Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Matt Kahn for Part Two of our conversation on Whatever Arises, Love That. Matt is an author, spiritual teacher, and highly attuned empathic healer. His spontaneous awakening arose out of an out-of-body experience at the age of eight and through direct experiences with ascended masters and archangels throughout his life. Using his highly attuned intuitive abilities of seeing, hearing, feeling, and direct knowing, Matt serves as a bridge between the mystical realms and the journey of spiritual awakening.
With Sounds True, Matt has published a new book called Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins with You, where he offers a collection of powerful teachings that provide a series of deeply healing insights and practices to engage love as the most potent catalyst for personal and collective transformation. Matt Kahn is also the creator—with Sounds True—of a new, eight-week online course based on the teachings in the book Whatever Arises, Love That—a course that begins on March 1.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Matt and I spoke about feeling truly safe, and the connection between feeling safe as a person and fully committing to life and bringing our gifts forward. I also asked Matt to lead us in a “repeat after me” practice for opening to safety and our power to commit to life. We also talked about Matt’s skills as a highly attuned empath and how empathic people can view their experience of feeling the emotions of so-called “others” in a very interesting way. Matt also talked about four kinds of inflammation of our personality—how we can at times find ourselves feeling needy, victimized, righteous, or entitled, [as well as] how to work with such reactions when they arise. Finally, we talked about the love revolution that Matt is carrying the torch for. Here’s my conversation with Matt Kahn:
As part of the book launch, Matt—of Whatever Arises, Love That—I had the great good fortune to be with you in Boulder with an audience of upwards of 600 people celebrating the release of Whatever Arises, Love That. I’d never seen you in action, if you will, in front of a live audience before. I’d love to talk a little bit about what I saw and ask you some questions.
One of the things I saw was 600-plus people repeatedly tapping their own hearts and saying, “I love you. I love you.” I didn’t just see it. I was one of the people doing it! “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I also felt an incredible amount of love and healing released in the room. I mean, there were people on either side of me that were crying and deeply moved.
But, I also noticed in myself and in a couple of pockets in this huge hall—some people who felt a little bit—maybe I could say “uncomfortable” or “awkward.” Like, “Is this really working? Is saying, ‘I love you,’ to myself—do I mean it? Am I hearing it?”
I wonder if you could talk to that person—that person who perhaps when they say “I love you” to themselves—which is one of the beginning teachings as you describe in this love revolution—they just feel awkward and weird, let’s just say. Can you talk to that person?
Matt Kahn: Absolutely. What I’ve come to notice in working with so many different types of people on opening their heart and learning how to love what arises is that it seems like there are three layers of defense that we have to melt in our being in order for the heart to open and begin to really glean the benefit loving ourselves more often. It seems like [these] three layers of defense—and you said the first layer is “awkward.” The second layer is skepticism, and then the third one is embarrassment.
So, when we first begin to love our hearts the way no one else has and we begin to love ourselves in a way that maybe we haven’t been taught is important or valuable, we have to oftentimes pass through these three stages of awkward, of embarrassed, and even sometimes frustrated or skeptical. As we melt these defenses just by acknowledging that, even if I feel awkward, that must be the first one in line to be loved. Even if I feel skeptical, that must be the next one in line to be loved. Even if I feel embarrassed, that’s only here to be loved.
So, I think in the beginning the real pivotal shift is that it’s not that I feel awkward or skeptical or even embarrassed because I’m doing something wrong or this isn’t the right thing to do, but I’m actually—in my skepticism, in my awkwardness, and in my embarrassment—meeting the first ones in line who are here to be loved more, not less.
TS: What if we hit that part of us that’s just the big, open wound, if you will? Like, “OK, I’m sending love to my self as part of this love revolution, and what I’m encountering is that big, open—we could call it a crevasse. That place that never felt loved.” Like, “Ouch, that is so painful. So, so painful.”
MK: Oh, absolutely. In fact, when the heart opens, I describe it as “a cracking open.” Oftentimes, when the heart chakra is opening, it actually physically can hurt. Some people over the years have mistaken it for heart pains—or going to the hospital thinking, “Maybe I’m having a heart attack.” Oftentimes, when the heart that has been so sealed shut in defense from its surroundings starts to break apart all that repressed energy, it literally can be a very physically excruciating experience.
So, whether it’s emotionally painful or physically debilitating, it’s just one of these things that—even as we start to sense those pains—there is something deeper within us that knows, “This is the direction I’m supposed to go.” It’s only a matter of taking the time to love ourselves more often to where that hardened shell within our heart can be softened and melted to allow the light of our being to shine through.
TS: Now, Matt, in our first interview—where we talked about Whatever Arises, Love That—you shared with me how that phrase—how those four words—came to you. What I’m curious about is, now, how this practice of sending “I love you”—the statement of “I love you” to our own heart—not just how that came to you, but how it unfolded for you as a person going through a transformative process of your own heart opening. Basically, how [has] your own heart-opening process unfolded? That’s what I want to know.
MK: Yes. There was a time in my life where I realized—and I looked back on my life, and I had been blessed to have a lot of very profound spiritual awakenings and realizations and insights. I came to a point where, on a daily basis, I was having awakenings and moments of self-realization.
