Everything meaningful is some kind of unlearning - from what we think we know, to fully experiencing life as it is, right here before us: parenting, quantum physics, marriage, the work of anti-racism, peace-activism, mourning, poetry, healing.
Unlearning requires a container, and a mirror. A container being somewhere safe enough for us to question the certainties that fix our beliefs, and a mirror being a surface, or a number of surfaces, that allow us to see who we are ‘being’. Not the nice idea of ourselves, but the actuality of our presence, communication and patterns, which is ultimately the foothold we need for any lasting change. That actuality of who we are being is always driven by the map of the past, and it’s unconscious (set up to survive difficult childhood experiences, beneath our conscious awareness) and usually stuck on repeat - because we can’t yet see it. My work is about distinguishing this loop of survival, because in that seeing we begin to dissolve its grip (the fight/flight mechanism in the nervous system) and we liberate the energy and agency we need to outgrow the past and rejoin the flow of life.
As much as my 10 year psychotherapy training (Institute of Group Analysis) gave me essential knowledge about psychodynamics, insight into the human condition, deep understanding of the unconscious, and the skills to work with complex trauma, it did not invite me to question reality or hold a space for the body to begin its own independent healing. I had to turn elsewhere for these whispers I knew I (and my clients) needed, and so I found BodyMind Maturation Coaching and the physical practice of Elemental Chi Kung, and came to birth a space of my own where others could experience this particular interface of the visible and the invisible: Earth Matrix.
What does it mean to truly understand the experience of others? It has to start with ourselves. Earth Matrix is a group designed specifically for health professionals and practitioners - those who usually hold space for others - to be held. Doctors, nurses, carers, therapists, coaches, bodyworkers and healers of all kinds. People with knowledge and expertise, in need of a place to put all that knowing down, and develop a different kind of listening.
Just as I continue to question the limits of the traditional psychological paradigm, so I find myself committed to passing on a new kind of possibility - one led by the non-verbal wisdom of the Body, and the powerful energetics of the Earth Element: presence, depth, stillness, honesty, availability. The real teacher of course, is Life, and it is my role to support you in deepening that relationship.
Earth Matrix is a 6 month experience, running from October to March, tracing the seasonal arc of the 5 Elements from late Summer through the long dark of Winter, and rising again in the Spring. I lead Chi Kung classes every month to embody the intelligence of the natural world, and each class is followed by a Social Dreaming Matrix the next morning. Dreams are an extraordinary resource for self-enquiry because they offer a direct route to the unconscious, surfacing raw emotions usually hidden in the layers of the BodyMind. The practice of Social Dreaming (Gordon Lawrence, 1982) where we speak dreams alongside others, enables us to tune in to the bigger picture of our shared human experience:
“It is the dream, not the dreamer that is the subject of the Matrix. The dreams shared are seen as objects existing in their own right (rather than as disguised messages from a private, psychic world). The participants are invited to look at a dream as if it had never existed before, seeing its uniqueness and rarity. It is comparable to picking up a pebble on a beach as a child. You look at it in minute detail, as the poet Rilke put it, something that “finds itself in the centre of your universe”. (Lawrence, 2011)
Two weeks later we meet for a Maturation Dialogue & Integration Session to uncover who we are ‘being’ on an even deeper level. This is where the real shift occurs, because who we are being is giving us our experience of the world. Let me explain, albeit briefly. There is no such thing as an objective reality ‘out there’, although that is the generally accepted foundation of Western, materialist, Cartesian thought. Reality is an appearing phenomenon: the only reality we get is the one that appears to us, from where we’re looking from. And where we’re looking from, is generated by the story we carry within us, in other words a map of the past. Our life unfolds, and we think it’s happening to us, but we are the vessel through which our reality is created, every, single, day. This is both the universal blindspot of the human condition, and our unrealised power.
Earth Matrix works on the whole of you, using movement, perception, dreaming, feeling, speaking and experiencing, to:
unhook your relationship to the past
release transgenerational trauma
rebalance and regulate your system
improve your ability to connect
discern and draw mutually beneficially boundaries
deepen the space you hold for your clients
outgrow the limits of who you ‘think’ you are
rediscover your unique essence and nurture it into life
All through the process of unlearning. Unlearning the disconnection that keeps us separate from the natural world through the practice of Elemental Chi Kung.
Unlearning the denial of vital emotions and collective experiences through Dreamwork.
Unlearning the survival identity that keeps us small by distinguishing the past in the present, and releasing its grip.
Earth Matrix is an intimate group with space for 8 participants. Members receive Elemental Handbooks each month as part of the experience, offering teaching, reflections, inspiration and journaling questions. I’m sharing the Wood Element Handbook here as a glimpse into this unique container, and hope it’s a stimulating read, whether you care for others in your professional role, or not.
I’ll be teaching a free Chi Kung Class on Saturday 21/09 at 9-10am (focused on Metal forms to support the transition into Autumn) with time to chat afterwards if you would like to find out more about Earth Matrix - use the code EARTHMATRIX to book your free place.
I’ll be running a free Earth Matrix Taster Session on Friday 27/09 at 12noon-1pm UK time, with 30 minutes of Chi Kung practice followed by reflections and Q&A.
And if you’d simply like to experience the unique Dreamwork I offer, come to my monthly Dreamweaving (Chi Kung Class in the evening, followed by Social Dreaming in the morning) October 2nd and 3rd, which is also free to join for October.
May the dreams within us speak their truth, beyond the edges of you and I, may we sink our hands into the cool, dark earth, and drift together downstream.
hoping to join a session, soon