Rahi: Welcome to Organic Sexuality, where we explore the restoration of pleasure, the reclamation of sexual sovereignty and the realization of our embodied sexual nature. An invitation to honor the pleasures of your body by embodying the pleasures of your nature. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. I'm a certified somatic sex educator, sexological bodyworker and creator of Somatic Sexual Wholeness. Today we invite Matthias Schwentech, creator of Somatic Consent, who has worked in the realms of touch, boundaries, and consent as a trainer, teacher, and practitioner for decades, Matt's deep explorations and understanding of the nature of boundaries and consent make the Four Pillars of Somatic Consent and its application to relational dynamics, fun and fascinating. At the end of the episode, there will be a guided exploration for "waking up your hands" to provide a sensory experience of what is possible.

Rahi: So I'm really thrilled and happy to be inviting my good friend Matthias Schwenteck to the podcast today. Matthias is the founder and creator of Somatic Consent, and this is after years of leading trainings and workshops and experiential somatic experiences in the realm of touch, boundaries and consent for hundreds, if not thousands of people over the years. And he's also a practitioner and teacher of sacred sexuality and tantra, having been trained in various counseling and bodywork modalities over the years that are trauma and nervous system informed. Matthias, thanks for joining us today.

Rahi: Thank you very much for introducing me and thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast. I'm thrilled to be here.

Rahi: Great. So, you know, Matthias, I actually first met you when you were the facilitator of the Facebook group - Tantra, Not Trauma. And this was a worldwide Facebook group that involved tantric practitioners sharing their experiences of which tantra trainings all over the world, which were working and teaching in integrity and which were crossing boundaries, and really abusing the power of authority of boundaries and consent. And I was so impressed with, you know, how that group was facilitated and the safe space that you guys held for people to know which sacred sexuality trainings and experiences were safe. So I want to start off by asking what, because you've been so involved with trainings and teachings around boundaries and consent for so many years, what do you think, what do you think it's been about your journey in this life or your soul's path that has always drawn you so passionate to issues and the subtle distinctions of boundaries and consent?

Matt: Uh, good and complex question. Um, yes. So what pops immediately in my mind is this quote and sentence. You need one to see one. And when I started to work with tantra and bodywork and facilitating, I was starting off with a Tantra group that was not so deep in consent and boundaries. And my first introduction into becoming a tantric practitioner was that the person who was initiating me - "you know, you can do whatever you want because nobody knows what a tantra session is." And, you know, I have individually personally kind of a very deep sense of justice and, you know, from my heart and from my gut feeling, I know what feels right and what feels wrong. And I have been always in this position as a practitioner, as a facilitator, that I was in the situation to empower people, to let them find what they wanted. So that was from the beginning on, but not really allowed myself to fully come forward with this feeling. And I was giving my power more to the authority, to the facilitator on top, that what they do is the right thing. And I was holding back so that I was starting to when, when, when you go with the perpetrator, so you become a - com-place

Rahi: Well, yeah, like an accomplice

Matt: Accomplice to, actually the perpetrator. And by not saying that this is something not, real authentic or that's injustice. And I just created on my level like a sense of guilt and shame around that. And, I felt in 2014, the first time when it actually really dropped into me that I needed to make a public statement. And I did that on my Facebook wall saying that I'm the first practitioner, um, that is calling out themselves by stop using the position of power in the tantric practitioner and facilitator scene to just like stepping full into the position of empowering people to step in their power and not using my power for my own benefit. And, that was a deep landing on a cellular level, in my, in my nervous system to, um, start that.

Rahi: Yeah, I can imagine. And it really requires that, you know, people who are in positions of authority, whether it's taken or projected by students and participants to really call themselves out, it's like you understood the way people were projecting or giving their power away to you in that, in that position. And, you know, you're, you were really giving the power back to students, participants, people who didn't really maybe recognize or understand that power dynamic, and to do it publicly on your Facebook page. Yeah. I'm sure that created some waves amongst your colleagues and peers.

Matt: Yeah, pretty much. So I kind of, initiated a rejection in so many different tantric tribes so that I just literally got excluded in many, many directions and had to really learn to fly on my own wings and stepping forward with my own values and with my own authenticity, with my integrity.