I realized at a certain point—there was just this very deep clarity that helped me realize no matter how many awakenings I’ve experienced, my spiritual maturity is not defined by the amount of experiences I have, but in my relationship with myself and my relationship with my surroundings, the way that I perceive others and myself. Again, I’ve always been a very naturally loving person. But, within my own self as an energetically sensitive being, there has always been a part of me that is just naturally afraid—afraid of what others would think, afraid of what others can do to me.
So, I started to realize—even though I’ve had a lifetime of very profound spiritual experiences—there is still a part of me that is deeply afraid or feels unsafe to be here. So, I began to ask the universe, “How can I start to really find the safety that a lifetime of awakenings hasn’t seemed to resolve?”
Then, of course, weeks later I get the “Whatever Arises, Love That” download. So, what I began doing was just practicing on my own life. Every time I get a new teaching downloaded, my life becomes a living social experiment where I get to put this to practice so that I can experience the depth and the breadth of what the teaching can offer. So, then I can go transmit it to others.
So, as I was taking the time to love myself and love the feelings within me and send blessings of love wherever I go, basically the experiment is, “What if I took the majority of time I have each day and, as I’m going through my daily life, what if I used it as an opportunity to love myself and to love others? What would happen if I made that my focus for an extended period of time?”
What I found [was] within three days—72 hours—I found a profound shift within my emotional body. I began to find a sense of safety that I had not found in my life despite how many realizations and awakenings I had had.
So, for me, the practice of loving my own heart—not only just as the foundational teachings that I offer—loving what arises is what provided me the safety, the courage, and the ability to reclaim my power so that I can channel all of what has been revealed through all these awakenings. But, I was just very surprised to know—after a lifetime of awakenings—it was only when I decided to love myself unconditionally that I finally found the safety and the courage that I’ve always been looking for.
TS: I’m curious to know more about this idea of safety, because I do think that a lot of people are “on edge” in some way. They don’t actually feel—if you feel into them—they don’t feel deeply surrendered and let go and safe in a certain kind of way. We talked about this in the first part of our conversation as well—where you talk about the ego as the imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system. What would it mean to feel so safe that our nervous systems actually were relaxed and not overstimulated? Talk a little bit about that and what you’ve found out about being safe in our nervous system.
MK: Well, what I found out—and I found this to be very interesting—[was] that in the beginning, one would think of the word “safety” and think of, “When I’m not safe, that means I’m afraid of what might happen to me, afraid of what others can do to me.” Basically, in the beginning, we link a lack of safety to a presence of fear.
What I found is that—because I took some time to really explore, “What does it really mean to be unsafe?” I would get to the point of realizing being unsafe means I don’t feel comfortable where I am. Then I asked myself an interesting question. I asked myself, “If I am uncomfortable where I am, what does that prevent me from doing?” For some reason, that’s the question I came up with.
And the interesting answer that I came up with was: “Because I don’t feel safe where I am, that prevents me from fully committing.” I had this really huge realization when I said that to myself—that the reason I felt the effect of feeling unsafe was that I, as a result of this un-safety, had an inability to commit. I wasn’t fully committed to the deepest relationships even though I relied on them to make me feel the way I didn’t treat myself. I was unable to fully commit to projects that I started that I never finished. I realized that the effect of being unsafe is a lack of commitment.
It was only when I committed myself to loving my heart that I found myself being able to feel safe in my body and then—from that perspective—commit myself and follow through in all areas of my life, which brought about the fulfillment I’ve always been looking for.
We talk about the ego as an overstimulated nervous system. The ego traditionally is fed by seeking, is fed by collecting or cultivating, but it doesn’t know how to fully commit.
So, when we unravel the overstimulated nervous system [and] we love our hearts to integrate the ego and step into a new vibration of emotional oneness, we not only find a safety we’ve always been looking for, but we feel safe enough to fully commit to our lives, to fully commit to being accountable, and to fully commit to the relationships that become external reflections of our new, loving relationship with ourselves.
TS: One of the things that I’ve learned, Matt—becoming friends with you and working with you on the development of the Whatever Arises, Love That online course—is that you do these interesting repeat-after-me exercises. I found them at first a little awkward. I was a little clumsy with it. But, I went in, opened up, and found them also extremely valuable and transformative.
I was thinking, right here at this point in our conversation, that it could be really useful if you’re willing—we can just jump right in, and we can do a repeat-after-me around this idea of safety. Maybe you can explain a little bit how you work with this repeat-after-me, and then we can do it together.
MK: Yes, absolutely. That sounds like a lot of fun.
When I was taught how to do the repeat-after-me—which a lot of what I do [just happens] in front of an audience, and then it just becomes something that I use as a tool. I’m often taught by the universe how to work with certain energies or how to do something as a process by offering it.
What happened was the repeat-after-me came about in the beginning of my career. I would sit in front of a group and I would bring through the energy, and I would say things that would fascinate and astound people. What I realized was that their experience was being fascinated by what I, Matt—someone else—was saying in their reality. The effect of that made them a fan of what I would do.
