ABOUT MATT LANDSIEDEL
Matt is a Relationship Counsellor, Facilitator & Educator with expertise in healing and relationships.
He specializes in working with gay men, highly sensitive people (HSP) and empaths to develop a stronger sense of self-worth. His areas of expertise are teaching people how to heal toxic shame, complex trauma, and disorganized attachment so they can embody their authentic selves and feel more empowered and secure in their relationships.
Matt is a Registered Professional Counsellor through the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association. He has spent the last 17 years guiding thousands of seekers on their psychological and spiritual journey through life. He has also studied Peruvian Shamanism through the Santa Tierras Earth Medicine Traditions, incorporating this healing modality into his life and coaching/counselling practice.
Inspired to Be Authentic is a mission Matt has purposefully created. Through his creative content, coaching/counselling, and community facilitation, he inspires you to share more of your truth with the world. He does this by teaching you life-changing skills and sharing energetic transmissions that inspire you to show up courageously in your own life by practicing vulnerability.
Matt’s vision for humanity is for us all to live with more courage to share ourselves authentically and enjoy greater intimacy and connection with one another.
Matt lives in Calgary, Canada, and in his spare time can be found traveling the world, writing, reading, hiking mountains, meditating and contemplating life, spending quality time with family and friends, learning the guitar, singing, taking photos of the natural world, tending to his plants, and bringing his two visions to life; Inspired to Be Authentic and Gay Men’s Brotherhood.
STORIES THAT INSPIRE MY WORK
MY “DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT” STORY
I’ve always been a seeker—adventurous at heart with a curious soul. I’ve spent most of my adult life searching for a peace I could never entirely hold onto. Growing up in a chaotic household, life was unpredictable. I learned early on that love could nurture me one moment and hurt me the next, leaving me confused and unsure of where I stood with others—or even with myself.
In my adult relationships, my wounds played out in painful ways. I struggled to trust others, always suspicious and hypervigilant to any sign that I might be hurt or abandoned. Deep down, I believed that no one was there for me. To protect myself from that pain, I built armour. I told myself, “I didn’t need anyone.” I embraced a lone wolf mentality most of my life. I became too comfortable with being alone. My overdeveloped independence became my shield, but it also became my prison. I wanted love, but I was too afraid of being hurt by it again.
At 30, I found myself sitting in a therapist’s office, my heart heavy with the weight of relationships that had fallen apart, friendships that felt distant, and a constant ache that something inside me was broken. Relationships have always been a struggle; full of contradictions. I craved intimacy but pushed it away when it came too close. I wanted connection but feared the pain of losing it. I had spent years unravelling the mysteries of my emotions, but it wasn’t until a particularly painful breakup that I stumbled upon the concept of disorganized attachment. That push-pull I felt in every relationship, the craving for intimacy mixed with the terror of it—it all made sense. Naming it felt like both a relief and a challenge: if this was my story, could I rewrite it?
My therapist met me with warmth and compassion. “Healing this will take time,” she said gently. She could see how much pain I was in and how lost I felt. I remember her saying, “Disorganized attachment comes from confusion in childhood, but as an adult, you have the power to create clarity.” She wasn’t wrong; I spent the next 10 years in and out of therapy with several different practitioners, each one offering me a piece of clarity to my healing puzzle.
My journey began with trying to understand my emotions, even when they felt too big to handle or unsure of what I felt. Journaling became my lifeline. Late at night, when the world was still, I’d pour my fears, memories, and longings onto the page. As I wrote, I noticed patterns—how I’d shut down when someone got too close or lash out when I felt the faintest hint of rejection. For the first time, I saw these moments not as failures but as wounds crying out for attention.
Therapy helped me go deeper. It guided me through the memories I had spent a lifetime trying to avoid. One session, I found myself reliving a moment from childhood—hiding in my bedroom during one of my parents’ fights, my small body frozen in fear, my mind trying to make sense of the chaos. “What would you say to that little boy now?” she asked me.
I closed my eyes, tears slipping down my cheeks. “I’d tell him he’s safe now. That he’s not alone.”
Saying those words felt like a revelation. For so long, I had been waiting for someone else to provide that safety, that reassurance. But now I understood that it was something I could give to myself.
One breakthrough came when sitting quietly alongside the river, I was flooded with a memory—a moment of calm from my childhood. My mom held me close, singing “You are my sunshine” softly to me as I drifted to sleep. The memory brought tears, not just for what I had missed but for the realization that love had existed, even if it wasn’t always consistent. That moment helped me see that the inconsistency I experienced as a child had taken root in me, making my inner world just as chaotic. Healing wasn’t just about fixing my relationships with others; it was about healing my relationship with myself.