Rahi: Well, that was a tremendous gift you gave to yourself then. Um, so that is a really interesting context because the pillars of somatic consent really invites people to take ownership of their shadow side at the base, you know, with the self care before engaging in the permission line and agreement line, um, which is necessary before kind of reaching the apex where there is no duality. So let's move into the four pillars of somatic consent because it's a very dynamic engagement system. And it feels like there is this progression that's necessary. It's necessary to really own our shadows in order to be clean in giving and receiving the permission lines of permission and agreement. Um, and those need to be so well-practiced in order to kind of surrender to the presence of sensation and touch.

Matt: Yes.

Rahi: Yeah. I just, uh, I, you know, I don't, I don't know what question to ask. I'm just kind of fascinated because I feel like it's a matrix to evolve, not only with our own nervous systems, not only with our somatic embodiment, but also, you know, to evolve spiritually and relationally. I mean, it's a really fascinating kind of, um, it's almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid, where we need to take ownership of, you know, our self care, you know, and our shadows in order to move forward.

Matt: Mm Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really interesting dynamic and what's really exciting about that. And it has been just like over these years was in front of my nose. I'd never have really seen it that much. And as you just said now with the Tantra Not Trauma group by speaking up from a position of power giving participants and clients, their power back, it's about what they want and what they want to receive, that the position of power is kind of a key component as well in the somatic consent engagement system so that when we are reaching this apex as an individual practitioner or facilitator, if we want that or not, we are in a position of power. And, um, and we have people coming into our environment and then it's our responsibility to, um, taking care of that power and the power differentiation.

Matt: And that is nice quote, I think that comes from the Spider-Man movie. A lot of power comes a lot of responsibility and that's the entire work about a facilitator is when we are in a position of power that we either have the choice to misusing our power for our benefit. So that's the power over, or the lack of power, or we step into the power of love, where we giving our gift of power to the other person to find their power. And then we let people empower and not taking that power away when they thrive, and that's a very important piece specifically when we're engaging with clients and practitioner that we can support people in their power growing and thriving, instead of trying to keeping them under our, um, level of engagement and our under our radar. And that's an important step that I have been observing over the years with many facilitators who are working in that field, that they, that they let people only come to a certain point into that power.

Matt: And as soon people stepping into their autonomy and inner authority of, their ownership of what they found, and I've experienced that on my own body, that a facilitator - kind of trying to diminish and push people. And I have been pushed on quite often and quite a lot. And this is where the opposite, all of a sudden, you know, in the wheel of consent, what most people will listen know to some degree already. Yeah. I imagine, you know, you have this middle point where the, where the actual line and the receiving line is crossing and when I said, that was always in front of my nose - that was the part where I saw that there's a developmental structure to it. And when I dig deeper into the background of the wheel, so the three minute game and the inventor of the three minute game Harry Fetters, I recognize that that came from a spiritual background and how he fed us was describing it from that perspective, you give your gift of power when you are in a position of power to let the other person find what their desire is, and everything was just falling into place.

Matt: And everything was, dropping into my own understanding so that this middle point that, you know, found as well in this somatic consent engagement system is the apex is the position of interpersonal engagement, giving our gift of power of love and care and engagement from like an altruistic place of where friendship is created and where we inspiring each other.

Rahi: Mm mm. Yeah. Where our simple state of being is, is it's almost like the giving and receiving is happening concurrently. Well, there, there is no duality of it. There's just the experience, really the experience of love. Um, but it does require that surrender as you're saying. And so it is, it is a very spiritual, invitation. Um, so you've said you've shared so many really great things. I love what you shared about, you know, where there comes great power, there comes great responsibility. And that part of our role as facilitators and practitioners is to really take ownership of that power dynamic, by making sure that the power is left with the student or the client as authority figures, or, you know, whether we'd like to see ourselves as authority figures or not. There's just such rampant projection, um, of parental, you know, mother, father issues. And that has an opportunity to be retold to rewire, you know, yeah. The apex, it just makes the engagement system so enticing and mysterious Matthias. I think it's fair to say that it takes so much practice on the permission line and the agreement line to be able to get to a place of the nervous system feeling so safe enough to surrender to the experience of sensation when being present with another.