I would sit there very puzzled, going, “Wow. This person resonates with my words. They say, ‘I’m a fan of what you do.’” But, I would see energetically that what I would say wasn’t penetrating into their energy field to create the kind of healing and positive change that I was really there to offer them. So, it was like, “Wow. I have people who like what I say. But, the gifts that I’m offering [aren’t] penetrating and being received.”
So, then I had this spontaneous idea in front of a group one day. Instead of me saying something very powerful, I had everyone repeat after me. What I realized [was] that when I had people repeat after me certain things, their subconscious mind responded to those words as if they were coming up with it, and then they would experience the shift that I’m trying to transmit to them.
TS: Makes sense.
MK: Yes. So, it was a clever way of—instead of just saying these things and having people go, “Wow, I like what you said but I’m still going to go back to my insufferable life,”—because for me, the drive is, “How do I take what comes to me and deliver it to people’s energy fields and into their experience for the greatest effect?” So, I started doing this repeat-after-me so people could actually feel in their body the reality that I’m trying to transmit and open within them. Over a short period of time, [it just] became a very highly effective way of helping to rewrite the subconscious mind and clear out the cellular body.
TS: I love this idea of helping people feel more safe so that they can wholly commit to their life—to our incarnation. I think that’s such an important point. I think so many people feel a little bit tentative about fully incarnating. Like, “I don’t like it here. It’s too dense. It’s too painful. I’m kind of here, but I’m kind of not here.” They don’t think it’s safe. People don’t feel it’s safe to be in their bodies.
MK: Absolutely. I think that—again—I think if we start to look at the connection between un-safety and a lack of commitment that perhaps from early childhood experiences people perceived a lack of commitment on an emotional level from their family or parents. That put them in a space of rejection or isolation or abandonment. Then the feeling is, “I feel like people haven’t committed to me, and now I feel so unsafe that I am unable to commit to my life.” I think if we realize that it’s learning how to be the love that we’ve always been looking for that gives us the safety, that gives us back our power, that gives us back our inner voice.
That reclaiming of our power gives us the permission to fully commit to life because fully committing to life is the source of happiness. As we all know, it’s not really what happens to us. It’s how we perceive it. But really, happiness is an expression or a tenet of commitment, and the ability to become committed is about finding that true safety which only love can bring forth within us.
TS: Beautiful. OK. Let’s do it. Let’s repeat after you.
MK: OK! Let’s try this. So, let’s do a repeat-after-me. Again, I’ll say it and, Tami, you’ll be the response part. Everyone listening can just join in. Again, it’s not about trying to remember the words, because the energy I transmit is affecting the subconscious mind. So often when we’re rewriting this subconscious mind, the conscious mind can’t hold the words together.
So, it’s really just about repeating the words and just seeing how you feel. So, we’ll try this.
I accept . . .
TS: I accept . . .
MK: . . . that my inability to fully commit . . .
TS: . . . that my inability to fully commit . . .
MK: . . . to my life, to my relationships, and my journey . . .
TS: . . . to my life, to my relationships, and my journey . . .
MK: . . . is because on some deep level . . .
TS: . . . is because on some deep level . . .
MK: . . . I feel unsafe.
TS: . . . I feel unsafe.
MK: And with this lack of safety . . .
TS: And with this lack of safety . . .
MK: . . . it causes me to live in a world . . .
TS: . . . it causes me to live in a world . . .
MK: . . . where I insist on others committing to me . . .
TS: . . . where I insist on others committing to me . . .
MK: . . . far before I have chosen to commit to my life.
TS: . . . far before I have chosen to commit to my life.
MK: And in order to reverse this polarity . . .
TS: And in order to reverse this polarity . . .
MK: . . . to feel so filled with love . . .
TS: . . . to feel so filled with love . . .
MK: . . . that I can fully commit to every moment . . .
TS: . . . that I can fully commit to every moment . . .
MK: . . . whether or not anyone else commits that way to me.
TS: . . . whether or not anyone else commits that way to me.
MK: I must find true safety right now.
TS: I must find true safety right now.
MK: And that safety erupts . . .
TS: And that safety erupts . . .
MK: . . . by accepting . . .
TS: . . . by accepting . . .
MK: . . . the one that feels unsafe . . .
TS: . . . the one that feels unsafe . . .
MK: . . . the one who’s afraid to commit . . .
TS: . . . the one who is afraid to commit . . .
MK: . . . as if doing their best might not be good enough . . .
TS: . . . as if doing their best might not be good enough . . .
MK: . . . is only here to be loved.
TS: . . . is only here to be loved.
MK: Only my love can save me.
TS: Only my love can save me.
MK: And if I don’t know what that feels like . . .
TS: And if I don’t know what that feels like . . .
MK: . . . if I distrust it . . .
TS: . . . if I distrust it . . .
MK: . . . or if it even feels awkward . . .
TS: . . . or if it even feels awkward . . .
MK: . . . it’s simply because . . .
TS: . . . it’s simply because . . .
MK: . . . I am beginning a new process . . .
TS: . . . I am beginning a new process . . .
MK: . . . that my subconscious mind . . .
TS: . . . that my subconscious mind . . .
MK: . . . recognizes as foreign versus familiar.
TS: . . . recognizes as foreign versus familiar.
MK: And in order for self-love to become more familiar . . .
TS: And in order for self-love to become more familiar . . .
