Writing to Awaken with Mark Matousek

Every life is a work of fiction. Behind your worldly mask is an essential self — a soul identity — whose powerful voice communicates your unique truth and deepest desires. Many of us suffer from mistaken identity. Until we access this soul awareness, we’re split off from our own true nature and distanced from our gifts, passion and purpose. In this module, we’ll be exploring the gap in our lives between how we show up in our writing (and the world) and our true authenticity, and how to examine it through self-inquiry.

You’ll discover how to:

• Gain access to your soul identity
• Identify your authentic desires
• Discern the ego’s voice from your soul voice
• Listen to creative counsel from within
• Consider your life myth from a soul perspective

The first step toward authenticity is surveying your secret life. Without exception, each of us has one — that vicinity of self that is yours alone — filled with memories, totems, obsessions, longings, dreams and vulnerabilities. This inner refuge contains a wellspring of inspiration and self-discovery. The soul loves specificity, intimacy and subjective uniqueness. In this module, we’ll be inquiring into our own secret lives, and how they provide us with wisdom and balance.

You’ll discover how to:

• Build an inner refuge of wisdom
• Examine the obstacles to this refuge
• Transcend shame about your shadow
• Connect with shadow wisdom (this is where the juice is)
• Identify your secret passions

The tension between fear and desire determines your quality of life. To live passionately, you must learn to walk this edge between both. But how is this possible? Our impulse toward control often prevents us from venturing through fear toward our deepest longing. How can you surrender control and abandon yourself to desire (without hurting others in the process)? When is it wise to listen to fear? Why are you afraid of things you crave (and vice versa)? In this module, we’ll be looking at the interface between fear and desire: how we walk the line — and sometimes tumble over it into passion — and the role of moral conditioning in the dance.

You’ll discover how to:

• Identify where fear arises
• Isolate where fear blocks desire in your life
• Step outside the moral matrix that binds soul to ego
• Practice the “art of abandon”
• Understand a non-dual approach to desire

From a soul perspective, what does your life really mean? Do you wonder whether you matter or not, and for what purpose you have been born? Our quest for meaning is hardwired in us. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” wrote Joan Didion, and from these stories, we derive meaning. Without meaning, life’s tribulations lose their power to transform us. As Viktor Frankl famously taught, suffering without meaning equals despair (S-M=D). In this module, we’ll look at what our existence means (to ourselves and the world), where our sense of purpose comes from, and how to harness our energies to reach higher goals.

You’ll discover how to:

• Locate your personal source of meaning
• Overcome obstacles to meaning in your life
• Strengthen your commitment to purpose
• Connect your personal meaning to the greater good
• Reconstruct your life myth to accommodate authentic meaning

When Viktor Frankl was in Auschwitz, it was the hope of seeing his beloved wife again that gave his life meaning. The power of love enabled this great psychiatrist to survive. Love is the greatest mystery — our very reason for being. Why, then, can it be so enigmatic, unstable, unpredictable and challenging? The answer is that love is a practice. Like every practice, it is often difficult and requires discipline, commitment and tolerance of discomfort. This is how love yields its joy, “against the grain,” in the Buddhist saying. In this module, we’ll be using our writing to plumb the mystery of love in its myriad varieties — passionate, platonic and familial.

You’ll discover how to:

• Access your soul’s power to love
• Heal from breaches of love in your life
• Appreciate the variety of love relationships you have
• Accept the shadow in love
• Reaffirm love for your precious existence

The soul is a power source. We plug into this source through intention, which shapes and guides us through life, holds our aim, and keeps us on our path. The world is full of brilliant people whose lives would improve dramatically if only their intentions were focused. Without concentrated intention, creativity suffocates and dies. Manifestation requires single-mindedness. In this module, we’ll learn practices for focusing and strengthening our intention in order to reach our goals.

You’ll discover how to:

• Focus your intentions
• Find the path of least resistance to what you desire
• Stop procrastinating
• Practice kind and consistent discipline
• Commit to your own dreams

Each of us is born with a unique gift. The Romans called this gift our “genius,” and explained that we come into this world with a “tutelary deity” that guides us toward our own fruition. The deity is our soul itself. When we free this soul, we liberate our inherent creativity and the inborn offering waiting to be born. If you do not offer your gift to the world, it will never truly exist. But what is your particular genius? What will the flowering of your soul be? In this module, we’ll learn about efflorescence (what Christian mystics called “viriditas”) — poet Dylan Thomas described it as the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower” — and how we fuse with this power in daily life.

You’ll discover how to:

• Identify your personal genius
• Understand what its voice is telling you
• Fuse with your creative genius
• Manifest the gifts you were born with
• Connect these gifts with the world around you