Stress, Mess & Evolution

Getting Through Life’s Messy Moments with Strength and Growth

Life can be filled with unresolved emotions, attachments, and patterns that seem to hold us back. But within these challenges lies an invitation for growth and self-discovery.

Hey look, I totally get it if you just want to GET RID of old thoughts and emotions, and just blank them, numb them, or avoid them. But there’s a better way to transform those experiences into growth, wisdom, and true freedom.

You can only self soothe for so long until things really start to STINK. Awareness, looking lovingly, learning processes to process emotions, self-inquiry are all tools we can use so that we can learn transform roadblocks into stepping stones on the path to liberation.

 

Getting Through Emotional Patterns with Clarity

When we find ourselves stuck on something or someone from the past, the mind can easily replay memories, bringing emotions along for the ride. But we don’t have to stay caught up in those loops. Here’s how to start breaking free:

  • Notice the Pattern: The first step is noticing when these thoughts and feelings come up. This awareness alone is a small win because it allows us to interrupt the usual script.
  • Use Visualization to Let Go: Techniques like shrinking the image of a memory, making it black and white, or “pixelating” it can help. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised at how effective this can be to take the emotional charge out of a memory.
  • Reconnect to What You Really Want: Often, we think it’s about that specific person or moment, but it’s actually the feeling we want. That’s the real insight—knowing you can recreate those positive feelings within yourself, no external validation needed.

Trusting Yourself to Handle It

One of the biggest things that holds us back is the idea that we’re somehow at the mercy of our own thoughts. But here’s the truth: you’re in the driver’s seat. It’s just a matter of trusting yourself to navigate.

  • Challenge Your Beliefs About Control: Remind yourself that thoughts don’t define you. You have them, but will you REALLY surrender to them, and do so with negative emotional conviction? NO! Rise up and challenge beliefs lovingly knowing that they are really there to protect you in some way. 
  • Empower Your Own Voice: The way you talk to yourself matters. If you’re always saying, “I can’t do this” or “I’ll never get over it,” you’re reinforcing those beliefs. Instead, flip the script. Choose words that affirm your strength and capability.
  • Make Time for Meditation and Reflection: Finding a moment each day to sit with yourself, notice your thoughts, and let them pass helps you build inner calm. You’ll feel more centered and more capable of handling whatever comes up.

Having a hard time achieving this? Book a call and experience it right away. 

From Futile to Empowered

From Overwhelm to Hope: Embracing Free Will and the Power of Emotional Release

When life feels like an unrelenting storm, it’s easy to feel trapped, thinking that freedom will only come if our circumstances change. Yet, real transformation doesn’t require altering the world around us; it calls for a shift within. True freedom comes from using our free will to change our internal state, even when everything around us seems difficult.

 
In a recent session, I witnessed the power of this shift firsthand. I worked with someone overwhelmed by stress, self-doubt, and a sense of helplessness, rooted in unresolved emotions. Together, we explored a way forward, not by avoiding these feelings, but by addressing and releasing them — and one particular exercise showed just how powerful this can be.

Processing Emotions Through Expression

Anger is an emotion that when unexpressed, can feel unheard, unseen and neglected. This in turn can AMPLIFY it as the message of anger is sometimes: An IMPORTANT value has been transgressed, a VOICE of HURT has been trampled on!

So I asked that part of her, in session, to write a letter. This wasn’t just any letter; it was an uncensored, raw expression of all the anger, resentment, and frustration she had been holding in. It was hard for her to allow herself to do it. So much shame around the anger came up, and that’s why working with a coach can be so helpful.

On the page, she poured out everything — the hidden pains and unmet expectations, even the sense of injustice and betrayal. It was really vital that she had the total freedom to be super petty if she needed to be. I’ve done this EXACT exercise multiple times. The letter is NEVER SENT to the person, because… it’s not about them.

She wrote everything she felt she couldn’t say, and in doing so, she created a space to let go of some of the heaviness.

What happened next was transformative. As she put down the anger, other feelings started to surface: care, compassion, and even forgiveness. It was as if releasing the negativity made room for her deeper, truer emotions. Beneath the anger lay a well of love and understanding she hadn’t expected to find, and with it came a sense of peace and hope.

The Truth About Free Will

Free will isn’t just about making big choices; it’s the ability to choose our inner responses. We may not control everything that happens to us, but we can choose how we want to experience it, who we are as we LIVE through it and how we live through it. 

Moving from despair to hope begins with recognizing that we are not passive players in our own lives. And OWNING that. We can acknowledge and process our feelings, and in doing so, create a path to a more peaceful state of being.

Here’s what the journey toward hope looks like:

  1. Pause and Acknowledge – Begin by noticing the feelings you’re experiencing, whether they are anger, sadness, or anxiety. Honor them without judgment.
  2. Express Without Holding Back – Find a way to release what you’re holding. Write a letter, journal, speak aloud, or do anything that lets you express yourself fully.
  3. Notice What Lies Beneath – When you let go of the anger or resentment, see what remains. Often, it’s a softer emotion — a love or understanding that brings peace.
  4. Choose a New Way Forward – With a clearer mind, you can decide how you want to move forward. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, you might choose to focus on what’s possible.