MK: . . . and not interpreted as a foreign invasion . . .
TS: . . . and not interpreted as a foreign invasion . . .
MK: . . . may anything that I feel . . .
TS: . . . may anything that I feel . . .
MK: . . . whether self-judgment . . .
TS: . . . whether self-judgment . . .
MK: . . . fear . . .
TS: . . . fear . . .
MK: . . . apathy . . .
TS: . . . apathy . . .
MK: . . . loneliness . . .
TS: . . . loneliness . . .
MK: . . . even anger, sadness, and jealousy . . .
TS: . . . even anger, sadness, and jealousy . . .
MK: . . . or physical pain . . .
TS: . . . or physical pain . . .
MK: . . . is only here to be loved more, not less.
TS: . . . is only here to be loved more, not less.
MK: I love you.
TS: I love you.
MK: I love you.
TS: I love you.
MK: [Laughs.] So, how was that?
TS: I’m going to have to sit with it for a little bit, Matt—to be honest. I’m just sitting. I’m absorbing. I’m feeling it.
MK: Good. I like it.
TS: I do have a question for you, because you talked about how—if our subconscious mind experiences something as foreign—sometimes as I was repeating those words—and I think listeners might have a similar experience in their own repetition. It could be like, “Wow, this is foreign. I wouldn’t choose this word.” Or, “I’m not sure about this. This is different.”
MK: Sure.
TS: “I’m not sure about this.” And it bounces off. It’s like the subconscious says, “No. I reject this. These aren’t my words.”
So, what do we do when there’s this sense of rejection inside us doing a repeat-after-me exercise like this?
MK: Well, again, any—just as a living example of love in our lives, love—and I speak of love as not just an emotion, but as the reality of consciousness within all forms. Love will take any form that it needs to take to bring up within us not the barriers to love, but the things that have yet to be loved.
So, we could say, “Oh, I said these words and he said a word. It doesn’t fit into my exact vernacular and it bounced off.” Or we can say, “Perhaps he was even guided to say the words that at certain points bounced off and got rejected simply to bring to the surface that part that rejects, that part that judges, that part that stands guard of our consciousness trying to protect but really just keeps us separate from life. Maybe those words were just to bring up the part—the rejecting part, the defensive part—because that one is also here to be loved as well.”
So, even like in life—not just with my teachings; my teachings are simply a manifestation of how love moves in the world—love will do and say and become anything in your reality just to bring up to the surface what is waiting, begging, and fighting for your loving attention.
TS: Now, Matt, I want to talk to you a little bit about you being a highly attuned empath and what that means. To begin with, as an experience for you interacting with people—going about in your life—what does it mean to be a highly attuned empath? How do you experience that?
MK: As an empath, I have an intuitive ability to feel in my body what other people are experiencing. I always say that the world is divided into two kinds of people: one [kind] who are energetically sensitive, which are empaths who are aware of their empathic nature. They may not have developed their empathic abilities and honed it like a masterful skill set, but they’re aware that they’re energetically sensitive. The other kind of people are energetically sensitive beings that either don’t know that they are or are just so repressed and shut down that they haven’t opened up to that aspect.
So, we’re all really empathic beings. It’s just a matter of how aware we are of it and if we’ve developed it into a precise skill set. What I’ve noticed in my life as an empath is the reason that we are able to feel other people’s experiences is so that we can have a bird’s-eye view into what they are resolving and reconciling emotionally and energetically—kind of like if you could feel what is going on inside someone’s energy field while they try to move through time and space as mothers and fathers and coworkers, and playing all these roles. If you could really feel what’s going on inside every single person, you would have a greater understanding why they may not be able to meet you and be for you what you want them to be for you.
So, it’s kind of like we—on a very intuitive level—as souls in human form, have the ability to tune into where people are at. It’s almost like on some—when we’re tuning in an we’re feeling the conflict and the healing going on in other individuals—it’s as if the soul of another person is letting us feel into their reality as a way of saying, “What you’re feeling is why I can’t meet you the way you want me to meet you.”
Throughout my entire life, what was the greatest pain of my life was that even as a child I would meet children and I would meet them as their best friend. I would be wide open. Then that would lead to them shutting down.
So, I wouldn’t understand why others weren’t meeting me the way I was meeting them. So, then as an empath, over the years I began to realize, “I’m feeling the pain. I’m feeling the loss. I’m feeling the un-reconciled healing within each individual. It’s as if their soul is saying, ‘I’m sorry I can’t meet you the way you’re meeting me. The pain that you’re feeling is showing you why I can’t meet you on this equal playing field.’”
TS: How did you first discover that you were an empath as a young person?
MK: Well, I don’t think I really knew as a young person that I was feeling other peoples’ energy. I think when I was really young I was just blaming myself for everyone else’s feelings. I would interpret what I would feel around someone as their opinion of me.
So, I would say part of my training to become an empath was just year upon year of misunderstanding—of feeling certain emotions around someone and then thinking that was their opinion of me. I remember just spending a lot of time always trying to cheer people up because I thought, “Once they feel better, then they’re finally going to like me and see me for who I am.”
