Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Matt Kahn. 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.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Matt Kahn and I spoke about recognizing our innocence and how to grow our inner parent to care for that innocence. He talked about developing what he calls “a personal love statement” and specific instructions for working with such a statement as a spiritual practice. We also talked about the ego and ego’s relationship to an overstimulated nervous system—and how we can begin to unravel that overstimulation. Finally, Matt extended an invitation for all of us to join the love revolution, and he shared the most important teaching that we can begin to use right now in our life to be part of that revolution. Here’s my conversation with Matt Kahn:
The title of your new book, Matt—Whatever Arises, Love That—when I talk to people about the book and I say, “New book by spiritual teacher Matt Kahn—Whatever Arises, Love That,” people get weak in the knees at the title. They just love it! They love the title. Whatever Arises, Love That. To begin with, I’d love to know how that phrase came to you.
Matt Kahn: Well, it was quite an auspicious experience. I had already been beginning to teach and I came to a point in my career where I intuitively had a feeling of, “I’m about to receive from the universe the core teachings that I’m meant to bring to this world.”
On the day that I was feeling like the teaching would come through, four auspicious words came to me. Those words that I heard in my head were, “Whatever arises, love that.”
Now, I could have asked for clarification to know the deeper meaning, but oftentimes what I like to do when I receive an intuitive download is I like to test it out for myself and just explore it. So, I literally just took the words, and I thought, “Let me just take them as literal as possible.”
So, I walked around my neighborhood and I thought, “Whatever arises, love that.” I thought, “Whatever I see in front of me, I’m just going to send a blessing of love to.” So, I sent blessings of love to a couple walking their dog. I sent blessings of love to birds that flew by. There was a city worker who was operating a loud jackhammer that kind of startled me. I thought, “Well, that’s getting my attention. That’s arising. I’ll send a blessing of love to that.”
As I kept doing this, that was [one] level of the teaching. But, I began to realize intuitively that everything in our outside world—everything in our physical reality—is only appearing and acting exactly the way it is in order to bring out of us whatever emotion or whatever version of ourself has not yet received the unconditional love that it so rightfully deserves.
So, like when the city worker was operating the jackhammer, that character was only meant to startle me because the one in me from a very early age who was always afraid and startled had never truly been accepted and loved. And so, it was as if I was honoring this character who was only bringing out of me what could be embraced by me on a deeper level.
I realized [that] for all of us, we’re all living in these very amazing times where all of us have a world around us and everything that conspires to come our way—whether the versions of each character or the circumstances that we face—it is literally just bringing up in our bodies and bringing to our attention the parts of ourselves that need deeper healing. Of course, the greatest way I’ve discovered to facilitate the deepest and most revolutionary form of healing is to embrace the parts of ourselves as they’ve never been loved before.
So, when I really got the depth of this teaching—whatever arises, love that—it literally showed me—and now it helps me teach others—how to step to the forefront of their healing journey [and] how to become a living catalyst of awakened consciousness just by learning to embrace our innocence as we’ve never embraced it before.
TS: Now, Matt, I want to talk about an experience that I think many people have today that brings up inside feelings that feel hard to love—which is the experience of watching the news [or] tuning into the news in any way. I’m sure you’ve heard this question in different forms. But, there are so many horrific reports—whether it’s about the refugee crisis or terrorism—and what comes up—I’m sure it’s different in different people, but a sense of tremendous heartbreak, anger at the insanity.
How can we use this teaching—whatever arises, love that—to deal with our own responses to tragedy in the world?
MK: One of the single greatest ways that we’re going to use some of the recent atrocities in the news as an opportunity to uplift the vibration of the planet and to expand our consciousness so that we can begin living in a world that matches the kind of image that we’ve always wanted to create—in order to that, we have to be able on an energetic level [to] look at how we can be different than those that seem to victimize others.
For example, if we’re watching the news and we’re seeing people being hurt and persecuted and victimized, obviously in every human being there is an empathy that can get very consumed in the injustice of that. And yet, when someone is victimizing another, the one who is victimizing someone is disregarding and ignoring their innocence. And yet, when we are so caught up in what we’re seeing on the news, we in our own lives are also disregarding our own innocence. Therefore, we find a common vibration.