Matt: Go ahead, please. No, no, no, please. Well,

Rahi: So, so I, I feel like, you know, the, um, I know you offer a free course on your website, waking up your hands and how foundational that is in order to really engage fully and know, and have our, the touch language developed. So our touch sensors know, and can understand what really is giving and what really is receiving in order to move towards that apex. Yeah, I guess I want to explore, like why waking up your hands, it's such a simple exercise, but it's so profound in all of the layers that it reveals for people. Um, just why, why that's so foundational to the work.

Matt: Yeah. So when we just look into our own action and into our conditioning, what action includes - most people that are wired and conditioned in a way that they think or believe that their action is associated with giving so that most people think when they're in action then it is about what is happening to somebody else. So that this is so kind of conflated in the nervous system that most people think that's the only way how giving is happening through action. And based on this dynamic, most people have learned that when they do something, even if it's for themself to a degree, what they don't really want to own or can't own it's about that, what is coming back through their action? Yeah. So that they are really kind of filtering everything of their action through what will arrive back on them. So that when we start opening up this dynamic of the sensory inflow, we have to, in the first place acknowledge this action that most people do that, they want to get a response back.

Matt: And we, we call that in some medical consent, the indirect route. Yeah. So indirect, because it just happens indirectly in the backflow. So when we talk about the sensory inflow of the somatic nervous system and the so-called afferent, um, dynamic and the somatic nervous system, we talking about the specific set of fibers in the skin. They are capable of feeling this pleasant, tingling, kind of electromagnetic, nice sensual sensation. And this is what most people having really difficulties to find, because when this starts to get activated and they making an action by choice torwards, the sensation in their own skin, without another person involved, something in the brain is getting activated. So the so-called insula - the feeling center. So when people slow down enough and they're just tapping by their own actions. So the motor part of this somatic nervous systems getting activated so that their own action is towards.

Matt: They're sensory inflow, this feeding center's getting activated and people come in connection, not only was the nice pleasant, tingling, beautiful sensations that coming as well as all the suppressed feelings that they don't want to have related to shame, fear, guilt, inadequacy, you know, there's entire package, what most people carry. And that's for many people, a big obstacle, but when this is kind of dropping neurologically before the rational cognitive meaning-making part of the rational mind that there is a layer underneath that is physical possible to experience, um, without putting all the story on top of that. People can not deny that they have to take ownership that they, or they can move their body towards, the sensation in the skin. And when that is dropping, this is what we call the direct route. And we kind of doing that very kind of subtle, but very profound that we re we replace the indirect route -, what most people mainly do with the direct route - so that we're making the direct route as their default of touch and connection. And then we putting the indirect route as an extra or an bonus on top of that, so that when they go in action that the response will come back anyway, but then the respond has not the priority anymore. It just happens, but it's not when - we're not dependent on it anymore. And that makes individual autonomous beings being in action for themselves and feeling themselves. Yes. That's the key point in all of that.

Rahi: Um, yeah, I find, I find this really, really profound because I was because what, what that means is, I mean, what I interpret that to mean is, is that, you know, as children, we're, when we're conditioned, we're usually doing things in order to get something or to get a response. And this simple practice of waking up your hands and waking up or involving the posterior insula, the feeling, the love sense, the feeling sense with this, uh, beautiful, uh, delicious touch. It's almost like creating a two way highway when, before it was like a one-way highway. And to your point, it brings up all of the, you know, trauma or experiences or conditioning that prevented that feeling loving sense to be there with our sensations. And so it's an enormous opportunity, not only to recondition and rewire our experience of touch, but for healing as well, you know, as it's rewiring and then, you know, the experience of touch. And, you know, I'll say that like waking up your hands, it's really waking up the touch sensors of the touch language of the whole body, because once the hands understand that the experience is about the sensation of touch and that the effect of it on the other person is secondary, then the whole body starts to learn that.