Practicing vulnerability was another hurdle. For years, I had built walls around my heart, convinced that if I let people see the real me, they’d leave. But I started small. One night, I told a close friend, “Sometimes, I push people away because I’m scared they’ll leave me first.” She hugged me and said, “You’re not alone in feeling that way.” I remember the relief I felt, and it gave me inspiration to start sharing more of my relationship fears.
Over time, I noticed subtle changes. I didn’t spiral when someone cancelled plans. I stopped replaying conversations in my head, picking apart every word to see if I had said the wrong thing. When discomfort bubbled up, I didn’t run from it—I sat with it, named it, and reminded myself that I could handle it.
Today, I still have moments when the old patterns creep back in, when fear whispers that it’s safer to stay guarded, to stay disconnected. But I remind myself that I’ve spent ten years walking this path, and I’m not the same person I was when I started. I trust myself more. I believe in my abilities. I know that I am capable and strong. And most importantly, I know that I am enough—just as I am.
A big part of my healing was learning to have a relationship with the parts of me that felt abandoned. I acknowledged the protector parts of me—the ones that said, “I don’t need anyone,” and “I’m better off alone.” These parts had served me well in the past, shielding me from rejection and heartbreak. But I realized they were also blocking me from experiencing the love I so deeply desired. I began to thank these parts for protecting me and I asked them to trust me enough to let love in.
One of the most profound shifts came when I stopped blaming others for not showing up for me. I began taking responsibility for the ways I hadn’t let love in, for the ways I had pushed people away because I was afraid of being hurt. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. I asked myself hard questions: “What parts of myself am I protecting?”, “What scares me most about love?”, “What do I desire most when it comes to love?”
One of the hardest parts of my healing journey was addressing the belief that I was unlovable. I had to sit with the parts of myself I didn’t want anyone to see—the insecure, scared, and helpless parts. I got curious, “Why do I believe I’m unlovable?”. It was when I was able to go beyond my protector parts and access my deeply wounded inner child that I was able to release my trauma, and healing started to take place.
I realized my protectors needed love and appreciation before they would let down their guard. Instead of pushing those parts away, I began to have a relationship with them. I thanked them for protecting me but I also asked them to trust me. I told them it was okay to let love in, to let connection happen, even if it came with risk. I was now capable of having my own back.
I began to rewrite my story about love. Instead of focusing on heartbreak or rejection, I started focusing on expressions of love—kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance. I thought about the people who had shown me love and allowed myself to feel what that love felt like in my body. I let myself sit with the longing to feel loved, no longer numbing it or pushing it away. And for the first time, I started to believe I was worthy of love.
I had to learn how to receive love. For so long, I convinced myself that love wasn’t safe, that it would only lead to pain. But as I practiced mindfulness and self-soothing techniques, I started to feel what it was like to let love in—I allowed myself to feel gratitude for that love. Gratitude, for me, is the birthplace of receiving. It opened me up to the possibility of connection.
There are setbacks, of course. Times when fear creeps back in, when the old patterns whisper, “You’re not enough.” “You’re going to get hurt.” But I have tools now. I practice breathing to calm my nervous system. I find stillness daily where I can meet my whole self. I challenge fear-based thoughts and set boundaries with my inner critic, who tells me I am incapable or not strong enough. And when I feel overwhelmed, I remind myself that fear and love cannot exist in the same moment. Each time, I try to choose love.
I am rewriting my core beliefs about love. Love isn’t something I have to earn. It isn’t about being perfect or never getting hurt. Love is about courage. It is about showing up, even when I feel vulnerable. It is about softening my armour, trusting myself, and allowing connection to happen—even with the risk of disconnection or heartbreak.
Today, I can see how far I’ve come. The wounds of my childhood don’t define me anymore, though their scars remain. I’ve learned to trust myself, to believe in my strength and my ability to navigate relationships with courage and vulnerability. I’m still working on it—on being vulnerable, on asking for connection, on softening my hypervigilance. But now, I know I’m capable of the love I once feared.
Healing disorganized attachment has been the hardest inner work of my life. It has tested me to my core, and there were many times I wanted to give up, but I kept going. I am just now, at 39 years old, getting to taste what it’s like to live and love freely with an open heart.
“I became too comfortable with being alone. My overdeveloped independence became my shield, but it also became my prison. I wanted love, but I was too afraid of being hurt by it again.”
MY “GROWING UP GAY” STORY
Growing up, I carried a secret with me—a secret so heavy and filled with shame that it shaped almost every part of who I was. I was gay, but I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t know how to share it. I didn’t even know how to accept it myself. For most of my childhood and adolescence, I hid my truth, terrified of the rejection and judgment that might come with it. Instead, I became incredibly skilled at hiding behind a mask, a mask that was built on the belief that if people saw the real me, they wouldn’t love me, accept me, or even want to be around me.
