At Normal Like Peter, we explore what happens when people try to heal inside systems that were never designed for their nervous systems.
This isn’t a self-help brand.
It’s not a church.
It’s not therapy.
Normal Like Peter is a trauma-informed creative project built at the intersection of story, systems, humor, and recovery—created for people who feel “functional” on the outside but fragmented on the inside.
The name comes from a paradox.
Peter—the biblical figure—wasn’t exceptional because he was flawless. He was impulsive, afraid, inconsistent, loyal, avoidant, brave, and human. He failed publicly. He doubted. He ran. And he kept showing up anyway.
“Normal Like Peter” is a rejection of spiritual perfectionism and psychological purity culture.
It’s an acknowledgment that being human is not a disqualification from healing.
Normal Like Peter creates frameworks, stories, and language for people navigating:
complex trauma
faith deconstruction
identity collapse after loss or divorce
attachment injury
meaning-making after systems fail
We use:
narrative and myth
satire and humor
systems thinking
pattern naming
creative world-building
We do not diagnose.
We do not replace therapy.
We do not tell people who they are.
We help people see patterns without becoming labels.
Much of the work here is shaped by lived experience with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress (CPTSD) and long-term relational trauma.
That means:
safety comes before output
clarity comes before certainty
regulation matters more than insight
You’ll see concepts like object permanence, anticipation trauma, trauma loops, and attachment patterns used descriptively—not clinically.
This site exists to help people make the invisible negotiable.
Some people heal through silence.
Some through talk therapy.
Some through movement.
At Normal Like Peter, one of the primary tools is story.
The BluVerse is a fictional, symbolic universe used as a container for healing work. Inside it live satirical institutions (like the Church of NORMAL), archetypal characters, and mythic frameworks designed to externalize shame and reduce fear.
This is not escapism.
It’s a way to hold pain without letting it dominate identity.
Satire here isn’t mockery—it’s decompression.
Humor isn’t denial—it’s agency.
Normal Like Peter operates from an Infinite Game perspective.
There is no final healed version of you.
No purity threshold.
No permanent arrival.
Healing is iterative.
Stories evolve.
Language updates.
You are allowed to change your mind without invalidating your past.
Normal Like Peter may resonate if you:
feel “too self-aware” for simple answers
were formed inside rigid religious or relational systems
don’t want another identity label
want language for experiences you couldn’t name before
are rebuilding meaning after something collapsed
You don’t have to agree with everything here.
If something makes you pause, laugh, feel seen, or feel irritated—that’s information.
Normal Like Peter was founded by Matt Stoltz, a writer, systems thinker, small-business owner, and father of six, following the collapse of a 25-year marriage and the unraveling of a rigid belief framework.
This project emerged not from expertise, but from necessity.
It is built in public so others don’t have to start from zero.
Normal Like Peter isn’t here to tell you who you are.
It exists to remind you that you are allowed to author your own recovery—with better tools, better language, and less shame.
Healing doesn’t have to look impressive to be real.
Matt Stoltz is a writer, creator, and trauma-informed storyteller focused on helping people make sense of emotional and relational patterns that don’t respond to willpower, advice, or positivity.
After a long marriage ended, Matt found himself asking a deceptively simple question:
Why does connection feel so hard when everyone is trying their best?
That question led him into a deep exploration of attachment, nervous-system regulation, faith, humor, and meaning-making—not as abstract concepts, but as lived experience. What emerged was a body of work that blends clarity, compassion, and gentle satire to name things many people feel but struggle to articulate.
Matt is the creator of Normal Like Peter, a platform that explores healing without self-blame and growth without shame. His writing avoids diagnoses and labels in favor of patterns, systems, and stories—focusing on how people get stuck rather than what is “wrong” with them.
He is also the founder and lead voice of the Church of NORMAL, a creative, nontraditional experiment that uses honesty, humor, and narrative to talk about boundaries, burnout, faith after disillusionment, and the quiet work of emotional repair. Despite the name, it’s less about doctrine and more about relief—the relief of realizing you’re not broken for reacting the way you do.
At the center of Matt’s work is a simple belief:
Patterns can be interrupted once they are understood.
Matt writes from the intersection of personal experience, reflective practice, and narrative insight. His work resonates with people who have tried to “do everything right” and still felt unseen, exhausted, or confused by relational dynamics that never seemed to resolve.
He lives in Minnesota, is a father of six, and continues to document his ongoing process of rebuilding a grounded, honest life—one that prioritizes clarity, consent, and nervous-system safety over appearances.
Matt’s writing isn’t about fixing people.
It’s about helping them recognize when they’ve been surviving—and showing them what changes when survival is no longer the only option.
In the Church of NORMAL, “Pastor” is used playfully and symbolically—not as a claim of authority, but as a role of care, witness, and boundary-holding.
Matt sometimes refers to himself as the Loopwalker of Waseca, a narrative shorthand for someone who notices repeating patterns—personal, relational, and cultural—and refuses to erase them for comfort’s sake. It is metaphor, not mysticism; storytelling, not status.
Outside of writing and creative work, Matt is a people-first integrator and entrepreneur based in Waseca, Minnesota.
He is the founder of Flower Insider Technologies, providing Microsoft 365, cloud consulting, automation, and steady-state IT support for small organizations that value reliability over hype.
He is also the owner and general manager of Stoltz Cleaning Services LLC, delivering long-term commercial cleaning built on consistency, trust, and promises kept.
Matt’s leadership philosophy was shaped early—when, as a teenager pushing carts at Hy-Vee, he walked into a small computer shop with no credit and walked out with a desktop on a handshake and a payment plan. He paid weekly. He kept his word. He never forgot.
That experience still defines how he works:
Relational over transactional
Stability before scale
People first, systems second
Technology in service of humans—not the other way around
He occasionally quotes Scripture or Star Trek in a ticket comment. (Depending on the ticket.)
Matt Stoltz is a writer, creator, and founder of Normal Like Peter, exploring healing, attachment, and boundaries through honest storytelling and gentle satire. He lives in Minnesota, is a father of six, and writes about what changes when survival is no longer the only option.