Awesome sharing, Matthew. I love the participatory perspective with which you are reporting from the cutting edge of collective healing. All that "embedded journalism" trainings seems to have prepared you so well to share SO much now with so many! I know it doesn't pay as well as The Financial Times of London or Reuters, but on the scale of karma you are a billionaire, bro! Thanks for helping to bring Steffi's great work to light. I wish everyone, literally, would read the book she has curated. It is brilliant beyond words. And so are you!
Zhiwa, wow you have with this comment helped me to see more clearly what I am actually trying to do with this newsletter, ie "participatory reporting from the cutting-edge of collective healing." Without you, this newsletter would not exist, and your continued witnessing and support for this work is a huge resource and source of inspiration and affirmation for me. And I totally agree on Steffi's book (Climate, Psychology and Change) which is right at the emerging frontier of consciousness awareness at this time.
"What innate wisdom and subtle capacities had I sent into exile growing up because there’d been nowhere for them to land in my family or education system?"
Me, too.
And:
"What possibilities might this wise old man illuminate, if I could welcome him in from the starry night, his lantern so bright — casting away the shadows?"
Oh yes, those possibilities! Bringing back that exiled innate wisdom and those subtle capacities — the more of us who are able to do so, the better we might be able to handle the current polycrisis, shed the skin of our dysfunctioning extractive globalised power-over society and — raw, vulnerable and truly alive again — join in co-creating a joyful, loving, emergent, vibrant and abundant present in which all beings everywhere on this planet can thrive.
Anne, thank you so much for your resonance, and love that you could also feel the possibilities embodied by the Wise Man archetype...I was surprised he showed up as one of my "exiles", but in a way -- for the reasons you describe -- it also makes perfect sense...
Great share! The combination of personal storytelling and slipping in some of the basics of the IFS worldview is really powerful. I began therapy with Internal Family Systems about 8 years ago, in middle age after decades of staying small and being paralyzed by polar opposite beliefs on ideas or action steps, plus being frequently hijacked by overwhelming emotions. It's been a long haul for me, cuz I have developmental trauma and am a survivor of narcissistic emotional abuse, yet there is more and more light at the end of the tunnel. IFS makes so much sense and I hold a lot of hope that the more people understand the basic premise that it's normal to have multiple parts and that none of them have bad intentions, along with ALL of us having the wise SELF that is unharmed and waiting to help these exiled and managing parts to shift, the better. It's one of the ways to achieve a more trauma-informed world, where more people understand where the polarized impulses within come from, that it's possible to calm them down, why people get hijacked into unhealthy, unhelpful reactivity, on and on. There's so much potential for maturing. It hit me deep today, your words "the soil of deep masculine groundedness that doesn’t depend on validation from a power-over hierarchy." OMG, I wish you enormous success with your Resonant Man initiative, cuz this world could really use more grounded, emotionally mature, self-secure men in leadership and power positions. It seems to me that decent sized portions of the female and other gender identified folks have been pursuing these sorts of qualities for many years now. The more men get involved with this sort of transformation, the better.
Lori, thank you so much for sharing your experience so generously in return; and so beautiful to hear about the ways IFS has proved so transformational in your own process. I have never studied IFS formally, though my wife Genevieve is a clinical psychologist and is IFS-trained, so I have learned something about it from her, and of course via my collaborator Steffi, as described above. I share your hope that the insights of IFS will become more commonly understood because -- as you suggest -- it does make so much intuitive sense. And thank you very much indeed for your support for the Resonant Man, we're off to a great start and our doors are open to more men, so any help spreading the word would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your interest in Resonant World, and for sharing such a transparent and empowering story here.
Thanks for sharing Matthew. I love that you incorporated the pulling of cards into the workshop and allowed that feedback to speak to each of you and bring up a higher resolution of information and understanding. I also love how you shared your personal experience to illustrate a teaching. I’m noticing how it lands warmly in me and how parts of it resonate within me as well.