So, for me as a child, I don’t think I really caught onto the fact that this was what I was doing. I was just caught in what I call “the swirl of vibrational codependency,” where I couldn’t feel relaxed in my body until other people felt better in theirs. It was just spending so much time in that whirlwind that, as I matured and evolved, slowly—little by little—things became known to me. I started to realize what I’m actually feeling in my body is my experience of their journey, which is being shown to me so I can understand why they may not be opening to me like I’m opening to them—and why I shouldn’t take that as personally as I’ve always taken it.
TS: One thing I’ve noticed that dovetails exactly on what you’re saying is [that] in people I know who are highly empathic but perhaps not very fluent yet in how to work with that, one of the confusions that often comes up is, “Are these my feelings or are these the feelings of someone else, and how do I know the difference?” How might you help someone who is asking that question a lot in their life? “God, I’m feeling so many things. I don’t even know—are they mine? Are they this person’s? Is it the group field? Is it the shadow of the group? What am I feeling?”
MK: Right. It’s a great question. Now, let me just propose something interesting—just as a consideration—because what I like to do is I like to consider, “What if?” Just, “What if?”
What if we as human beings are angels in human form? We are aspects of the divine. We are here experiencing life as individuals. We, in our energy fields, are like illuminated lights that are here to heal and awaken the light in the world that we live in.
What if everything that we have felt in our life—everything—is what we and our energy [have] been clearing out of the energy fields of those in our families and those in the world? Even the positive emotions [are] what our vibration is activating and awakening in those around us.
What would happen if there was a realization that everything I’ve ever felt of adversity was what I was clearing out of others? What if everything positive I’ve felt is what my energy is awakening and cultivating out of others, and that what the sensation of ego really is—when our nervous system is overstimulated—is we are working as empathic beings to help clear the planet, but we’re taking what we’re clearing out of others and we’re weaving it into a quilt and making it into our identity?
So, when we really wake up as empaths, every single thing I think is what I’m helping to transmute out of the collective consciousness in those around me. The adversities I feel emotionally [are] what I’m clearing out of the collective consciousness in those around me. And even the great things that I feel are what my energy field is activating out of those around me.
What if everything that we experienced was our contribution to the world and what was ours was just the ability to witness this healing that’s unfolding? That’s a radical, radical consideration.
TS: Yes. It takes someone out of their personal narrative that they’ve bought into—kind of the “the story of me”—and instead makes us these big, impersonal transformers, if you will.
MK: Yes. Absolutely. And again, we are these impersonal vessels of transformation. And yet, the joy of incarnation is that we’ve been given a unique personality—we’ve been given the unique ability to subjectively experience all that we’re helping to transform in the planet.
I think what’s really interesting—and what becomes a bridge between the healing journey and the path of awakening—is that in the path of awakening, we wake up out of the belief that anything is mine. But, sometimes on the path of awakening, we go, “OK, none of it’s mine. So, it must not be mine to heal. I can just turn away from it.” And it just becomes maybe a less heart-centered way of looking at it sometimes. Then, on the healing journey, we’re so diligent and willing to heal and clear and face anything, but the identification that it’s mine keeps at as a perpetual whirlwind that we never get beyond.
So, when we put these two ideas together—that we are healing for the world; none of it’s ours; but it is ours to help transmute and clear—when we understand how we are empaths, we bring these two aspects together. And then all of a sudden, there’s a much clearer picture that can be painted. When we are very highly charged vibrational beings, we are here for a very specific purpose. And yet, we are awakening so that we can have the greatest time of helping this planet evolve and enjoying the ecstasy of individuality all at once.
TS: So Matt, just to circle back around to the question I asked—an empathic person wondering, “Is this mine or someone else’s?”—if I’m understanding you correctly here, your perspective might be something like this:
Someone comes back from a party and they feel a combination of weird things—slightly alienated, slightly angry, slightly sad. Who knows? And they’re wondering whose material [this is].
Your view would be: that’s not even the right question to ask, or that’s not an important question. It’s more these feelings have come up to be transformed, that’s the work we need to do, and that’s all that matters. Something like that?
MK: Yes, but I would even answer it by saying what people feel in certain surroundings is not their feelings, but what their energy field is transmuting and clearing out of those around them. For example, at the party situation.
So, someone goes to the party and they come back feeling weird. If someone is still asleep in ego, they would go, “God, for some reason everything at the party left me with this feeling of weird. Maybe I don’t want to hang out with those people.” It’s a way of taking that debris and personalizing it.
An empath would say, “Wow. I must have cleared some weird energy out of those I was around. Knowing that it’s not mine, I can help release it out of my field and transmute it so that those people who I interacted with at the party can move on with their lives with a lot more lightness in their energy fields.”
So, again, none of it’s actually ours. On a bigger level, none of it is actually others’. But, once the planet gets to a place in evolution of realizing that none of it’s anyone’s, that’s when heaven on Earth really takes shape and form in a tangible way. But, right now, we’re at a place where empaths and healers are awakening to realize, “This isn’t mine. This is my contribution to helping the world wake up to its true nature.”
TS: Now, there’s something in the book—Whatever Arises, Love That—that I wanted to read to you, and then we can talk about it some. It has to do with your understanding of human personality and that the personality isn’t necessarily something that goes away when we die. I thought this was extremely interesting.