Toxic shame became a constant part of my life. It was an invisible weight that sat heavily on my chest, draining my energy, confidence, and ability to connect with others. The more I tried to conceal who I was, the more I felt like I was falling apart on the inside. And so, in an attempt to escape this suffocating feeling of shame, I turned to anything that might numb it—drugs, compulsive behaviors, and endless distractions. I became trapped in a cycle of addiction and sexual compulsivity, desperately searching for something to fill the void within me, but nothing ever worked. The shame remained.
For years, I didn’t realize that the root of my addiction wasn’t just my behaviours; it was the shame that had festered inside me, poisoning my ability to see my worth. I believed that something about me was fundamentally broken. I felt unlovable and unworthy. I thought I needed to fix myself before I could ever hope to find peace or happiness. But no matter how hard I tried to “fix” myself, it was like chasing a moving target. The more I sought perfection, the more I felt I was failing. The more I pushed myself to be something I wasn’t, the more disconnected I felt from my own soul.
It wasn’t until much later, after years of therapy, self-reflection, and spiritual work, that I began to understand that there was nothing wrong with me that needed fixing. What I needed was to stop trying to be someone I wasn’t. I needed to learn to accept myself, flaws and all and to show up in the world authentically. I realized that I had been masking my shame with perfectionism, desperately trying to prove that I was worthy of love and acceptance. But perfectionism wasn’t the answer—it was just another way of hiding.
The breakthrough came when I began to accept that I didn’t have to be perfect to be loved. I began to see that my flaws, my vulnerabilities, my mistakes, and my imperfections were not things to be ashamed of. They were part of what made me human. And as I started to embrace my authentic self, I realized that the shame I had carried for so long was rooted in a deep fear of rejection. “If people knew the real me,” I thought, “they wouldn’t accept me. They wouldn’t love me. They would see me as broken.”
But over time, I learned a powerful truth: the rejection I feared did not come from others but from within me. The way I saw myself was a reflection of how I thought others saw me. When I began accepting myself, I stopped worrying about whether others accepted me. I learned that I was responsible for my own wholeness. And once I made peace with that, something incredible began to happen: I started attracting the right people into my life—people who saw me for who I truly was, not the mask I had been wearing.
It wasn’t easy to let go of my mask of perfectionism. There were days when shame would try to convince me that I wasn’t enough, that if I revealed too much of myself, I would be rejected. There were days when I felt like putting the mask back on, hiding my true self to protect myself from the fear of vulnerability. But on those days, I made the choice to be courageous. I chose to lean into vulnerability, to show up as my authentic self, even when it felt terrifying. It was not a linear journey—there were setbacks and days when I faltered. But with every step, I grew stronger and more confident in who I was becoming.
As I began to shed the layers of perfectionism and shame, I started to notice something significant: I was struggling to connect with other gay men. I had always been afraid of rejection, so I would only show parts of myself that I thought were acceptable—my body, my sense of humor, my positive personality, and, of course, my sexuality. I would present these aspects of myself as a way of being validated by others, but it was all a façade. I wasn’t showing up authentically, and because of that, I felt lonely, disconnected, and isolated in the gay community.
What I didn’t realize was that the disconnection I felt was a direct result of not allowing myself to be vulnerable. I was so afraid that if I showed my true self—if I allowed people to see my messy, imperfect, or unsure parts—I would be cast aside. But as I began to let go of that fear and embrace vulnerability, something beautiful happened: I started forming deeper, more meaningful connections with other gay men. I realized that my vulnerability wasn’t a weakness; it was a bridge that allowed me to truly connect with others. I didn’t need to hide behind a mask of perfection to be desirable. I needed to be real, to be authentic.
Through this process, I learned how to have intimate connections without sex and how to build relationships based on trust, understanding, and mutual respect. I realized that true intimacy comes not from physical attraction alone but from the willingness to show up as your true self without fear of judgment. And in doing so, I found a sense of belonging that I had never known before.
This journey of self-acceptance, healing, and authenticity has become my mission. I am now dedicated to helping other gay men navigate their own struggles with toxic shame and perfectionism so they, too, can find peace with themselves and experience the beauty of authentic connection. I believe that the more we embrace our vulnerabilities and allow ourselves to be seen, the more we invite love and connection into our lives. It is through vulnerability that we find our strength, our courage, and our true selves.
Taking the leap to allow yourself to be seen can be scary, but the work pays off. Through authenticity and vulnerability, I have found the courage to speak my truth, to share my story, and to connect with others on a deeper level. The most beautiful thing about authenticity is that it draws to you the people who will truly appreciate and love you for who you are. When you are true to yourself, you attract the right people who will help you celebrate your uniqueness.
The truest act of courage is showing up as yourself in a world that constantly tries to tell you to be something else. And when you finally do, you realize that you are enough. You always were.
“I spent a significant part of my life not knowing how to have meaningful connections with other gay men. Not knowing how to share intimacy without sex, and most definitely not knowing how to be vulnerable with other gay men because I thought it would make me undesirable.”