This weekend I had an experience of a man coming on line after a woman had shared something very vulnerable and he taught her a lesson that hadn’t been asked for. His share was a good teaching, but it was just that. There was no part of his experience in what he shared, so it came across as “and now I’m teaching you a lesson woman,” rather than were a couple of peers exploring territory together ( we each have wisdom flowing through us and we’re learning together as we go), which is what our shared agreements were. I did end up privately messaging him and reflecting my experience of share in a curious way and my reflection was well received and he removed his comment with the intention of taking it to some supervision.
For me, the experience wasn’t fully complete, but reading your piece above has brought it full circle, because what I would have wished for instead, was that this man illustrate the full glory of the wisdom that he was wanting to share in that moment through his own personal experience and story. Reading your piece where you have done this on the heels of my experience with this other man comes to me as feedback. Even though my wish wasn’t completed through the man I interacted with, it still was fulfilled through the place where it was possible in this moment, which was you and your share.
My apologies for taking away from the climate topic, but the process and the interweaving of intentions being fulfilled is as interesting to me as the content.
Tracy, so glad to hear my post landed in the way it did for you, when it did. Also appreciating your commitment to the kind of emergent dialogue based on the awareness that "we each have wisdom flowing through us" -- this is very much the spirit of the Resonant Man initative, where this month we are exploring transformative dialogue and the practice of listening. (Maybe you can send a few men our way!!)
Thanks Matthew - great piece. Was shocked to hear you mention Findhorn - have lived there for a good number of years - over the years. But started my climate awakening journey back in 1990 in the Daintree rainforest of north-eastern Queensland, Australia, when a Graduate Management Trainee at Qantas - my equivalent of Reuters. Much in common. If you have a mailing list I will join it! Still getting the hang of Substack. Thanks for your work in the world. Sam.
"Participatory knowing refers to a multidimensional access to reality that includes not only the intellectual knowing of the mind, but also the emotional and empathetic knowing of the heart, the sensual and somatic knowing of the body, the visionary and intuitive knowing of the soul, as well as any other way of knowing available to human beings."
Ferrer (2002 p.121)
Seems like you could adapt this to your style of journalism, MG.
Awesome sharing, Matthew. I love the participatory perspective with which you are reporting from the cutting edge of collective healing. All that "embedded journalism" trainings seems to have prepared you so well to share SO much now with so many! I know it doesn't pay as well as The Financial Times of London or Reuters, but on the scale of karma you are a billionaire, bro! Thanks for helping to bring Steffi's great work to light. I wish everyone, literally, would read the book she has curated. It is brilliant beyond words. And so are you!
Zhiwa, wow you have with this comment helped me to see more clearly what I am actually trying to do with this newsletter, ie "participatory reporting from the cutting-edge of collective healing." Without you, this newsletter would not exist, and your continued witnessing and support for this work is a huge resource and source of inspiration and affirmation for me. And I totally agree on Steffi's book (Climate, Psychology and Change) which is right at the emerging frontier of consciousness awareness at this time.
Thanks so much for sharing, Matthew!
Two sentences resonate a 100% for me:
"What innate wisdom and subtle capacities had I sent into exile growing up because there’d been nowhere for them to land in my family or education system?"
Me, too.
And:
"What possibilities might this wise old man illuminate, if I could welcome him in from the starry night, his lantern so bright — casting away the shadows?"
Oh yes, those possibilities! Bringing back that exiled innate wisdom and those subtle capacities — the more of us who are able to do so, the better we might be able to handle the current polycrisis, shed the skin of our dysfunctioning extractive globalised power-over society and — raw, vulnerable and truly alive again — join in co-creating a joyful, loving, emergent, vibrant and abundant present in which all beings everywhere on this planet can thrive.
Anne, thank you so much for your resonance, and love that you could also feel the possibilities embodied by the Wise Man archetype...I was surprised he showed up as one of my "exiles", but in a way -- for the reasons you describe -- it also makes perfect sense...