So, here I’m going to read the quote from Whatever Arises, Love That. Here it is:
“Through helping many people cross over into the afterlife, as well as communicating with those who are already on the other side, I’ve discovered that the personality goes way beyond the boundaries of the body as an aspect of the soul.”
There’s a couple reasons, Matt, why I want to talk about this. One, I think it’s really interesting that you’ve helped a bunch of people cross over and that you communicate with people on the other side—so I want to talk about that. But also this idea of what happens when we die, and that some part that makes us unique actually continues after we die. I’m very interested in this and in what you have to say about this.
MK: It’s very interesting. When I’ve had these experiences of—in my experience, what it looks like is: When we die—my experience at least is—we enter a doorway of light. When we enter a doorway of light, we oftentimes have relatives or we have guides and angels that are there to escort us across the threshold. As we step into the doorway of light, we enter into what we would call a “heaven realm.” Whenever I’ve had this experience, it’s almost like whether sometimes it’s looked like a waiting room or a bunch of souls waiting in line to be processed—kind of like you’re standing in line to get into a concert.
When I’ve interacted on that side of reality, what I think is fascinating is that beings that were alive and have crossed over still have the same personality structure. It’s just now they’re fully in their radiance. Of course, there are awakened beings and enlightened masters who are able to reclaim that full radiance before they’ve stepped through the doorway of light. Of course, that’s what we would typically call an enlightened master.
But, no matter what you’ve reconciled spiritually on this planet, when you cross over to return to the light, you still have your uniqueness, you still have your personality [and] your quirks. But, it’s just as if all of that has been elevated into its full, vibrational, and radiant potential to become the best expression of your individuality instead of maybe—on the planet—as attributes that seem to get in the way of recognizing how bright we already shine.
TS: In Whatever Arises, Love That, as you’re talking about this radiant personality, you also contrast it to what you call “inflamed versions of our personality”—and how here, as incarnated beings, we often become inflamed. Our personality becomes inflamed. You talk about four types of inflammation.
So, I thought this would be really an interesting teaching to share—how you came to this view of “inflammation,” and the four different types.
MK: Yes. The inflammation to me just struck me as—you know, we are all divine beings experiencing crossing over to the other side and seeing the doorway of light—and really seeing and experiencing firsthand on many occasions that we are all divine beings.
Then the question became, “Well, we’re all divine beings. But, we’re all acting it out in very, very different and interesting ways.” So, it came to me that when we are in that stage of ego, it’s almost as if we have an allergy or an allergic reaction to the conditioning that we are slowly and progressively waking up from.
So, the compassion within me began to see that—instead of seeing someone in ego as, “How dare they act that way!” or, “How dare they say that to me!” or, “They’re less than divinity!”—instead I started to see them as, “This is a divine being who is simply having a severe allergy to the things that they are healing.” And just like when I was talking about how we are all empaths helping others heal, in a planet of beings that are having an allergic reaction to this conditioning, it really seems like, “Well, that’s probably why we’ve come to help heal the planet, to help wake beings out of this allergy so that we can all be in our divinity while in physical form.”
I began to see just in watching the allergy of ego and I began to kind of recognize four basic aspects. I began to recognize righteous inflammation—which of course is when someone is always needing to be right, and even if they’re talking to someone that they agree with, they’re going to have to make a better point just to have the final word because righteousness always has to be more right than other people.
I began to see neediness as another form of inflammation. Neediness is one who always needs more and more from other people. Even when they get from other people, it just leaves them hungry and more dissatisfied.
I’m trying to think of the other two . . .
TS: You have the victimized form—
MK: The victimized! That’s right—
TS: —and the entitled.
MK: That’s right. Entitled, of course, is one who in a very exaggerated way thinks that the world revolves around them, and everyone needs to stop what they’re doing and work for them. Then the victimized—of course, victim consciousness is that everything’s against me, everything is conspiring to hold me down, it’s me versus the world.
And again, in all of these aspects—from the victimized to the entitled, to the needy to the righteousness—within all of that is a part of the personality that normally exists in human consciousness. But, when we’re having an allergic reaction to our environment, to the planet, to the conditioning, it gets way exaggerated. And then of course we are embodying victimhood and embodying neediness and embodying righteousness.
As we begin to love ourselves, what we find is [that] when the victim can be loved whether you enjoy feeling victimized or not, when neediness can be loved whether we like feeling needy or not—when all these aspects cane be loved and just seen as a part of you that in such exaggerated fashion is just fighting for only the love and approval that you can offer it, we begin to be the living remedies of this allergy. We begin to be the force of nature that awakens us from this unconsciousness. We begin to experience a profound integration of ego—because, again, it’s not about getting rid of ego. It’s about integrating the ego so that we can become heart-centered beings here to assist in the evolution of the planet without having to be overwhelmed and dominated by the energy that we’re transmuting.
TS: So, when we find ourselves feeling righteous, entitled, needy, or victimized—and I think all of us probably can identify moments when we feel one of those four things throughout any given day; at least I can, certainly—I’m going to love the part of me that feels needy? “I want this. I wish my partner did that. Blah blah blah.” I love that part of myself. Is that the basic antidote to all four—whichever one comes up in our experience?
