Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin.

 

Today we invite Mattias Schwan, tech 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. So I'm really thrilled and happy to be inviting my good friend Mattia Schwan to the podcast today. Mattias 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 body work modalities over the years that are trauma and nervous sy nervous system informed.

Mattias, thanks for joining us today. Thank you very much for introducing me, and thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast. I'm sure thrilled to be here. Great. So you know, Mattias, 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 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. How that group was facilitated and the safe space that you guys held for people to know which sacred sex sexuality trainings and experiences were safe. So I wanna 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? Good and complex question. 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 with body work. And facilitating. I was starting off with a tantric group that was not deep in consent and boundaries. And my first introduction into becoming a tantric practitioner was, that the person who was initiating me, you can do whatever you want because nobody knows what a tantra session is.

And I have individually, personally, a very deep sense of justice and 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 and 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 I 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 you go with the perpetrator, so you become a com complex.

Yeah accomplice. 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 and I felt in, it was 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 that. It's calling out themself by stop using the position of power in the tantric practitioner and facilitator scene to just stepping full into the position of empowering people to step in their power and not using my power for my own benefit.

And and that was a deep landing on a cellular level in my nervous system to start that. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. And it really requires that, 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 position.

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 a, on your Facebook page. Yeah. I'm sure that created some waves amongst your colleagues and peers. Oh yeah, pretty much.

So I initiated a rejection in so many different tantric tribes so that I just literally got excluded in many directions. 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. That was a tremendous gift you gave to yourself then.

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. With the self-care before engaging in the permission line and agreement line which is necessary before reaching the apex where there is no, 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.

And those need to be so well practiced in order to surrender to the presence of sensation and touch. Yes. Yeah, I just I, I don't know what question to ask. I'm just 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, to evolve spiritually and relationally.

It's a really fascinating it's almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid where we need to take ownership of, our self-care, and our shadows in order to move forward. Yeah. Yeah, it's a really interesting dynamic and. What's really exciting about that?

It has been just like over these years, always in front of my nose and never have really seen it that much. And as you just sat now with the tan trauma group by speaking up from a position of power giving participants and clients their power back, that it's about what they want and what they wanna receive, that the position of power is.

It's a 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 when we have people coming into our environment, then it's our responsibility to.

Taking care of that power and the power differentiation. And there is this nice quote I think that comes from the Spider-Man movie. With a lot of power comes a lot of responsibilities. 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 laugh of power, or we step into the power of love where we are giving our gift of power to the other person to find their power. And then we let people in power 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 level of engagement and our, under our radar. And that's an important step that I have been, observing over the years with many facilitator who working in that field that they'll let people only come to a certain point into their power.

And as soon people stepping into their autonomy and inner authority of their yeah, their ownership of what they found. And I have experienced that on my own body. That facilitator trying to diminish and push. People down and I have been pushed down quite often and quite a lot, and this is where the opposite, all of a sudden, in the wheel of consent, what most people who will listen now to some degree already, I imagine you, you have this middle point where the action 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 wheels or the three minute game and the inventor of the Three Minute Game, Harry Feis, I recognize that came from a spiritual background, and Harry Feis 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 and everything was dropping into my own understanding so that this middle point that, 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 an an altruistic place of where friendship is created and where we inspiring each other. Yeah. Where our simple state of being is it's almost like the giving and receiving is happening concurrently. There is no duality of it.

There's just the experience, really the experience of love. But it does require that surrender, as you're saying. And so it is a very spiritual invitation. So you've said you've shared so many really great things. I love what you shared about, 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, whether we'd like to see ourselves as authority figures or not. There's just such rampant projection of parental, mother, father issues, and that has an opportunity to be retold, to rewire, yeah, the apex, it just makes the engagement system so enticing and mysterious. Mattias. 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.

Go ahead. No, please. No. Please. So I feel like the 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, I wanna 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. Just why that's so foundational to the work. Yeah. So when we just look into our own action and into our conditioning, what action includes.

Most people, they're 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 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 wanna own or can own, it's about that what is coming back through their action. Yeah. So that they're really filtering everything of their action through what will.

Arrive back and 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 once people do that, they want to get a response back. And we call that in somatic 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 afferent dynamic in the somatic nervous system, we're talking about the specific set of fibers in the skin. They are capable of feeling this pleasant, tish kind of electromagnetic, nice sensual sensation. Yeah, and this is what most people having really difficulties to find because when this is starts to get activated and they making an action by choice towards this sensation in their own skin without another person involved, something in the brain is getting activated.