MY “SENSITIVITY” STORY
Growing up, life felt like an emotional rollercoaster—up, down, spinning in ways I couldn’t predict. There were moments of joy, but they were often overshadowed by the emotional weight I carried. The world seemed overwhelming, and the feeling of being different was constant. What I didn’t know then was that my sensitivity, something I thought was my curse, was actually a gift. I spent twenty-five years of my life feeling lost, unsure of why I reacted the way I did before I learned that I was an empath, and that realization changed everything.
As a child, I was incredibly emotional. The smallest things could send me into a whirlwind of emotions—joy, sadness, anger, fear—and I often didn’t understand why. What made it harder to understand was that I didn’t just feel my own emotions deeply; I felt the emotions of others as well. Walking through a crowded room, I could feel the tension in the air, the sadness in someone’s eyes, or the joy radiating from another. And often, I felt overwhelmed by it all.
One of the earliest memories I have of this overwhelming sensitivity occurred when I would see homeless or handicapped people. I remember feeling an intense urge to cry every time I passed them on the street. The sadness I felt was palpable, almost suffocating. I couldn’t understand why it hurt so much to see people suffering. As a child, this made no sense to me. It wasn’t something I had learned; it was just something I felt deep in my core. I knew something was different about me, but I didn’t have the words or the understanding to make sense of it.
At school, the overwhelm was just as intense. For the first two years, my mornings would start with fear. As my mom dropped me off in front of the school, a wave of anxiety crashed over me. I could feel all the energy inside that school, and it was too much—too big, too loud, too chaotic. Before I even entered the building, my heart would race, my chest would tighten, and tears would well up in my eyes. I would run back to my mom, desperate to escape, to find solace in her arms. I couldn’t understand why I felt this way. Why was it so hard to just walk into school like the other kids? What was wrong with me?
I spent years carrying this burden. Every time I cried or felt anxious, I wondered what was wrong with me. I thought I wasn’t okay, that I was broken somehow. I couldn’t understand why other kids didn’t feel the same way, why they weren’t as sensitive or overwhelmed. I thought I was too weak for the world. I convinced myself that I had been given this burden to overcome in this life, something I had to hide or fix. Sensitivity, I believed, was a weakness. It made me feel like I was always on the edge of breaking.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I had an epiphany. After years of struggling with my emotions, I stumbled upon the term “empath” in a book. As I read about the traits of empaths, my eyes widened. It was like reading a description of myself. An empath is someone who feels the emotions of others as if they were their own and experiences the world in a heightened emotional state. I finally understood that this sensitivity wasn’t something that needed to be fixed or hidden. It was a part of who I was, and it was okay to be this way.
This newfound understanding changed my life. I realized that the very thing I had seen as my greatest weakness was actually my greatest strength. I no longer saw my sensitivity as a burden to bear but as a unique gift that allowed me to connect with others on a deeper level. Instead of trying to shut down my feelings or push them away, I began to embrace them. I learned that I could use my sensitivity to create meaningful connections and comfort those around me.
My empathy and sensitivity are now two of my most cherished traits. I use them to help others and to create safe spaces where people can be vulnerable and authentic. I can feel others’ emotions, often before they even express them, allowing me to connect with them in a way that few others can. People feel seen and heard when they are with me. They feel safe to let down their guard and share their struggles, joys, and fears. And I get to experience those moments with them, offering comfort and understanding.
This ability to deeply connect with others has made my life richer than I ever imagined. It’s not always easy, of course. There are days when the world’s emotions feel too heavy to bear when I can’t help but feel everything at once. But I’ve learned how to manage it, how to create boundaries, and protect my energy. And most importantly, I’ve learned how to honor my sensitivity, rather than shame it.
What started as a source of confusion and pain has now become one of my greatest assets. I no longer see my sensitivity as something to hide but as a power that can heal and transform. I want to share this lesson with others to teach people that their sensitivity is not something to be ashamed of but something to be celebrated. Sensitivity does not equate to fragility. It is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength, of emotional depth, of the ability to understand and connect with the world in ways that others cannot.
If you are someone who feels deeply and who experiences the world with a heightened sense of awareness, I encourage you to embrace it. Challenge the beliefs that society has instilled in you about emotions and sensitivity. Don’t let others tell you that you’re too emotional or too fragile. Your sensitivity is a gift. It allows you to see the world in a unique way, to feel deeply, and to connect authentically with others. It is not something to hide; it is something to nurture and protect.
Now, as I look back on my life, I am grateful for the journey that has brought me here. The pain and confusion I once felt about my sensitivity has transformed into a deep sense of gratitude. My sensitivity has taught me empathy, it has brought me closer to others, and it has allowed me to live a life filled with purpose and connection. What once felt like a burden is now my greatest gift, and I wouldn’t change a thing.