Hey there folks,
My name's Katie and welcome to this talk.
So today I wanted to share a concept that I find particularly lovely and it's something that I've integrated in my own life and I share it with many of the folks that I work with as a therapist.
And so this term,
This concept is called the matrix of support.
It comes from the work of Kathy Kane,
Who's a somatic therapist.
And I also learned this concept not too long ago,
Actually in one of my own trainings from one of my somatic teachers.
And it's just been really fun to apply it with my clients and also get curious about it myself.
But so the idea is that all of us have ways and things that we can connect to that help us feel more supportive.
Now these things don't actually always have to be tangible.
They can be imagined too and they can be qualities of something that that offer us you know,
A sense of safety or support or steadiness or ease or,
You know,
Down to earthness,
Whatever it might be.
And so if you think about the concept of a matrix,
Think of a web,
If you will,
Or the roots of a tree,
Or maybe a net.
Let's go with a net.
So the thing about a net is that its strength doesn't lie just in one thread.
It's how all of these different threads are woven together.
And that's what kind of this matrix is about.
It's connecting to all of these different things in our life that provide us the support that we need to get through it,
So to speak,
Right?
And this is important because sometimes we can kind of get connected to just one thing,
Right?
Or maybe a couple of things.
And the problem with that is that,
You know,
If that thing changes or if it goes away or whatever,
You know,
We were left hanging on that one thread.
What else is there to support us?
So we need to have a wide web of things that can help us,
That can support us.
And another part of this theory is that we're really getting curious about the quality of the support.
And by the way,
These things that can support us can be all different things.
They can be people,
Whether they're real or imagined or that we know or we don't know or existed in our life or maybe didn't or don't exist in our life anymore.
And it can also be animals.
It can be the natural world and occurrences that happen on this beautiful planet.
It can also be works of art or literary works or music.
It can be activities.
It can be aspects of spirituality.
It can be so many things in this matrix of support that we can connect to.
And so,
Again,
It's about the quality of that.
For instance,
If at some point in your life you're needing to be a little bit more assertive and strong and have boundaries,
There's something in your matrix of support that can help you connect to that.
For instance,
Maybe it's something in the natural world,
Like a particular animal.
I have the lion's gaze practice here on Insight Timer where we connect to the essence of a lion and being non-reactive and being strong.
We call it up to mind.
We can almost feel that in our own body,
In our own nervous system.
Sometimes we need the quality of lightness and play and maybe down-to-earthness or just stability.
Maybe there was a person in your life that demonstrated that,
Whether they're here now or they're not.
And when you connect to it as a felt experience,
You start to come into contact with that quality.
I wanted to share a little caveat on this because this is something that can come up and I feel it's worth naming.
Now,
Sometimes something in our matrix of support can be what we call bittersweet.
That means there's a lot of beauty and joy associated with it,
But sometimes it can also bring about maybe sadness or grief or something like that.
I think this often happens when we connect to people that are no longer here.
For example,
My grandmother,
She is in my matrix of support.
And she's no longer here,
But I can think about her.
I can call her to mind and think about all of our happy memories we had together.
And how she used to take me in after school.
Feed me all kinds of wonderful little sugary snacks and She taught me how to paint and play music and all of those kind of things.
It was wonderful.
I loved my grandma so much.
She never judged.
She was always there.
She was always so kind and supportive.
But also,
And when I start to think about her,
There's a little bit of sadness that starts to come in.
You know she's not here anymore so that could be a little bit of grief coming up but also My grandma went blind at the end of her life,
And actually,
Interestingly enough,
So did my father.
So you could see how kind of connecting to that starts to kind of trickle to something else that maybe might be more sad.
And Sometimes people are like,
Oh,
No,
No,
No,
I can't think about my grandma anymore,
For example,
Because it's going to take me to that sadness.
Now,
You know,
I think the beauty of this is learning to realize that experience,
That support can hold both things.
And I think when we come to meet our more regulated nervous system that has more capacity,
We can be with it.
And I say this because I don't want you to shut off that thing.
Now you could go to another thread in your matrix of support and work with that if it helps you kind of bring a little bit more settling to your system.
And I find that when I come back to that original thing that's bittersweet.
I start to remember the good things.
And so I don't have to.
Not include my grandma.
I can still include her with all of the,
You know,
All of the feels about her and the experience that we had.
So I just like to share that with you because it can come up sometimes.
Sometimes what we think is support can venture into something else,
But we can come back.
Or if it's too hard,
We have another thing.
There we go.
There's the beauty of this matrix of support.
There's other things that we can connect to.
So I'd love to invite you to explore maybe what's in your matrix of support.
This is a really good activity to kind of journal on if you'd like to and spend some time.
You don't have to figure it out today,
All the things that are in your matrix of support,
But yeah,
Let it marinate.
And also while you're letting it marinate,
See if you can connect to the felt experience of that.
What happens when you think about that thing or when you visit that place in your mind?
Time.
Do you notice something soften?
Is there a little bit more air?
Ease on board,
Or maybe you just notice the absence of something else.
Absence of something else can be something too.
So yeah,
Let yourself get curious about that.
I do have another practice called Leaning into What Supports You.
It's a video practice.
But we'll go into people.
And if people aren't your cup of tea,
You can go into animals and the natural world and things in that domain.
And also we'll go into places and see kind of what you can call up that brings a sense of support.
That might give you a little bit of idea of how we work with this practice experientially.
And of course,
You're welcome to add other things,
Activities and hobbies and interests that you're jazzed about.
That give you something meaningful for you,
Something supportive for you.
So I love hearing what people have to say about what's in their matrix of support.
So if you'd like to share what's in your matrix of support,
I'd love to hear it.
It's always fun to witness what people share as far as what's in their web,
What's in their matrix of support.
So I hope you found this helpful and something actually kind of fun that you can play with.
Remember at the end of it all we're trying to get into the felt experience of it what happens inside we can know all these things intellectually like all day all night,
But we're trying to connect to the felt experience of it because That's what's really supporting our nervous system.
That's what's really helping this body that's navigating it all in this crazy,
Crazy world these days.
So have fun.
Thank you so much for being here.
And I'll see you in another video.
