Do you long for comprehensive freedom?
Are you thirsty for unconditional belonging?
Does your tummy rumble for a purposeful living?
Do you crave to see the mundane with meaning?
If you answered yes to any of these questions,
Soul Companionship is for you.
Companionship is
A 50-minute session of demarcated space dedicated to listening to your life, tuning into a more profound mystery and the more-than-human.
Sometimes referred to as Spiritual Direction, this is an age-old practice of walking shoulder-to-shoulder at meaningful levels. In the Celtic tradition, this relationship has a beautiful name, Anam Cara, translated as
Soul Friend
Sometimes curiosity, a wound, tragedy, ache, loss, addiction, or transition ushers us into this compassionate relationship.
Questions you might bring to a session
What is my mission?
What are my gifts?
What is cluttering my life and my love?
Where am I unfree?
What is life saying to me right now?
Where have I been in the last week or month?
What is wisdom teaching me?
What is stirring my imagination?
What do I need to let go of?
How do I address suffering and death?
What are the next best steps?
“I didn’t sense God’s presence anymore. Something was missing. How beneficial (these) spiritual direction sessions were! A literal God send. I am reminded of how God is so present every day and still working in my life.”
Kyle Mendoza, California
Matthew instigated, witnessed, and inspired positive growth in my spiritual journey well beyond anything I had ever imagined or hoped for.
I am coming to know, understand, appreciate, and trust my True Self.
My life has dramatically changed as a result of my time with Matthew Lyda, for which I remain eternally grateful.
- Richard “Loving Heart” WIllis (North Carolina)
Soul Companionship exchanges
+ constriction for freedom
+ disconnection for belonging
+ individualism for gift-giving
+ materialistic flatlands for meaning in the mundane
+ flatfooted religiosity for a dance with Wild Mystery
Curious?
Schedule a free 20-minute call.
What topics could we work with in the session?
Grief
Work
Relationships
Addiction
Joy
Spirituality
Sexuality
Anything!
What happens in a Soul Companion session?
A prayerful space is created.
Poetry, meditations, and other approaches center us
Reflection, noticing, storytelling, and pondering the journey
Invitations to curiosity through images, ancient scriptures, nature, and somatic expression
Like Sherlock Holmes, a hunt for themes, movements, and patterns
Invitations to action through ritual, wanders, and soul-rooted action.
IMAGINE
breakneck pace rest
more-more-more simplicity
HUFFINGTON POST
“If you want someone who will hold your soul with gentle, creative energy, you want to invite Matthew Lyda into your journey. He is trustworthy, wise, and unfailingly kind.”
Rev. Tammy Abee Bloom, South Carolina
What others are saying about soul companionship
“Working with Matthew over the past year has been most helpful. I am a different and better person today because of the depth of his kindness, empathy, and heart...the container he provided was inviting and safe, and the rewards were life-changing. ”
“A valuable resource to anyone looking for freedom”
“Matthew has a capacious heart. He empathetically resonates with men’s deepest emotions and desires, then tenderly mirrors those feelings, bringing them into the light of awareness.”
Ancient Wisdom: We pair the treasures of science with the gems of ancient wisdom. Whether it be time-worn Judeo-Christian practices, lessons from indigenous peoples, spiritual community, storytelling, or heroic journeys, we root our work in a grand story. Considering meaning, purpose, vision, and values.
Vintage, an age-old path.
Body-Based: This stance is faithful to mindfulness, experience, the sensual, and the imaginative; all elements oft-neglected by pseudo-masculinity, and white-washed spirituality. As the wisdom of the body is accessed, an opportunity to heal age-old rifts between the sexual and the spiritual opens
Hospitality: Unsubscribing from perfectionism and backspacing the blunting of empathy (mostly resulting from numbing behaviors Ad nauseam), this posture is faithful to see wounds morph into sacred wounds, a with(ness) to suffering, common humanity, and kindness. This is the call of hospitality to self and others.
Trauma-informed: This stance is a commitment to address systemic issues, hone honesty, craft ‘safe-enough’ settings, and foster collaboration. Dipping deeply from research-based recovery intelligence.
Embrace the Unexpected: The predictable, comfortable, and business-as-usual is death to our souls. The deepest transformations often occur outside of our expectations, and all our oh-so-cherished ways of thinking and behaving. Often, what is needed is the unexpected, the ridiculous, what’s ‘off the beaten path.’
Belonging: the domestic takes us only so far. As Thoreau said, “In the wilderness we have our tonic.” Nature is more than “out there”, but a reality that pushes past the boundaries of our skin, including us! Encounters with land, with more-than-human realities of life are Non-Negotiables to heal outdated myths of man greater than nature and man vs. nature. What we discover is: we belong to this organic reality, awe, and wholeness. We are more connected than we could ever have imagined.
Investment
Generosity Rate
$150
For those in a higher economic bracket who’d like to contribute to the wellness of others.
Resource Rate
$115
For those financially stable and have their basic needs met
Community-Supported Rate
$50
For BIPOC folx of any economic bracket or those who have a financial hardship
In need of financial assistance? Reach out to matthew@recoverthewild.com
We are committed to finances not being a barrier to this essential conversation.
FAQs
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The pathways into this conversation are endless. This may be the right relationship for you if you want to:
Honor your story
Be listened to becoming
Uncover and live your deepest desires
Love the world with all you have
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Listen, search, wrestle, rest, remember, feel, and much more…
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It is for you.
Skeptics
Christians
Muslims
Nonreligious ones
Wanderers
Science Lovers
Those questioning the faith they grew up with
Those in the church
Those leaving the church
Want to explore Soul Companionship?
Curious about what others are saying about Recover The Wild?
— Check out more testimonials HERE.
“Spiritual companions are guides whose purpose is to listen deeply to clients and help them explore their spirituality, usually in a nondenominational capacity…the goal is to take a meaningful step to help you find wholeness and balance in life, not to mention a sense of connection however you might refer to God…a space for seeking….others come to spiritual direction for guidance in reconciling their past faith with what they believe now, or merging their interfaith beliefs into a cohesive whole.”
(Soul Companionship) is to ask, “What makes my soul sing?” to listen gently and compassionately to the
“tug on the sleeve,” to discover our true selves in a way that gives our lives meaning so that our destination is no longer a place but a new way of seeing…holy listening.
Mollie Ledwith // Westside Presbyterian, New Jersey