So the insular, 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 system is getting activated so that their own action. Is towards their sensory inflow, this feeling center getting activated and people come in connection not only with the nice, pleasant, Tish, beautiful sensations, they're coming as well with all the suppressed feelings that they don't want to have.

Related to shame, fear, guilt, inadequacy, this entire package, what most people carry. And that's how many people, a big obstacle. But when this is 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 without putting all the story on top of that. People cannot 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 doing that very subtle but very profound that we re we replace the indirect route, what most people mainly do with the direct route so that we are making the direct route as their default of touch and connection.

And then we are 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. We are not dependent on it anymore. And that makes individual autonomous beings being an action for themself and feeling themself.

Yes. Yes. That's the key point in all of them. Yeah I find this really profound because I was, because what that means is to, what I interpret that to mean is that, 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 beautiful 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.

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. As it's rewiring and then you know, the experience of touch.

And I'll say that 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.

Yeah, that's a saying that the, the hands have per square millimeter a certain area, more nerve endings than anywhere else in the body except the mouse 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 mouse 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 wanna just as well come back to one specific point that when people, and specifically when it comes to the apex, and so where as well, love making is happening when two people engage with each other and.

Only one of the two has an agenda that their touch is goal orientated and another person is capable of feeling themself. 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 liquid light. Yeah. And there's something really magical happening after a while that specifically in lovemaking, when the genitals actually can feel that without the goal involved, that there is a tremendous capacity of transformation through this possibility of feeling each other and themself.

Yeah. Yes. If there is an agenda in the energetic field. 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. Yeah, if it's just a one man show or a one person show, then it won't go anywhere. So one person will be disappointed and, only one person goes for satisfaction and gratification and wanna reach a goal. Or if both people wanna reach a goal, then they're just fighting 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 super goal of both people climaxing together at the same time, but instead of taking the goal out and being capable of flying on the softness of relaxed arousal, expanding into that place of yeah, infinity of no goal, that's just the most delicious way of sensual, sexual engaging that's actually possible.

Yeah, 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 sensation, engaging with itself. Really it's sensation engaging with its own sensation with another person there. Mattias, I'm really curious because, when we met years ago you were in a partnership and the agreements that you had in the partnership were really.

Clearer and clean and it seemed to eliminate any kind of sense of obligation or misinterpretation. I'd love to know how you have found your personal relationships have evolved as you agreements within those relationships have evolved. Respecting your privacy, but sharing whatever you'd like to share in regards to that.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the question. I like that. And, the interesting thing is that when I started to see this 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. How most people trying to create something that they call a relationship, but nobody really knows what it is.

Kind of till ever after, until death takes us apart. So that 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 wanna relate with people, I wanna relate from a place of love and care.

Yeah, and I don't wanna relate in shadows and I wanna relate from that place where the foundation is the base. Yeah. So the base is that I can feel myself and my partner can feel themself, so that I'm not dependent on my partner and my partner's 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 are responsible for your feelings. So you cannot put your tentacles into, in my base and make me responsible for how you feel. And I cannot make the same either. So I cannot make you responsible for how you feel. So that's ownership.

Self love, self care. And this is. It doesn't matter with who, whom I'm engaging, if that is a intimate partner, if that's a friend, if that's a colleague, wherever I am. This is like the foundation. Yeah. 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 wanna make really sure. 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 and trying to diminish my own rights, then I want to make sure that now we have the same rights here.

So when I'm with my lover, relate on that level. It's impeccable, utterly self responsibility and radical self responsibility. And 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 action 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. I cannot give anybody else in the world give permission to touch another person.

But I know who I have a 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 is to my partner. Do I 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 get, yeah. And just to distinguish, that's for your pleasure. You're, 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 your partner's responsibility. So I'm asking for that permission and I give the same permission.

Yeah. So you have the same you're same allowed to touch me 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 agreement. So that every action in the first place is when I'm going in action, I go in action for myself and I respect your limits.

And I know when you go in action, you go in action for yourself and you respect my li my limits if I have them, and I will speak them up. I'm an adult. No. And right, I guess you're an adult too, so you can speak your limits. And you cannot make me responsible if you're not speaking your limits. And I cannot 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, I don't want anything. So don't do anything for me if I don't ask for anything. So that, that, that gives the power to me that I have to make a request if I want something.

