Its easy to take the healing of a paper cut for granted.  Its effortless.  My body is a miracle and my body is healing all the time.  Healing is the mystery of creation in each moment.  Healing comes through me as me, and it is not done by me.  I cannot control my healing, but I can set up conditions conducive to my healing and even to others’ healing.  To do so is an act of reverence—to show up with awe, curiosity, and openness to possibility.  Healing is a full-bodied improvisation (sometimes best done in systematic ways).

In contrast to what I just outlined in the above paragraph, my mind has a pattern of assuming the worst in any given situation…ostensibly so that I might be surprised by something better.  I tend to think I’m being unassuming in doing so—but actually it’s an arrogant attempt at control.  I repeat this pattern at my own expense.  I set up conditions conducive to my own healing when I recognize and accept the very simplest miracles, reorganizing my skeptical mind to accept change.  When I relinquish control I am given the miracle of life, healing, and joy.  I’m writing to you about this in part to remind myself of the lightness and play that comes with letting go.

Chances are I will wake up tomorrow feeling just a bit more free because I wrote this.  Chances are you read this far because these words touched some part of you that resonates.  Chances are both of us will feel a moment of purpose in the next delicious and unexpected breath… simply by caring to notice it.  Perhaps we’ll feel each other there–because miraculous healing is normal.

As so much of our society collapses and dis-integrates how do I find personal stability and growth?  Whether a collapse is taking place or not, and I do recognize some of my own shadow in the drama of that perception, the core of the question is true for me.  I am in a time of reckoning, personally experiencing collapse and disintegration in the structures and relationships that I’ve depended on.  I want to share some of what I’m seeing in myself and my life both for my own healing and in case it resonates or supports you in your journey. 

1. Care of my body through movement, meditation, and being conscious of what goes into me—food, medicine, media, and the company I keep.  If you’ve been on this list for some time or know me this is surely not surprising.  You probably engage with these things too.
2. Radical Authenticity:  Being real with others.  As I do this—here and now—I’m aware of speaking from my own experience about me rather than pointing blame or shame at you or anybody.  In revealing what is mine I am vulnerable; I could get hurt.  There have been times that in my authenticity I have hurt those around me.  That’s different.  I don’t have a perfect understanding of where these two aspects meet, but I see that the difference matters a lot.  I experience self-healing and hope I am in service to you through my authentic communication. That’s why I’m writing this.
3. Allowing myself to disintegrate.  I’m watching many of my relationships disintegrate as others build with greater integrity.  I witness fear, shame, and anger in myself as this happens.  As much as possible I don’t allow these feelings to lead my actions.  Allowing disintegration to happen is different from violently causing destruction of self or other.  I offer myself love and forgiveness every time I can do so.  I like to look myself in the eyes (mirrors help) and say “I’ve got you.”  I see that my disintegration will make space for greater integrity in time.
4. I’m looking for clarity and waiting for it.  I have wanted to have clarity in my heart and actions so badly that I rush into it falsely.  Inner knowing can’t be rushed.  That’s frustrating and amazing.
5. I’m embracing pain without seeking it.  I’m embracing death without seeking it.  Life results.  This is paradoxical, and maybe the same as number 3.
6. I’m seeking and learning from teachers that support my growth by assisting me in my inner knowing.  Some are people.  Some are other aspects of nature such as smart plants.  I’m not a rule follower—please don’t tell me what to do.  Sometimes I unconsciously beg for rules, but I consistently disown them when they’re given.  I learn best through invitations into myself.  I seek the God within me.  This is also how and what I teach.

I wrote you last week about the dynamic between Healing and Play. I’m grateful to be able to offer both through the gatherings below. It would be an honor to have you with us.

The New Years BraveSpace Playshop

will be a celebration of togetherness through dance and embodiment at SomaWorks Studio in Boise, Thursday Dec 30^th in the evening to the afternoon of Sunday Jan 2^nd. BraveSpace is an embodied practice of being authentically ourselves, together in movement.  In this BraveSpace Playshop we will explore the mycelium network of fungi as a metaphoric and imagistic way in to connection within ourselves and with each other.  You will always be at choice in how you participate; contact improvisation, somatic movement mediation, open ecstatic dance jams, hands-on bodywork trades, and sharing circles will all be offered.   Leah Nelson from Salt Lake City (not related, but great name right?) will be teaching CI with me.  

More information is at THIS LINK.  15 participants max.  Housing can be made available for out-of-town participants by in-town participants.  7 spots remain as of this writing.  

$300 not including housing donations ($100 suggested) or co-created communal food possibilities.

Text me at (208)985-0331 if you’d like to join us.  I’m happy to chat more about it too. 

