Meet Tom Slater
Lead Facilitator and Founder of Sapience
“I work with people and the human experience. I love to work with emergent truth, so with no real plan or directive, just feeling and attuning to what's happening, and being curious about that with people. In doing so, I’m realizing more of my own humanity and getting to be with people in theirs — which is a never-ending source of fascination, joy, and challenge.”
Tom Slater
What was your path to becoming a facilitator?
It was long. I've been a seeker since I was a child, so I've been deeply in question and inquiry of, “What the fuck is this and who am I?” since I was really young. That led me into rabbit hole after rabbit hole after rabbit hole. In my teens, I was rebelling against everything, and taking way too many psychedelics; in my 20s, I was lost and confused, traveling the world; and in my 30s, I was in and out of depression and endless rounds of therapy, where I was getting relief, but never really release. I always thought something was wrong with me, because every doctor that I ever went to with a psychological problem told me there was something wrong with me.
It wasn’t until my mid to late 30s that I started doing connected work. I found circling, which is an interpersonal kind of meditative practice, and it was the entry point for me to come out of siloed, individual practices like meditation or breathwork. As soon as I was put in front of another human, I realized that’s where all of my contraction was — a lot of my wound was in relation from my past and my childhood. That was a massive turning point in terms of my own journey within myself. And I found something that I could really step into.
Through that, I met a woman who had created a practice and a space that was very open and emergent. We went on to develop a lot of stuff together over a number of years, and that space was everything to me; it was the place where I could be myself, where I could bring the things that I didn’t know how to bring any other way.
Q: How did Sapience come to be?
A: At the beginning of COVID, I decided to forge my own path, and really evolve what I felt I wanted to do. I wound up in Bali in 2021 and started what was called the Dojo, which was an experimental training ground for whatever this thing wanted to become. We did quite a few retreats here, and it became Sapience when it started to grow outside of the bounds of Bali.
How do you describe Sapience to someone who’s never done it?
Sapience is a training ground for humanity. It's a very open space to be more fully realized, to be more experimental and attuned, and to be more improvised in who you are.
It’s about getting out of the construct of all the different ways that we’ve been limited in our patterning from childhood, and the ways we’ve had to get our needs met vicariously because we weren’t accepted the way we were, or we were told to be nice, or we were course-corrected by our parents. The grip on that is gently released, and we start to shed those layers to uncover truth and authenticity.
There’s a longing in most people for a deeper expression of truth. We normally touch that in intimacy with our partner, or whatever that looks like for the individual person, but in a group, in a more sustained way, it’s about reorientating around truth and authentic expression.
“Everything is encouraged or invited into connection, because that’s where a lot of our wounding came from.”
And the space of Sapience facilitates that, because it’s got a massive capacity to hold a dynamic range of emotion and expression. It’s also hugely orientating toward emergence. And by that, I mean that there’s no script, there’s no plan, and I’m not overlaying exercises to hold specific contexts. It’s more like, let’s see what’s happening for you right now. Let’s be curious about what’s actually true for you and bring it into connection. That’s another huge piece with Sapience: Everything is encouraged or invited into connection, because that’s where a lot of our wounding came from, whether it was erring towards abuse or neglect.
If you’re feeling bored or angry or sad or joyful or playful or whatever, that’s where you are. So go with that. Don’t try to force something or dig for anything. Familiar propositions will come up, like, “This isn’t enough,” or, “I’m too much,” or, “I’m contracting myself to play small.” Well, why are you doing that? It’s a deep inquiry. And the outcome of all this is more dynamic range, freedom, and liberation from constriction and resistance.
There are young parts of us that have been forgotten about in our own system, partly because they’re pre-language, and we don’t even know they’re there. They’re reaching for our attention, but we don’t connect with them because we don’t understand what they are. Propositions around safety, trust, “am I enough?” or “am I lovable?” are very basic in the foundation of our being. Rebuilding these bridges within your own system can completely change your life. Because if you feel safe, then the real estate of your established self gets bigger and bigger so you have way more range and capacity to build dynamic structures — realized, theorized, physical, emotional, cognitive, energetic structures — on top of your foundation because it’s not wobbly anymore. When you stabilize your nervous system, you’re way less triggerable. You have more capacity. People can come to you with all sorts of unpredictable energies, and you're just like, “Okay, I feel and hear you, and I'm not going to be destabilized into your energy.”
The “not knowing” is a massive piece of Sapience as well. This is not about concluding or diagnosing. It’s not even about understanding. It’s about opening to the possibility that we don’t know, which is a massive energetic field that we can tap into when we get out of the way. When we open to that, we realize that’s also very frightening, because it’s where the edge is. It’s in the context of predictability that we feel established, realized, and mature, and everyone feels safe around us. When we get towards edges, we become more unpredictable because subconscious and unconscious things come up. That edge is where we work in Sapience. That edge can be grown and expanded continuously throughout your life. And playing on that edge can be frightening, but also extremely empowering.
How do you support people in integration after such a big experience?