Great share! The combination of personal storytelling and slipping in some of the basics of the IFS worldview is really powerful. I began therapy with Internal Family Systems about 8 years ago, in middle age after decades of staying small and being paralyzed by polar opposite beliefs on ideas or action steps, plus being frequently hijacked by overwhelming emotions. It's been a long haul for me, cuz I have developmental trauma and am a survivor of narcissistic emotional abuse, yet there is more and more light at the end of the tunnel. IFS makes so much sense and I hold a lot of hope that the more people understand the basic premise that it's normal to have multiple parts and that none of them have bad intentions, along with ALL of us having the wise SELF that is unharmed and waiting to help these exiled and managing parts to shift, the better. It's one of the ways to achieve a more trauma-informed world, where more people understand where the polarized impulses within come from, that it's possible to calm them down, why people get hijacked into unhealthy, unhelpful reactivity, on and on. There's so much potential for maturing. It hit me deep today, your words "the soil of deep masculine groundedness that doesn’t depend on validation from a power-over hierarchy." OMG, I wish you enormous success with your Resonant Man initiative, cuz this world could really use more grounded, emotionally mature, self-secure men in leadership and power positions. It seems to me that decent sized portions of the female and other gender identified folks have been pursuing these sorts of qualities for many years now. The more men get involved with this sort of transformation, the better.
Lori, thank you so much for sharing your experience so generously in return; and so beautiful to hear about the ways IFS has proved so transformational in your own process. I have never studied IFS formally, though my wife Genevieve is a clinical psychologist and is IFS-trained, so I have learned something about it from her, and of course via my collaborator Steffi, as described above. I share your hope that the insights of IFS will become more commonly understood because -- as you suggest -- it does make so much intuitive sense. And thank you very much indeed for your support for the Resonant Man, we're off to a great start and our doors are open to more men, so any help spreading the word would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your interest in Resonant World, and for sharing such a transparent and empowering story here.
Thanks for sharing Matthew. I love that you incorporated the pulling of cards into the workshop and allowed that feedback to speak to each of you and bring up a higher resolution of information and understanding. I also love how you shared your personal experience to illustrate a teaching. I’m noticing how it lands warmly in me and how parts of it resonate within me as well.
This weekend I had an experience of a man coming on line after a woman had shared something very vulnerable and he taught her a lesson that hadn’t been asked for. His share was a good teaching, but it was just that. There was no part of his experience in what he shared, so it came across as “and now I’m teaching you a lesson woman,” rather than were a couple of peers exploring territory together ( we each have wisdom flowing through us and we’re learning together as we go), which is what our shared agreements were. I did end up privately messaging him and reflecting my experience of share in a curious way and my reflection was well received and he removed his comment with the intention of taking it to some supervision.
For me, the experience wasn’t fully complete, but reading your piece above has brought it full circle, because what I would have wished for instead, was that this man illustrate the full glory of the wisdom that he was wanting to share in that moment through his own personal experience and story. Reading your piece where you have done this on the heels of my experience with this other man comes to me as feedback. Even though my wish wasn’t completed through the man I interacted with, it still was fulfilled through the place where it was possible in this moment, which was you and your share.
My apologies for taking away from the climate topic, but the process and the interweaving of intentions being fulfilled is as interesting to me as the content.
Tracy, so glad to hear my post landed in the way it did for you, when it did. Also appreciating your commitment to the kind of emergent dialogue based on the awareness that "we each have wisdom flowing through us" -- this is very much the spirit of the Resonant Man initative, where this month we are exploring transformative dialogue and the practice of listening. (Maybe you can send a few men our way!!)
Thanks Matthew - great piece. Was shocked to hear you mention Findhorn - have lived there for a good number of years - over the years. But started my climate awakening journey back in 1990 in the Daintree rainforest of north-eastern Queensland, Australia, when a Graduate Management Trainee at Qantas - my equivalent of Reuters. Much in common. If you have a mailing list I will join it! Still getting the hang of Substack. Thanks for your work in the world. Sam.
Thank you Samantha! Very much appreciate hearing your resonance. Can happily add you to the Resonant World mailing list -- will message you
"Participatory knowing refers to a multidimensional access to reality that includes not only the intellectual knowing of the mind, but also the emotional and empathetic knowing of the heart, the sensual and somatic knowing of the body, the visionary and intuitive knowing of the soul, as well as any other way of knowing available to human beings."
Ferrer (2002 p.121)
Seems like you could adapt this to your style of journalism, MG.