So, even though it is so heartbreaking to witness these things—and, of course, the heart only breaks as a way of bursting wide open and awakening a new paradigm of consciousness. When we watch the news on an energetic level, if we were to say to ourselves, “May I love the one in me. Let me love the heartbreak. May I love the one who sees the injustice. Let me love the one who’s angered. Let me love the one who is confused. Let me love the one who doesn’t want to be on this planet anymore. May I embrace everything that is arising within me. So, if I’m witnessing others disregard the innocence of other beings, may I take that as an opportunity to do the opposite. May I embrace my innocence at a greater level right now than the victimhood I’m seeing in front of me.”
When we dare to allow everything or every moment of victimhood to help us embrace our innocence at a deeper level, we are having less in common with victimizers. We are raising the vibration of our individual realities, which adds to the collective vibration.
Of course, because we are all one at our core, the heart that we love sends blessings and love and healing to every heart in existence. So, it’s as if we are participating in eradicating the need for victimhood to exist on this planet just by loving however we react to the things that we see.
TS: OK. So, if I’m watching the news and I feel—let’s say—outraged in some way. I just feel this thing inside me and it’s a kind of—you could call it—righteous indignation, outrage. I’m going to go on a rant about insanity, et cetera. Then I stop according to this teaching, and I love the part of myself that feels outraged?
MK: Yes. And I would say, given that example, [that] the first loving act when we’re responding to outrage is that we give outrage a space to vent.
So, oftentimes, instead of the outrage needing to be expressed publically or outwardly, we kind of tune into ourselves and say, “Let me hold space for myself. Let me say to the outrage, ‘It’s OK that you feel outraged right now. You have a right to be heard. I honor your feelings, and please let me know how you feel.’” [It’s] as if you are the one the outrage is turning to, because what happens is that many beings turn their feelings towards the outside world because they haven’t learned to be the one that they turn to.
So, really—yes. We are going to love the one who is outraged. But, the first step is turning towards that feeling and becoming the one that it turns to so that the innocence within ourselves has a place to express that emotion instead of needing to turn towards the world and overlook the opportunity to really deepen our own relationship with our own heart. As we allow outrage to be felt and to be heard within our experience, as a space is created, [and] as that wave of outrage seems to dissipate—whether it takes seconds, moments, or a few days—in that spaciousness, then we can start embracing and loving that outrage like a parent would console a child.
But, just like a parent would embrace the innocence of a child, the parent has to allow the child to be heard and to cry and to express its feelings before that child can let in the love that parent is going to send.
TS: Now, you use this interesting word, Matt. You talk about our “innocence”—recognizing our innocence. Tell me what you mean by that word.
MK: When I say “innocence,” I’m speaking of the animated consciousness of our heart-space. Even though the heart and the mind are of the same consciousness, it’s as if the heart and the mind have two different dispositions. They’re almost two aspects of the same energy.
So, the energy of the heart tends to have a disposition of innocence. It is like a child. It’s like the part of us that feels and doesn’t know why. [Whereas] the mind tends to be the house of our inner wisdom, where we tend to know and understand and comprehend the meaning behind our experiences.
So, when I say “innocence,” I’m really speaking about—let’s say—the personality of the heart, which is the parts of us that just feel the way they do. In order to allow that innocence to grow and mature into the fully embodied higher self that all of us are, that innocent heart needs to be made safe and embraced by the adult-like mind.
So, the “whatever arises, love that” teaching is where we take and we heal all the fractures and all the divisions and separations that seem to divide the mind from heart. We reunite these two aspects—what I call “reuniting these aspects in holy matrimony,” where the mind and the heart merge together as one and bring forth the highest destiny for all beings.
TS: Now, I’m very curious about this “parent inside” and the innocent heart or innocent child inside. How does somebody evolve, if you will, their parent function so they can actually hold that innocent heart in themselves? How do I grow my parent, if you will—my inner parent?
MK: Well, I think the easiest way to do that is to be able to really open up to the idea that nothing in our realities are ever created by mistake, that everything is given, and everything does come to us an opportunity to help us evolve. So, when we start to really see that nothing in the world happens by chance or circumstance, we start to really—on a deeper level, no matter how long it takes for that 1`to seep into the core of our being—get that, “OK, in a world and in a journey where others could never or maybe never have been there for me the way I wanted them to be, perhaps I’m the one who has to learn to be that way for myself.”