That’s an ongoing inquiry, because integration can potentially be a shortfall. You can have a peak experience, and then it’s like, “Well, how does that actually equate to my everyday life?” We can get into this thing of wanting the extreme experience, because that somehow gives us realization around our specialness, but the reclamation of the mundane is also really important. Most of us have to do washing up, making a shopping list, that kind of stuff that feels superficial and mechanical. That’s massively important, because that’s when we can marry these two together — the peak experience and the mundane. It’s important to take the time afterwards to weave this into the everyday, and to give yourself the space and time to be able to land it more efficiently without suddenly jumping back into a heavy schedule. And usually when you feel like any given process is done, it’s about a half to two thirds done. So you need to spend time to integrate, to breathe, to be alone, to let the body shake out.
Another key element with integration is relational, so choosing who you share your experience with is very important. Choose people you trust will be able to hold you in it, not people who will question, doubt, or laugh.
What's one tool you teach that’s consistently impactful for people?
One really simple tool is knowing that often we're not our biological age, and we misread our partners by giving them a biological age.
When we're established and realized, we're mostly resting in a biological age, so 52 for me. But if I start moving towards an edge, especially if I get into a triggered state, I'll drop in age really dramatically. And that contracts my capacity to objectify, articulate, and rationalize. I can drop into an emotional state that could be anywhere between one day old and 10 years old.
“Asking yourself, ‘How old do I feel on the inside? is profound. As is having the capacity to do a scan and go, ‘Oh fuck, I feel like a frightened, uncertain, unsafe, unwelcome two year old right now. What are his needs?’”
And sometimes we have things to do, but it’s important to be able to say to oneself, “I got you. You can come along for the ride, and I will be with you later.” That’s another bridge of trust that we can rebuild in our own system.
And in partnership or friendship, if we wonder why the other person is acting like a pissy six year old, it’s probably because they’re being six years old. Asking, “How old do you feel?” can bring a massive amount of compassion. And then, if possible, you can adjust how you interact to that age with that person.
It can feel and sound weird, but it’s a game changer. It’s meeting someone where they’re at, and not where you want them to be.
How has your partnership with Meet Your Magic changed your capacity to offer Sapience?
It’s changed everything. Having that structural support has completely changed how the offering is possible. First Pip came on board and became instrumental in facilitation, creation, and steering the ship in a really powerful way. And when we partnered with Meet Your Magic, they helped us to stretch in a way that was sustainable, and that we could offer more without fracturing.
Up until then, we were doing just one retreat at a time — trying to fill the retreat, doing all of the logistical pieces of the retreat, and when that one was cleared out of the way, we’d put another date in, and slowly move toward that. We were doing four or five retreats a year, and now we’re doing 10 or 12, and doing them really well.
Now Sapience is really holding its own, and our partnership with Meet Your Magic has increased the energetic of the field. The attractive field is bigger. The ripple is bigger. The people coming in are bigger. We put an increased proposition out there, and the universe is responding to that proposition. It’s a generative field that’s more and more powerful, and it’s taking a life of its own.
What practices do you have to take care of yourself?
I do a lot for myself in many ways. I don’t want to be subject to a schedule, necessarily, but I know I’ve got things to do, so I’m more organized than I’ve ever been. And I try not to work more than three or four hours a day at the most.
I really take care of my body, and pay attention to my diet. I have a physical practice that I’ve done every day for 32 years. I ground myself in having time just for contemplation — it’s where I get a lot of ideas and realizations, when I’m not distracted, and I’m just being. I don’t read books. I’m pretty particular about where I’m putting my energy; I’m kind of an extrovert - introvert, so I’m pretty reclusive. I’m very happy on my own.
I’m very aware of my own system and what’s happening in it. If my mind is worrying and distracted then I know something’s up, so I can try to identify what’s happening, but mainly my mind is still. I’m pretty open, and I don’t dwell a lot in the past. I’m forced, in some ways, to think about future stuff now because of the things we’re planning with Sapience, and I’m happy to have a certain amount of that. Otherwise, I’m very present in the moment.
And I keep my channel open. When I’m doing the work, I’m moving things through me. I don’t carry anyone else’s emotion, or sometimes I do, but mostly I’m moving things through my system so nothing is sticking. I get the taste or imprint of something, but I don’t end up with someone else’s energy lodged in me, or like I’m carrying the weight of somebody. I can meet very strong, massively various energies from peoples’ pasts, energies that people would deem dark or shadowy. But I’m not afraid of other peoples’ pain. This is where I want to go.
What’s alive for you right now?
What’s always alive for me is death. That’s very much in my moment-by-moment awareness, in experiencing the uniqueness of each moment and how it’s never a repeatable event. My own aging, as well as my parents’ aging, has honed this sense of the beautiful miracle and privilege of being alive. And it’s important not to take it really seriously and to have fun, but the fact that I’m alive just continuously blows my whole system. I don’t understand it, in many ways. And I’m okay with that.
Learn about upcoming Sapience dates, locations, and more at JourneyToSapience.com
