On Weirdness
And the space beneath the surface of waking life
This is my intention for Earth Matrix, the multifaceted group experience I lead every year.
Taking its 8 members directly into the reservoir of the unconscious through the physical practice of Elemental Chi Kung, the ritual of Social Dreaming, the relational mirror of Group Therapy, and the ontological enquiry of Maturation.
It sounds a bit strange doesn’t it. Speaking dreams alongside others, moving with the Elements, surrounded by mirrors, and Maturation? What even is Maturation?
I’ll ground all this in a moment, but first, a truth of sorts: the more I let myself be the weirdness that I am, the more you can too. I’m done with trying to fit myself into the narrow frame of psychotherapy and simultaneously disowning the powerful psychotherapeutic expertise I carry so I can fit inside yet another box. There is no box, there never was. Boxes are creations of the mind. Sometimes they serve us, mostly they limit every new generation’s attempts to outgrow how we’ve been showing up as a species.
And on that theme let me ask you, my reader, a question. Who is the one caught in the familiar repeating pattern you always seem to find yourself in? Of shame, terror, numbness, rejection, rage. Usually behind closed doors. No matter the work you do on yourself, the books you read, or the changes you endeavour to make?
My guess is he, or she or they, are very, very young. This is Maturation. Opening a dialogue to see WHERE we are seeing life from. The roots of it all. Not to try and mend it in any way, but to shift where we are standing in relation to it.
We cannot be responsible for what has happened to us. We cannot even be responsible for our reaction to what happened, because we are human. But we can be responsible to, and with, the reaction we have, and keep having, to what happened. Which means resisting the compulsion to act it out again, and instead choosing to FEEL the original depth of emotion. Feel it so deeply that it moves through your BodyMind as an experience, rather than an identity driving your next move. Can you hear the freedom in this? The space to be a flawed human being AND not be overrun by it? In essence, to no longer perpetuate the loop, which is a form of mature responsibility, powered by compassion, rather than analysis. In Maturation we are working to loosen our attachment to the past, and gradually, piece by piece we find ourselves fully present, and more conscious than ever before.
So why the particular focus on ‘the reservoir of the unconscious’ in my work? In a word, weirdness. We unlearn the patterns of the past and become more conscious precisely so that there can be space for something new (which the weird always is) to emerge. Remember: the only place that anything new can come from is nothing, and nowhere, or we’re just generating more of the known, which is more of the same. The unconscious is the doorway to the unlimited vastness that is bigger than us and beyond us, but also right within us. Universe incarnate.
A second important question: who would you be if could 100% trust the unthought knowns that live within you? What your heart wants, what your gut knows, what your dreams are bubbling up? Your rational mind won’t serve you here, my words are speaking to something deeper, more ephemeral, pre-verbal. Something original and essential that you arrived with when you became form - ie human. Chi Kung and Social Dreaming take us back to the healthy state of daydreaming, which I define simply as looking at nothing, with interest. The lantern light of a child’s eyes surrounded by a timeless world where anything is possible.
This dance between our expansive potential and our flawed humanity never ends. We need both, and we will always need both. This is the weave. The ache and the blessing of being alive.
If you’re intrigued, and the weirdness speaks to you, I’m running a SOCIAL DREAMING MATRIX next Wednesday 27th November 7.30-9.00am as a taste of this landscape. It’s free to join.
And if the multidimensional group experience I offer (Earth Matrix) sounds like a space you need to be part of, I have 3 places still available for January 2025.