In the end, transformation isn’t about waiting for circumstances to change. It’s about taking small, deliberate steps to process our emotions and make new choices. When we do this, we start to see that peace isn’t a distant goal; it’s a state we can cultivate within ourselves, no matter what.

Having a hard time achieving this? Book a call and experience it right away. 

Forgiveness and Reincarnation

THE HIDDEN POWER OF FORGIVENESS

Have you ever noticed generally feeling better, lighter, freer when you forgive?

Think of a time now where you forgave someone for something they had done that was harmful or hurtful in some way. Without needing to know what forgiveness is, or what it means, you probably have an innate feeling of what it CAN DO. Isn’t that a wonderful feeling? 

Notice how you feel it. What happens when you forgive someone? Does your body relax in the belly or chest? Do you feel tension drain from your forehead and jaw? Just be aware of it. 

Forgiveness is experienced and the body, your body, expresses the vibrations of forgiveness in a way unique to you so that you know when you are in the presence of forgiveness. This is one of the magical beauties of the body, it’s gift to us, to our growing in our awareness and our ability to be in flow and present. 

So what does it mean to forgive? What is really happening?

Is forgiveness compromising your values?

Have you ever though that you or someone you know just forgives ‘too easily’? Have you thought, “I forgive too easily because I hate conflict”? Or maybe you feel you or someone you notice who is forgiving just keeps getting walked all over. 

Forgiveness does not require you to stand down, or ever give up what you believe is good and important. Getting walked all over isn’t the result of forgiveness, it’s universal law in action. 

Being walked all over is only possible if one ALREADY holds the belief that they can get walked all over, and maybe even should.

Many of us hold deep, quiet beliefs that we assume are laws of the universe, or are the way REALITY is. Beliefs like: I control other people’s feelings and actions, I can’t make them feel bad because that’s bad, I can’t cause conflict, disagreement is conflict, I have to shape my thoughts and feelings to other’s ideas or else…  I am not enough, I won’t be loved, I am not safe, I could die. I must make them happy, and feel good. 

In cases like this what is called ‘forgiveness’ is actually a bunch of words the person says, and not real forgiveness.

Can I say I have forgiven someone by not allowing even myself to feel what was true for me in that moment? 

Truth does change, but not always by pretending it isn’t there.

“I met Matt in one of the darkest periods of loss... he helped me recover, stand up, and rebuild my life”
"Matt is superb when it comes to uncovering the silent feelings and beliefs that are holding us back. I am so grateful for his healing and coaching"

FORGIVENESS IS NOT BREAKING BONDS OF KARMA; IT’S Freeing yourself and others

I have good news, or bad maybe? LOL! When you forgive another, it does not remove the effect of their action. Whatever effects of their action are due, will occur forgiven or not. For example, if I drop a mug of coffee, and quickly forgive myself as it falls, the mug shatters and coffee sprays just like it would if I screamed or cursed while it fell. I would still be left to wipe up the coffee and sweep up the pieces. 

I heard once that forgiveness, in part, is not to wish the past to be different than it was. I will disagree for a moment because it’s possible whether you wish that or not. In fact wishing it were different can even inspire you to realize what it is you really want for yourself and for that other person, can build compassion, and put your focus on what is of beauty and good in you and them. You can turn pain into wisdom with a wish, if you are curious and wanting to grow and truly liberate yourself from suffering.

People are not their behavior, and when we hang onto a sorrow, a bad deed, a infraction and live it over and over with anger, we constantly picture that person in that state of being as the abuser, or idiot, or failure, or liar. As we hold that in our mind, we often see ourselves as a victim, as innocent, as undeserving and in that brush stroke, the universe is a place that allows the innocent to be abused, and there’s nothing to do about it. 

Forgiveness is to take your attention and place it on the image of yourself and the other in your highest form instead of continually repeating the lowest form over and over in your mind. Forgiveness is a thought process of refusing to peg someone to their worst behavior, and instead to hold them in their most wonderful capability. 

But to do that without being naive requires that you do it for you. That you own fully your part in the experience, and own fully your power to create better experiences by moving your attention from the thoughts that cause suffering, and placing them on the thoughts that provide liberation and freedom. 

I don’t have to excuse an abusive parent’s behavior or forget it to forgive. I can allow the pain of the experience to become wisdom, to inform me, to provide understanding and compassion, allowing me to hold space for better outcomes rather than passing the energetics of the abuse and suffering onwards through my thoughts, feelings and actions. 

Forgiving is healing, is the end of the cycles of rebirth of thought through you. It is enlightenment. The end of the cyclical nature of rebirth, for the birth of something wonderful and new. Opportunity. Evolution. Love. 

 

 

Imagination & The Power to Heal

Imagination - it's more powerful than you imagine

Imagination has a fantastic healing power. Yes, healing. 

Pause for a moment and consider your imagination. Are you aware of it? What do you think of when you read the word, or hear me say, “Imagination”? 