MK: Yes. I even might say—just as we’re talking about this out loud—I might say that the first step before we get to the love is always to respond to that part of ourselves with earnestness and honesty.
So, using your example, if you’re like, “I can’t believe they’re doing this,” if in the middle of that, you would take a slow breath and say to yourself, “I understand this is how you feel. It’s OK that you want things to be different. Thank you for letting me know what you’re feeling right now.” And then [you] go into the, “I love you.”
Even though we’re going from, “I’m feeling victimized. It’s me versus the world,” or, “I’m feeling needy, too. Let’s love the one who needs,” I think that loving what arises always begins by engaging that part of us—dialoguing with that part of ourselves—always with a sense of compassion, always with a sense of honesty, and always with a sense of support—to start by saying to ourselves, “Hey! I hear that you really want something from someone that they’re not giving you. I really understand that that really doesn’t feel fair. I really feel how deeply this bothers you, and I am grateful that I get to be the one that you share that with. And I love you.”
So, really, when we love what arises, it’s not just, “I feel this way and I say, ‘I love you’ like a robotic process.” It’s really that loving what arises is giving us a chance to reach into ourselves and to be the kind of love, honesty, and support that we have spent so often being for other people. It’s just about connecting and dialoguing with that part of ourselves that just wants to be heard, that just wants to know that it’s OK to feel the way that it feels, and to know that no matter what it shares with you, it won’t be rejected, it won’t be abandoned, it won’t be punished—it will just be loved as it’s always meant to be loved.
TS: OK, now I’m going to go into some slightly scary territory for me personally, but we did do the repeat-after-me about being safe. So, I’m going to do it.
So, I was rereading Whatever Arises, Love That in preparation for this conversation today, Matt. And I got to the section about these four different types of inflammation. I was reading the section about righteous inflammation—the, “I’m supposed to be right,” —and I thought, “Well, you know, OK. I relate to that. Not that much. I mean, I don’t really have to be right. I want to say my piece—but some situations I want to be right. But, OK.”
But then there was a subset under righteous inflammation, and it talked about skepticism. I thought to myself, “Well, I’m a professional skeptic. That’s part of what makes me a good interviewer and that’s part of why I like myself—because I’m skeptical. I don’t just take what people say. I ask more questions.”
MK: Right.
TS: How is skepticism part of righteous inflammation? Isn’t critical thinking something we want? Isn’t that an aspect of being a skeptic?
MK: Well, I think that there’s a difference between being skeptical and being analytical.
Meaning, being analytical is—something is presented to me and I’m going to take a deeper look. I’m going to examine it. I may flip it around.
“Analytical” or analysis is [that] I’m going to change the way I’m looking at something so that I can see what’s going on even below the surface. So, the intention of analysis is the joy of self-discovery by how we change, how we view things.
Skepticism is that same type of desire for discovery, but it’s fueled by doubt. It’s fueled by judgment.
So, when we are aligned and integrated in our ego, we can enjoy the exploration of always going to a deeper level, always going from one level and taking it as deep as we want. We can always enjoy discovery, but it doesn’t have to come about by doubting or renouncing other people along the way.
I think in the beginning that’s what I talked about—one of the three stages of defense that we melt in our ego structure is skepticism. First, I think I talked about discomfort, then it’s skepticism. Really, skepticism is—again—there is an intelligence in all of us. There is a part of us that can always see something and know that below the surface there’s always something deeper to discover.
And yet, when our personality is exaggerated—when we find ourselves in ego—we are still in that journey of exploration, but it comes with a sense of doubting someone, questioning their validity [and] their intentions, and it really is fueled by doubt and judgment. So, really, we want to be analytical, critical thinkers. We want to be creative beings. But, we don’t need to doubt and judge as a result of taking things as deeply as we can see them.
TS: OK. There was another part in rereading Whatever Arises, Love That that I thought was just so helpful [and] that I would love for you to talk about. It’s a section of the book that you call “The Calamity of Comparison.”
My question is: when people find themselves in some kind of comparing mind [and] we’re comparing ourselves to other people—this person’s got more of this; I wish I had more of that; blah, blah, blah—how do we apply the teachings of Whatever Arises, Love That when we find ourselves in comparing mind?
MK: Well, I think that when we compare, we undermine the fact that each of us [is] on a unique journey and that—even though it looks like we’re sharing space in a world together—each and every one of us are only experiencing exactly what is helping us to evolve in the fastest amount of time. So, when we’re comparing, we are really abandoning our own journey and looking at what other people have to decide what’s missing from our lives. That gets us back on that endless seeking of ego instead of learning how to fully commit to the journey that we’ve been given.
So, again, the first step is becoming aware of it. When we become conscious and aware that we are comparing, it’s an acknowledgment that, “Here I am, undermining the value of my unique journey by trying to define or measure the worth of my value by what other people have, say, or do.”
Again, the first step is engaging with our innocence and saying, “Hey, I understand that you’re comparing yourself to others. I understand that by comparison you might seem to think that you are less than other people.” I think that the first step of loving what arises is, without justifying, making it OK that there is comparison—that comparison is the way that the innocence is just crying out to remember its own unique value.