Matt: Hmm. Yeah. That's a saying that the, you know, the hands have a square millimeter, so a certain area, more nerve endings than anywhere else in the body, except the mouth and the genitals. So when the hands get it, the rest of the body will get it. And that includes as well that the genitals and the mouth have more nerve endings than the hands. So therefore when the hands are on track, the rest will follow up automatically. And that's, it's just a matter of fact. And I just want to just like, as well, come back to one specific point that when people, and specifically when it comes to the apex, and so where as well, lovemaking is happening when two people engaged with each other and only one of the two has an agenda that that touch is goal orientated. And another person is capable of feeling themselves.

Matt: That will not go very high, that will not go into an upward spiral. But if both people having this capacity of their neurological inflow on they're really feeling each other, but they are connected to the other person over this inflow, it will create an upward spiral of what I call kind of liquid light. And there's something really magical happening after a while that, um, specifically in lovemaking, when the genitals actually can feel that was out the goal involved, that there is a tremendous capacity of transformation through this, uh, possibility of feeling each other and themselves. Yeah.

Rahi: Yes, yes. If there is an agenda in the energetic field, you know, being held by one or the other person it's going to inhibit or hold back that liquid light from expanding to where it wants to expand.

Matt: Yeah. If it's just a one man show or one person show, you know, then it won't go anywhere. So one person will be disappointed and, uh, only one person goes for satisfaction and gratification and want to reach a goal. Or if both people want to reach a goal, then I just fighting where who's reaching it first. Or they're just like trying simultaneously to reach the goal. What is in kind of Western society more the, the super goal of both people climax and together at the same time, but instead of taking the goal out and being capable of flying on this softness of a relaxed arousal, expanding into that place of infinity of no goal, that's just the most delicious way of sensual sexual engaging. That's actually possible.

Rahi: Yeah. I mean, I see that as the infinity of sensation. So it's like the goal is being replaced by the deliciousness of receiving what it's like to just be sensation, pure senastion engaging with itself, really its sensation engaging with its own sensation with another person there. Matthias, I'm really curious because, you know, when, when we met, um, years ago, you were in a, in a partnership and the agreements that you had in the partnership were really clear and clean, and it seemed to eliminate any kind of sense of obligation or misinterpretation. Um, I'd love to know how you have found your personal relationships have evolved as your agreements within those relationships have evolved, you know, I mean, respecting your privacy, but sharing whatever you'd like to share in regards to that.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the question. I like that. And, um,

Matt: You know, the interesting thing is that, um, when I started to see this, um, relational structure and the dynamics, I personally choose that I don't want to engage anymore in assumption based relationship or in good guessing or the romantic dream home. Most people kind of trying to create something that they call a relationship, but nobody really knows what it is kind of till, uh, ever after, until death takes us apart. So that, um, that I just wanted to make that really clear on this four structures of somatic consent, that there's a relational component to it. And the first one is when I want to relate with people, I want to relate from a place of love and care. Yeah. And I don't want to relate in shadows. And I want to relate from that place where the foundation is the base. Yeah. So, so the base is that I can feel myself and my partner can feel themselves so that I'm not dependent on my partner.

Matt: And my partner is not dependent on me so that we don't engage with the shadows. So that makes it really clear. I'm responsible for my feelings and you're responsible for your feelings. So you cannot put your tentacles into my base and make me responsible for how you feel, and I can not make the same either. So I cannot make you responsible for how you feel. So that's ownership, self love, self care. So, and this is, it doesn't matter with whom I'm engaging. If that is an intimate partner, if that's a friend, if that's a colleague, wherever I am, this is kind of like the, the, the foundation, you know what, I have a right to what you have a right to what I'm responsible for, what you're responsible for. And my aim is that we engage on the same level. Yeah. And if you make me responsible, then you put me on another level and I want to make really sure.

Matt: So I'm not letting you put me on this pedestal. You're responsible for that. Not me. Yeah. And if you put yourself above, and trying to diminish my own rights, then I want to make sure that now we have the same rights. Yeah. So, so when I'm with my lover - relate on that level, it's impeccable, utterly self-responsibility and radical self-responsibility. And, um, and this, includes as well, the sensory inflow. So the opening of feeling myself with my skin, so that I know I have a full autonomy about my, and for my own sensations. So this foundation, the base is the first layer of this relationship. It doesn't matter who it is when it is and how it is. And then I go into, and it depends on whom I want to engage with so that nobody else can give me permission to feel or touch another person. And I cannot give anybody else in the world, give permission to touch another person. So, but I know who I have agreement with. I know who I have permission that I can feel and that I can touch. So that's the second layer of my relationship agreements as to my partner, do we have permission to touch you with any part of my body, wherever, whenever, however I want, and you take care of your limits. Yeah. So I can, yeah.