And yes 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 if you desire, you have to ask too, 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 that it takes this pleasing component out of the equation. Yeah. It's not running the after the other and trying to get a respond out of them. And trying to make them feel happy. Now it's just okay, if you need something, ask for it. Yeah. It takes the pleasing out, but also the second guessing, the manipulation.

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. Yeah. 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.

This apex is this place of love and care. The place of giving ourself as the gift without needing anything back. When I give something, I give because I can. I give because I have. And what you do is that is your choice. I'm not expecting anything. And the same is for you. When you give something in the moment, you have given it, it's gone.

Yeah. And 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 and lovemaking 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 in place and it's good to play with that. And, but. I want to hang out up there. And here comes a point I haven't mentioned yet. In the apex there's a ascending and descending dynamic simultaneously happening. So what can be for one person? A gift can be for another person, a 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.

Yeah, because I feel like so much of sexuality is being used in, whether it's in marriages or dating, getting to know each other. It's really being used as a barter chip. On, on some end, I'm sure a sense of manipulation on another sense of a way of give to get.

And it really not only muddies the the. The possibility for authentic relating, but it also creates, dysfunction and armor in the body when you are, when we're using the body in order to get something rather than for its own pleasure, for its own sensational, sensation exploration. So yeah, I love this relational.

And it really mirrors the the engagement system pyramid. Yeah. See, it's kind of genius. It is. It is. And I wanna 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. It's not like you can turn, look, our adult patterns and behaviors are based on, in large part our childhood conditioning.

So you can just play for an afternoon at a time with your lover or your spouse and work towards. Becoming more adept and fluid with your ability to recognize what is giving, what is receiving, what is it that my body wants? And work, work your way in exploring this relational matrix.

Yeah. And the main 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 to my fifties birthday about two years ago, where I said, I just want to create free consent material accessible for the world.

And that was the main thing how I created that, that online course. So it's a free course. It's, it was free. It will always be free, and nobody has to just put a big investment into anything, discovering anything. So everybody's very welcome to go there. Register for this course and activate your hands.

There's a lot of good stuff to read and find out for yourself. No belief system. Nobody has to just sign up for anything else and then find a body and play the three minute game. And find your own truth in that. And if that lands in your body and that resonates and it feeds solid and you feel like, okay, that's exactly what you were looking for, then there's more to it.

Yes Matthias's website and all of these free 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. And just an incredibly thorough handbook that explains the neurophysiology of what is getting rewired. When we wake up our hands and engage in these explorations of consent and boundaries 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. The somatic consent engagement system in itself is translated in 22 languages. Wow. But in, in its whole, it's just existing in in English and in German. And we will start pretty soon as well in Spanish.

And some translations in Dutch some in Swedish. So step-by-step. So step by step. Awesome. Conquer the world with consent. Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. Conquer the world with consent by giving the power back, right? Correct. Yeah. Before we close Mattias is there a somatic exercise, like a favorite somatic exercise that you'd like to share with listeners that will support a deeper embodiment of our sexual.

Vibrancy or sexual promise. I feel like sensations is such a. Kind of divine gateway to restoring our sexual wholeness. Is there a somatic exercise that, that you have that's a favorite of yours? As I said that in the beginning, you have more nerve endings in your hands than anywhere else.

Your body accept your mouth and your genitals, and when your hands get it, your, 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 your hands are really activated, people ask, then what? So that when your hands get it, your genitals will get it.

So when you can translate this touch into with your hands in your genitals and you're not following the goal, and you just go with the sensory sensation of your experience without. Any agenda then you have a good chance to have this yeah. Divine gate open by yourself. Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect.

That's right on Mattias, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure. 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. This is important as it releases the body and the mind's association with a 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

Now. 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.

Is the sensory experience of receiving this stimuli different than when your hands are in the active doing state? And if so, how

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 these sensations,

feeling what it's like to receive for your touch receptors to simply be. With stimuli,

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.

And you can continue exploring for as long as your body wants.

 Thank you for listening to Your Body. Remembers Pleasure If this conversation supported you, the simple way to help this work reach more people is to leave a five star rating or a brief review. You'll also find more resources and teachings@rahichun.com. Until next time, take good care.