So, it’s not as if we’re blindly just [saying,] “It’s OK.” So, to perpetuate the behavior. And neither are we admonishing the behavior so to treat ourselves with maybe the reward and punishment that we experienced in our earlier childhood. We’re really saying, “Hey, I understand that the comparing that you’re doing is because you don’t feel safe. And when you don’t feel safe, may I be the one that reaches out and loves you as never before?”
So, really, we start to—instead of seeing comparison as a true representation of how good or bad we are, we start to see comparison as vital proof that, “I really don’t feel safe with myself, and this is the perfect time where I can love myself more, not less.”
TS: Now, one of the things you mentioned, Matt, in this conversation was how—if we’re finding ourselves feeling inflamed or we find our nervous system feeling overstimulated and jacked up (using my language) —that we can breathe more slowly. I think that’s very helpful and people probably intuitively get that. “Oh, if I intentionally breathe more slowly, that’s so helpful.”
And then in the book Whatever Arises, Love That, you also talk about a certain kind of listening—a certain way of listening—that can help our nervous system calm down. I’m wondering if you can explain what kind of listening [that is], really.
MK: Well, I think that there’s a difference between hearing and listening. Meaning, when we’re hearing, we are often interpreting other people’s words through our own beliefs and ideas. We’re hearing what we’re saying, just kind of waiting for an opening to respond. We’re not really using listening as an active engagement.
When we’re really, really listening on a deep level, we’re not just hearing the words that they say, but we’re allowing our ability to listen to be a gift of love that we’re giving to others—as if when we listen, we are allowing others to reclaim their power by finding their voice and by allowing them to be heard the way they’ve never been heard before. At the same time, the deeper we listen to others, the more we feel heard by the world around us whether or not anyone is listening to us.
So, again, instead of needing other people to really listen to us in order to feel valued, we realize, “I will feel valued and heard and recognized by how deeply I listen to others.” The fact that we can listen to others speak and slow our breath at the same time—which of course relaxes our nervous system. And when our nervous system is relaxed, it also begins to relax the nervous system of the person around us. So, again, our ability to slow down, deeply breathe, and listen on a much more fundamental, intimate level is not only what allows us to feel seen and fulfilled in our life, but allows other people the opportunity to experience the truth of our nature just by being in our presence.
TS: OK, Matt. I just have one final question for you. The subtitle of your book—A Love Revolution That Begins with You—I think I’m starting to feel what you mean by having my heart crack open more and more and more, hopefully all the way—fully, completely. What do you mean, though, by “a revolution” in terms of this being something that is actually beyond an individual, but more like in the definition of a revolution like a movement, if you will?
MK: Right.
TS: Is there such a thing as a love revolution movement that you’re carrying the torch for?
MK: Absolutely. I think that it’s been a long time coming. The seed’s been planted for many, many, many years and lifetimes. It’s just a time on this planet for those seeds to start really sprouting roots and blossoming.
When I speak of a “love revolution,” what we realize is that of course in the beginning, loving [ourselves] more transforms every hardship, clears away every pain, and literally is the single greatest catalyst to transform us from instead of being beings who are waiting to be liberated to being the liberators of life. “I came to uplift this planet.”
So, the transition from human being to fully embodied soul is a journey of loving yourself more often. What we further discover as our consciousness expands and awakens is that, because we’re all interconnected as one, what love I pour into my heart equally begins to uplift the vibration and expand the brightness of others around me.
Now, it will seem as if you’re the first person being transformed by your loving practice. It’s as if your human body is the nucleus of an energy field, and all the other people and countries and continents are just outer rings of your one, infinite energy field. So, first loving what arises transforms the nucleus, which is the human body.
And if you continue the practice, that light radiates into outer rings to transform all people in your life—which could result in—even if people are in ego when they’re in your presence—their highest quality shining through naturally. Then, if you keep loving your heart, it goes to the outer rings—and all of a sudden, countries that once were feuding and warring seem to have more peace.
So, it’s not as if we are the cause of the world we see. But, our ability to love yourself is the solution for the world in view. We didn’t create this, but we are resolving it. It’s by loving ourselves more that those blessings go into our divine heart space and can get shipped out to all beings in existence just at the rate at which we embrace ourselves on a regular basis.
When I speak about a love revolution, it’s not just “I am learning through these teachings or anyone who hears this is learning to love themselves.” The revolutionary part is what happens when love is not just one of infinite tools in your toolbox—but what if you take a revolutionary stance in your life and you empty out that toolbox, and you surrender all processes, and you boldly decide, “No matter what happens in my life, the only response I have to anything is to love myself, and that will be my contribution to the evolution of this planet.”
When we decide love is not just a tool to reach for, but the only tool and remedy and answer and response, that is when we step forward as fully embodied souls and light-bearers of heart-centered consciousness.
TS: All right! I’ve been talking with Matt Kahn. He’s the author of the new book, Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins with You. Matt has also created with Sounds True a new, eight-week online course on the teachings of Whatever Arises, Love That. That course begins on March 1. It goes deeply into the principles and teachings as well as practices from the book.
Matt, it’s always great to talk to you. I always feel uplifted. Thank you. Thank you so much.
MK: Thank you so much. It’s always an honor to be with you.
TS: SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