Rahi: Just to distinguish that's for your pleasure, your, you have the freedom to touch for your pleasure. Not think not without any consideration of what feels good to her, that's her responsibility or, or your partner's responsibility.

Matt: Right. So, so I'm asking for that permission and I give the same permission. Yeah. So you have the same, uh, um, your same allowed to touch me and with any part of your body, whenever, however you want, I will take care of my limits so that we have a mutual layer of permission. So that's the second line of the relationship agreements. So that every action in the first place is, well, when I'm going an action and I go an action for myself, and I respect your limits. And I know when you go an action and you go an action for yourself, and you respect my, my limits, if I have them and I will speak them up, I'm an adult now. And I guess you're an adult too, so you can speak to your limits, right? And you can not make me responsible if you're not speaking your limits.

Matt: And I can not make you responsible of you, not speaking your limits, because your limits belongs to you and your base. And then from there, we just stepping up to the third layer. And the third layer is if I want you to do something for me, then I will ask you - if I don't ask you, and I don't want anything. So don't do anything for me, for me, if I don't ask for. So that, that, that gives the power to me that I have to make a request if I want something. And, um, if you have a limit, I will respect that if you don't want to do anything great. So the same in reverse. If you want me to do something, if, um, uh, if, if you desire, you have to ask to, and you can ask for whatever you want. And I will take care of my limits here too, if I don't want to do anything, I don't do anything. So it takes this pleasing component out of the equation. It's not running after the other and trying to get a response out of them and trying to make them feel happy. Now it's just like, okay, you need something, ask for it.

Rahi: Yeah. It takes the pleasing out. But also the second guessing the manipulation, I mean, it takes out so much when it's really clean and clear, and people are taking responsibility for their own wants and asking for what they're wanting. Yes.

Matt: So the fourth layer on top of that is when the three layers are in place and embodied. Yeah. When we can relate on that level, then we just reach this apex that this apex is this place of love and care, the place of giving ourselves as the gift without needing anything back. When I give something, you know, I give, because I can, I, I give, because I have, and what you do is that is your choice. I'm not expecting anything. And, um, the same as for you, when you give something in the moment you have given it, it's gone. Yeah. And, um, and that allows us, this place of dropping out of the identification of personality structures into a higher realm of a transpersonal space where, you know, the higher vibration of transformation I love making literally is only happening. And that's why I'm so passionate about is to reach that place up there. All this other stuff is good. It's good to have that place. And it's good to play with that. And, but I want to hang out up there and here comes to a point I haven't mentioned yet, in the apex, there's a ascending and descending dynamics simultaneously happening. So what can be for one person, a gift can be for another person, the shadow, and that needs a high level of integrity and a high level of ownership and awareness to engage with this level when they come up.

Rahi: Yeah. Because I feel like, um, you know, so much of sexuality is being used in, you know, whether it's in marriages or dating, getting to know each other, it's really being used as kind of a barter chip, you know, kind of like, you know, on some end, I'm sure a sense of manipulation on another sense of a way of a kind of give to get. And it really not only muddies the possibility for authentic relating, but it also creates, you know, dysfunction and armor in the body when you're, when we're using the body in order to get something rather than for its own pleasure for its own sensational, you know, sensation exploration. Um, so yeah, I love this relational. Um, I mean, and it really mirrors the engagement system pyramid.

Matt: Yeah. It's kind of genius. It is. I mean, it is.

