unbearable terror, panic, shame, and rage is
overwhelmed, undigested pieces of experience are held subcortically and in our
cellular circuitry, unreachable by thinking which is a layer removed from
the fires of the alchemical body.
Encouragement to “just get over it, that’s totally irrational, you can’t
really believe that, you know that’s not true” and so forth is experienced by
an inflamed nervous system as the activity of violence and aggression.
It’s like an autonomic form of gaslighting and reflects a
deep misunderstanding of trauma and the workings of implicit memory, and only
contributes to re-traumatization, in personal, cultural, and collective
networks.
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 sense that no one can understand, that there is no companionship into the
dark night. I am alone in this. This is devastating to the soul.
When that raging alive little boy or aching little girl cries out longing to
be held, known, felt, and heard, they’re really not all that interested in our
clear cognitive analysis, rational inquiry, thoughts on the matter, or even our
powerful spiritual insights.
They’re yearning for something else… for you, your heart, your
holding. To know that you will stay near, not abandon or shame them, that you
will do your best to provide sanctuary and safe passage for them to return
Home, to be allowed to come out of that crystallized, frozen state and live, play,
and breathe once again.
In this way they don’t even want or need to be healed, but to be
held. And to feel safe.
Together, we’ll open to the reality of the inner family and enter into a new
relationship with the richness of our inner world. In this way, we
start to discover that things may be a bit more alive, open, spacious, loving,
and even magical than we thought.
Please look out for additional information later in the week if you're interested in learning more, and also be sure you're signed up to my mailing list if you're not already.
Warmly,
Matt
Photo by Bess Hamiti