The BraveSpace Healing and Bodywork Retreat

for 5 participants for 5 days (not yet set) in January is particularly well suited to people with a clear healing objective, and a desire to simultaneously address physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of their healing journey. Participants will have the opportunity to dive deep into the healing wisdom of their bodies through daily individual work with me and collective witnessing and interaction in a focused and intentional group.   Traumatic patterns live in the body, and we rarely generate or heal those patterns alone.  Myofascial and CranioSacral Bodywork teach the body directly how to release patterns that no longer serve us so that we can grow.  Somatic Movement Therapy offers empowerment as we practice new patterns and find flow in our bodies and minds.  Group BraveSpace somatic movement/dance sessions affirm our healing in relation to each other, amplifying the potency of each person’s individual journey.  This retreat will be particularly well suited to people with a clear healing objective, and a desire to simultaneously address physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of their healing journey.  Some housing will be available—air BnB and other options close to the studio are also plentiful in downtown Boise.

$1200-$1500

Apply at THIS LINK

Here’s feedback I’ve been honored to receive from my clients:

My somatic sessions with Matthew have been an amazing journey of reconnecting to my body. Some key things I worked on was how to identify and set boundaries, foundational body movement and connection to the earth, and how to process things going inward. I HIGHLY recommend SomaWorks with Matthew!  (Charyl Shoumann)

Simply put working with Matthew has helped me answer some of the biggest and most challenging questions of this time in my life. Along the way it has been fun, powerful, inspiring and so freeing compared to other styles of ‘self work’. I always feel that I have his full attention and care. Can not recommend highly enough, no matter what questions you are currently facing. (Colin Koach)

Matthew makes me feel seen, heard, valued, and accepted. From this foundation of trust, and using his intuitive Somatic Ideation process, I have grown into a deeper understanding of myself, and a deeper connection between body, mind, and spirit. Through his gentle and insightful guidance, I have grown personally by leaps and bounds, and have discovered skills and tools that are helpful to me in my everyday life. Matthew’s deep and broad knowledge of the body makes him uniquely equipped to lead clients down paths of personal inquiry, welcoming the participation of the client’s whole self each step of the way. (Hannah Ruth Brothers)

I am drawn to wonder about two axes in interaction:  

One axis is the continuum of Healing and Play.  I experience healing in play and vice versa—they are not opposites.  There are aspects of healing that need to be serious.  Deep sadness and mourning cannot be bypassed.  Critical times of healing literally bisect life and death.  Yet there are also moments, even inside of such times, when it serves to drop the seriousness of healing, wounds, or trauma.  There is great benefit in the lightness of play.  Another way I think of this dynamic is a balancing between darkness and light.  Each has its time and phrasing, and like yin and yang each is held in the other.

I hold a lot of spaces for embodied group healing and play through open Ecstatic Dances and guided BraveSpace® workshops.  (Please check out 4 day New Year’s BraveSpace Playshop) As I’ve been feeling my movement along the Healing/Play axis and in speaking with my community about it I’ve also wondered at the relationship between Pleasure and Pain.  Once again each may be held in the other.  On the surface Pleasure seems to affine with light and Play; Pain with darkness and Healing.  However, in dance, sports, and even video games exertion and pain form a texture within the play.  Conversely, there is also great healing offered through pleasure.  Sometimes the four qualities of these axes seem to meet simultaneously:  A moment in the intimacy of meeting another’s gaze can simultaneously bring me tears of sadness and joy; our eyes meeting both playfully and in deep healing.  Analysis inherently fails to do justice to these lived experiences—I share primarily as a supposition that there is a great mystery within these relationships.

The axes do help me embrace a diverse set of physical, social, and emotional experiences.  Below is the grid these axes form.  What is described by the entire grid?  I have yet to name it, but for me it has something to do with acceptance and spiritual capacity.  What does the grid describe for you?  What experiences might fall in each quadrant for you (A, B, C, and D)?  Are there some quadrants you resist or prefer?  Let me know what’s there for you and I’ll share responses in a future post.

Dear ones-

It has been some time since I have been willing to speak.  In the past two years it has been difficult to know what to share.  My views of what is taking place in our world, in our bodies, and in the relationships that define my daily experience do not fit with what I am told I should see by my family of origin, some of my friends, and certainly the mainstream media.  It is easy to become flippant in the face of polarized positions on topics so important as health, equity, and ecology.  I must constantly acknowledge that I know less than I think I do—and that is largely why I’ve stayed quiet.  And now I also see that it is important to speak up.  I learned sometime this year that consensus is not agreement—it is instead an acknowledgement and coalescing of the many voices in the collective.  I am honored to have your eyes on these words, and I aim to speak with humility, integrity, and reverence.  