So, when we kind of turn towards ourselves to be the companions—to be the parent; to be the friend, ally, supporter—that perhaps we’ve never had before in our lives, we just begin to turn towards ourself and just to be with ourself—just to feel the way we feel; just to think the way we think. If we can just take one moment and allow any experience, any feeling, or any
thought to not be wrong and not to be a mistake—just by not assuming it’s not wrong or a mistake, we are already creating an allegiance [and] an alliance within ourselves where all of those fractures and separations begin to heal and bring about wholeness.
TS: Now, one of the teachings you offer in the book—Whatever Arises, Love That—is an encouragement to people to create a “personal love statement.” I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that—what a personal love statement might be.
MK: Absolutely. It’s where we use all of our past experiences almost like roadmap for our own spiritual salvation.
So, if we could think about—and again, this isn’t done with any kind of blame or malice—[we just] think back in our lives to anyone who has really hurt us or who was the character in your past that had the deepest effect on you. In order to create your personal love statement, you would ask yourself, “What are the words I’ve either never heard before? Or, what are the words I didn’t hear enough of?”
Whatever the words another character from your past either didn’t say or didn’t say enough of is the exact sentence that we then—like a mantra—begin saying to our heart on a regular basis. What’s so interesting to realize about healing is that, in all of us, there are words that we’ve waited to hear, but we’ve waited for other characters to say those words to us not knowing that if we become the ones that say those words to ourselves, the healing is the same.
So, in Whatever Arises, Love That, I talk about at it as we’re creating our own personal love revolution. The love revolution is that we’re no longer waiting for others to tell us the things we want to hear. We become the ones that tell ourselves those words—and we heal ourselves and we heal ourselves and we heal our entire reality from the inside out.
TS: What might be—do you think—some phrases that many people have always wanted to hear that they haven’t heard? Just as examples.
MK: Sure. A very popular one is, “You are safe.” Of course, “I love you.”
“I always want to hear what you have to say.”
‘There is an important reason why you are here.”
“You are beautiful.”
“You are wanted.”
“It is not a mistake that you are here.”
“I’m so thankful to be a part of your life.”
“You can do no wrong.”
So, sometimes it’s that we need to hear certain adjectives—like we wanted to be told we were beautiful. We wanted to know that we were safe.
Sometimes, the words that a being may need to hear [are], “I’m so sorry I did that to you.” Of course, we’re not saying it to ourselves as if we’ve done something wrong to ourselves. We are simply becoming the one who says to ourselves the words we need to hear instead of waiting for a character to evolve and give us that gift authentically.
So, a personal statement is something that can change on a weekly basis, a daily basis. But, it really is the ability—it’s a revolutionary ability—to say, “What am I waiting to hear? And, can I be the one that starts to say that to myself?”
In the beginning, it may not feel as powerful as if someone else was telling you, because the lack of authenticity is just your subconscious mind saying, “You haven’t done this before.” So, if we regularly get in the habit of just saying to ourself these beautiful words, the subconscious mind begins to recognize it as familiar instead of foreign. At that point, we begin to emotionally resonate with the words whether we’re saying it to ourselves or someone else is gifting us with those phrases.
TS: As you’re talking, I’m imagining that I could get into my car and maybe listen to the GPS give me directions, but it could say things like, “You’re looking particularly beautiful today.” It could tell me all these messages! I’m serious. It seems like there could be an app for this, Matt.
MK: I think there should be, because I think what—and even in our own spiritual practice, because I look at human interaction, our communication, or interpersonal communication as one of the most powerful forms of spiritual practice. When we interact with a human being, we have an opportunity to either make one of two choices.
That is: I’m going to speak the words based on the credibility of how I am perceiving another or how I think another is perceiving me. Or, consciously, we can say, “I use my interactions with others and I use my words to constantly practice giving to others the words that I’ve always wanted to hear.”
What we start to realize through the grace of unity consciousness is that the more often we are gifting others with the words we’ve always wanted to hear, our body is responding exactly the same as if we live in a world where people are constantly saying that to us.
TS: Now, in your own life, how did you come to this discovery about the personal love statement? Did you actually do it? Did you write one for yourself, and did it change things for you?
MK: Oh, absolutely. Every aspect of this book that I’ve written is something that I have practiced in my own life, because I wanted to see the effect before I started teaching it.