Some people think, oh it’s just escapism. Imagination is what little kids do to ‘make believe’, to live outside reality. Some think it’s day dreaming about the things they want in life, like a mixture of wishing and pining. Others think that it’s only for artists or creative people, and that they just aren’t creative,  “I don’t have an imagination, or rarely use it. Who cares it’s not dealing with reality.” 

But it might surprise you to know, that you are incredibly creative, and conscious of it or not, you are actually creative daily, and your imagination is well in tact, and actually effecting your well being, your emotions, your energy, your physical health and your response to situations. 

Imagination has instant physical outcomes

Imagine for a second you have a nice, fresh lemon in your left hand. Really feel it there, feel its weight, the texture… it’s fresh, ripe and filled with flavor. Feel it there and imagine you can smell the aroma coming from within it. Now imagine pealing it a little as it erupts mists of powerful lemon scent! 

Did you start to salivate? Did your mouth start to get prepared for fresh sour lemon?  YES! If not, do it again, and really let yourself feel it! It’s simple and easy. Close your eyes if you need to. 

Now, where’s the lemon? Where is it? Well… if you’re like me, it’s all in your imagination. There is no lemon. 

Imagine now you have to meet someone you don’t like. How often are you imagining things like this where you are creating a reality in your mind and not realizing that it’s your imagination and it’s not really happening? The body, the unconscious mind, doesn’t think about time or space. Whatever you powerfully imagine with feeling is REAL to it. Just like a powerful dream. 

So you’re thinking of how to avoid that person, what to say to her (or not say), what she is going to say to you, or how he is going to behave toward you. You can see them, hear them, feel them, and more, you have a clear imagination of you. In the mean time, what’s happening with your body? Your body is building neural networks, producing hormones, sending messages to the hormone centres fo the body, and creating an environment that your genetic production responds to. 

And yet… it’s all happening in imagination. 

It’s not limited to ‘realistic’ images… it’s feelings, it’s symbolic, it’s metaphorical, its sensing… beyond thinking and analyzing 

So, when I say ‘imagination’, I don’t mean imagine winning the lottery or getting your soul mate although that too can be of benefit.

Healing modalities like those Tony Robbins uses, or Gabor Mate, even Byron Katie, or people like me who use NLP and Reiki, compassionate inquiry, hypnosis and inner family systems, make powerful use of the imagination beyond literal and logical thought. 

You want to learn how to start doing this? Do you want to harness your imagination with purpose, grace and ease… for GOOD? Book a call https://bit.ly/3P3VPRG 

Beyond the manifestation industry, imagination when used with curiosity, love and positive intent, can provide instant healing to emotional triggers, negative thought loops, resentment, shame, and even end habitual unconscious reactions that perpetuate negative outcomes.

It’s so powerful it can seem impossible. But when belief to the necessity of pain is broken, and openness to healing is nurtured, this wonderful imagination that we all have built in, can result in the miraculous.

Presence & Transformation

Presence opens doors to healing where healing means becoming whole

The more presence I can bring to a feeling, the more I can sit with it without agenda – without the drive to kill it, change it, or ‘just get rid of it’, to hate it, judge it, feel ashamed of it, or just want it GONE – the more understanding and compassion and healing is possible.

What happens when you feel heard, seen, witnessed and there’s no pressure on you to change or modify anything? Have you had that? Where a person just holds space? I relax. I trust. I get calmer. I open. I start to shift.

Consider this analogy

If you were sitting at work, and your boss came in and she SCREAMED at you, “What the fuck is this shit? This is such garbage I can’t even BELIEVE you would submit this? You are a fucking embarrassment, I hate you and want you OUT OF MY FUCKING COMPANY NOW!”  – then through a report at you and stormed away, would you have any understanding of what the hell just happened? Assuming of course you were exerting reasonable to excellent effort to do well, and not like… stealing or something. 

If you are a boss, and you went into an employee’s office and did that, would you expect them to know what you were talking about? 

Yet so often, we have a behavior, or a feeling like loneliness, sadness, anger, frustration, resentment, anxiety… but we act like that bad boss. What if that FEELING was actually a very EARNEST employee looking to serve you? In this case, fire that emotion all you want, it won’t go anywhere… more likely it will double down. Drown it in booze, numb it with sex or Netflix… it’ll be there, after the drugs wear off.

Take a paradoxical approach

What happens when I bring that same presence to feelings? To attitudes, behaviours or even beliefs I can’t seem to ‘shake’? What if I approach them with the intent just to hold space, maybe with some awareness, curiosity and the intention to understand.

Well, they soften. They calm. And the opportunity for understanding starts to present itself. They speak to me, and even answer my questions. 

This is healing. No longer a victim to your emotions, you become the unifying factor, the one who brings their higher intentions to light, who reveals the insights they have for your betterment, growth and success.

Sometimes presence, awareness without agenda, is enough to open the door to new understanding, growth and transformation. A part of alchemy – of turning hell into heaven.

Having a hard time achieving this? Book a call and experience it right away.