Our bodies have an intelligence that is too easily ignored in our culture.  We are enamored with our technological endeavors, and they are indeed fantastic.  Yet, most contemporary methods of communication, production, transportation, and healing reliably bypass our bodies’ intrinsic capabilities.  Sometimes we even actively damn them and stand in their way—I see this in the general rejection of natural immunity to you-know-what.  Often we ignore the mysteries and capabilities of our bodies out of fear, easily driven more deeply into distrust of our bodies by collective systems that profit and survive because we disregard the wholeness we already have. 

Listening to the body is not a fix-all; that is also a fantasy.  If you have read my posts over the years you may recognize a theme of death.  None of us is immortal.  Collectively this is a place of incredible discomfort, and I see us giving away our personal power and sovereignty to corporate interests in the hope that technology will save us from death.  Neither technology nor our connection with our own bodies can do this.  Both appear to support life when used consciously.  There are many states of consciousness.  A healing state arises for me once I have acknowledged my fear and have stopped allowing it to lead.  My deepest healing states arise when I allow death and stop attempting to control it.  From that place I can embrace the vitality coming through me, and make conscious choices about my actions, including what I place in my body.  Without this step I find I am acting through my addictions.  That happens too.

So this post is a re-beginning.  I will start to share my journey more freely again.  I will speak for and from the intelligence of my body.  I will name things that may be uncomfortable for me, for you, and for us, in an attempt to go beneath my fears.  I will do my best to let go of attempts to get your approval while simultaneously showing up in service to our shared journey.  I offer this to you out of love and gratitude for being alive.  Thanks for meeting me here.

Matthew Nelson

Prime Mover, SomaWorks

To be effective in my relationships with others—and especially if there’s something I wish to stand for–it is important that I know what I’m standing on.  The root of ‘humility’ is ‘humus,’ or earth.  My ability to stand is fundamentally generated on the support I have available.  Standing in mud is slippery.  Standing on one leg gives more reach, but less stability.  Standing on one leg in mud and trying to reach for much of anything is likely to fail.  My support gives basis to my authority; the power I have to generate an effect.  It pays to be honest with myself about the ground on which I stand if I want to have any effect on the communal field.  

Each of us has a part to play in the communal field of consciousness.  I never have anything ‘right’ on my own—no matter how enlightened I may feel.  How could I when so many of us believe we’re the enlightened ones, and yet we don’t all have the same answer?  So if I zoom out a bit and look at consciousness communally, I sometimes catch a glimpse of the integrative process within which each of our perspectives contribute to something more whole.  Any, and possibly each of us, may choose to stand for something.  Standing for something can be an act of service when it is done with humility.  I believe it is a kind of channeling:  That what I stand for comes through me as the amalgamation of my life experience.  It includes that which I have learned, felt, witnessed, and in some way integrated.

Standing for something contributes to the more diverse communal field.  For context I imagine this process inside the microcosm of my own body:  If I eat a big meal and my stomach is full then it will send a message to other parts of my body saying “I think we should stop eating—that was awesome and now I’m full.”  Yet other parts of me may feel differently.  Perhaps there’s still food on my plate and I don’t want to offend my host.  My body as a whole may behave differently from how my stomach would prefer, but my stomach’s voice still matters.

If my stomach is full and I try to eat too much extra to honor the person who served me, I might become sick and embarrass everyone more than if I had just stopped eating.  To honor the communal consciousness is both to stand for what is mine to express, and to honor that I can’t know everything.  If I ignore or belittle the person I disagree with I’m no longer honoring the integrated process of holding different views.  To have genuine authority requires this humility; without it I’m not standing on true ground.  Without humility I may mistake that which I stand for as the ground on which I stand.  My identification with my own viewpoint may lead me to believe I’m objectively right rather than channeling a particular possibility.

I’m curious about what it means to ‘Take a Stand’.  It strikes me as easily arrogant.  With ‘taking’ comes the implication of ownership, and the forceful transfer of it.  Perhaps this is the manifestation of identifying that which I stand for as the very base I stand on.  I see the tendency to take a stand in myself all the time—it’s comforting to think I know ‘the’ truth.  And certainly in our culture of ownership, where ideas and information now command some of the highest prices, we are encouraged to take a stand.  

There is a lot of competition these days to take stands that appear to be freely given.  Each political party would like for me to take theirs, and I have even been shamed for failing to take a stand by and with people I care about.  If you’re not with us you’re against us, they say, directly or indirectly.  Yet don’t we all stand on shared ground?  Might our arguments actually be musings about what we think we’re standing on?  And so here I am writing to you, standing for idealogic diversity.  I will continue to practice respecting our disagreements.