Rahi: And, you know, I want to say that, like, people who are listening who feel like, Oh my God, I would love to do that, but I don't know where to start. You know, it's not like you can turn. I mean, like our adult patterns and behaviors are based on, you know, in large part, our childhood conditioning. So you can just play for an afternoon at a time with your lover or your, your spouse and work towards becoming more adept and fluid with your ability to recognize what is giving, what is receiving, you know, what is it that my body wants, and kind of work work your way and exploring this relational matrix,

Matt: You know, the main the beauty about this entire offering that I'm having on the webpage and that I'm providing with the world is that, and I was always passionate about that. I started that my 50th birthday about two years ago where I said, I just want to create free consentment material, um, accessible for the world, you know? And, and that was the main thing, um, how I created that, that online course. So it's a free cause it's, it was free. It will always be free. And nobody has to just like put a big investment into anything and discovering anything. So everybody is very welcome to go there, uh, register for this course and, uh, activate your hands. There's a lot of good stuff to read and find out for yourself, no belief system, nobody has to just like sign up for anything else and then find a buddy and play the three minute game and find your own truth in that. And, um, if that lands in your body and that resonates and it feels kind of solid and you feel like, okay, that's exactly what you were looking for, then there's more,

Rahi: Yes. So, Matthias's website and all of these three offerings are@somaticconsent.com. There's a free e-course on waking up your hands, a free course on engaging with the three minute game. Um, and just an incredibly thorough handbook that explains the neurophysiology of what is getting rewired. Uh, when we wake up our hands and engage in these explorations of consent boundaries, um, it's such a gift and I think it's in how many languages now it's, you've translated into many languages, right? Yeah. So

Matt: The somatic consent engagement system in itself, uh, is translated in 22 languages. Um, and its whole, it's just existing in, uh, in English and in German. And, uh, we will start pretty soon as well in Spanish and uh, some translations in Dutch, uh, some in Swedish. So step-by-step so conquer the consent.

Rahi: Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. Um, uh, conquer the world with consent by giving the power back. Um, yeah. So, uh, before we close Mathias, is there a somatic exercise, like a favorite somatic exercise that, um, you'd like to share with listeners that will support a deeper embodiment of our sexual vibrancy - our sexual promise. I feel like sensations is such a kind of divine gateway to restoring our sexual wholeness. Is there a somatic exercise that you have? That's a favorite of yours,

Matt: As I said that in the beginning, you know, you have more nerve endings in your hands than anywhere else in your body, except your mouth and your genitals. And when your hands get it, the rest of your body will get it. So it's waking up the hands is one of the major,, somatic exercises that I, recommend everyone to do. And as soon as your hands are really activated people ask then what so, so that when your hands get it, your genitals will get it. So when you can translate this touch into, with your hands and your genitals, and you're not following the goal and you just go with the sensory sensation of your experience was out, um, any agenda, then you have a good chance to have, Divine gate opened by yourself.

Rahi: Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. That's right on Matthias. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Matt: Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure,

Rahi: Shall we explore what it feels like to wake up our hands, find a comfortable sitting position where your torso can comfortably lean back into a passive and receptive state.

Rahi: And this is important as it releases the body and the mind's association with the doing active state, both muscularly and within your nervous system, use pillows or blankets to make yourself feel very comfortable and choose an object, any object, and bring it to your side. Let's first notice what feels relaxed in your body and notice what that feels like for the body taking in those sensations. And if you can make your body feel even more relaxed and comfortable, let's go ahead and adjust to do just that. Pick up your object and bring it with your hands to your lap, or perhaps a pillow on your lap to reduce any muscular tension and increase that passive receptive state of the whole body. Allow the sensations in your hands to be explored with this object as the stimuli in your passive receptive state, noticing what it's like to receive an inflow of stimuli through your sensations. It's the sensory experience of receiving this stimuli different than when your hands are in the active doing state. And if so, how

Rahi: Slow this exploration of your hands down by half the pace And notice -. Any changes in the nature Of those sensations. And if the mind wanders it's all right, simply bring your awareness back to what is happening within your hands. And as you slow it down again, by half, shift, your awareness to what feels pleasurable about the sensations

Rahi: Feeling, what it's like to receive - For your touch receptors to simply be - With the stimuli,

Rahi: If feelings are arising. Let's give space for them, just allowing that energy to flow and move as it wants. Let's allow your sensations to fill your entire awareness, noticing whether other sensations of pleasure arise in other parts of your body. And whether you can receive these sensations as well. You can continue exploring for as long as your body wants. Take good care.