What I had realized before I started teaching Whatever Arises, Love That—because I’ve gone through so many different levels of spiritual awakening, beginning when I was eight years old—and there was a certain insight that I had at an age. I think it was kind of in my early adulthood. I had this spontaneous realization that my spiritual evolution could not be defined by the amount of mystical experiences I’ve had. Even as someone who has had many mystical experiences and encounters with angels and all these kind of really vivid experiences that—for me, even to this day—happen on a daily basis, there was something deeper inside of me that said, “I can’t base my evolution on these mystical experiences, but on the relationship I have with reality.”
There was a part of me that could still see—despite how many groundbreaking awakenings I had had and all these big, vivid experiences—there was still a part of me that was hiding. There was still a part of me that wasn’t interacting with every being and aspect of reality as the divine itself.
So, it was my desire to meet everything as divinity. It was my desire to take my journey as deep as possible, [which] literally interrupted the focus of love. From that understanding, “whatever arises, love that” came to be.
So, I went through all the steps then—including creating a personal love statement. I began to say to myself not the words I never heard when I was a child, but actually what I discovered was that I was waiting for these to be the words that I say to myself. I mean, the words that I would say to myself—”I love you. You’re amazing. You are wonderful. You’re powerful,”—these were words my parents had told me, but for some reason there was a part of me that didn’t really take it in until I was the one that confessed those words to myself.
So, that was the uniqueness of my journey—where I wasn’t saying to myself personally words that were lacking from my past. They were just words that I hadn’t said and admitted to myself.
TS: Now, I’m imagining someone listening who says, “God, I love it when there are people in my life who say things to me like, ‘Your ideas as are so interesting, creative, and fabulous,’ or, ‘I absolutely love and cherish you.’” So, people know the power of hearing these words. But, as you alluded to, for some people—when they go to say them to themselves; “I’m going to say to myself, ‘I absolutely love you,’” there’s something that doesn’t quite land. I think you mentioned [this is] because their subconscious isn’t used to hearing it in their own voice.
So, how do we cross over that bridge—if you will—to starting to get comfortable to really talk to ourselves that way? We know it’s valuable, but it’s still awkward. “I’m really going to talk to myself that way? Eh, I don’t believe it. It feels contrived.”
MK: Well, what’s really interesting is I think that when we are hearing those words from other people, there’s a perception of, “I am who I am, and this person is another.” When those words come my way, it seems to really kind of validate a part of our egos. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just that’s what part of us seems to get lit up. Even though it is touching the innocence of our heart. It’s like the ego starts to feel very gratified, which is a wonderful thing.
When we become the one that turns in and says those words to ourself, because the giver of the words and the receiver of the compliments at that moment are one and the same—and there isn’t one character interacting with another—the reason it feels so strange is because, as you’re saying those words to yourself—because the giver and the receiver are one and the same—the ego begins to dissolve and integrate instead of remaining separate from another character to be gratified by.
So, even though in the beginning people may say, “God, this feels so interesting,” or it’s not landing, it’s because the ego that’s waiting to be gratified is dissolving by the power of your own self-love instead of being filled up by what someone else will say to you.
TS: That’s very profound, Matt.
MK: It’s very interesting, isn’t it?
TS: Yes.
MK: I mean, when I discovered that, I thought that was an amazing discovery because in my journey, I always want to explore why people [are] having the experiences they’re having. When I came to what you just said—because I always want to explore things from every angle—I would think and talk to the universe, and say, “Why is it when people love themselves it doesn’t feel real?”
That’s when I got the insight of, “Well, because in the ego structure, the ego is what defines one’s sense of reality.” When it’s another character loving you, there’s an ego to be gratified. When the giver and the receiver are one, the ego begins to integrate instead of being filled up. It’s as if the love we give ourselves—which isn’t done to go against the ego—because the ego to me in my experience is a stage of development. As we love ourselves, the ego is integrated into the core of our being to assist us in our spiritual maturity.
So, when we love ourselves, we are—instead of remaining separate from life, trying to be as gratified as possible or disappointed when other people don’t give us what we want—instead we begin to love ourselves. So, to integrate that part of ourselves and evolve our consciousness way beyond anything we can ever imagine.
TS: Now, I want to make sure that people have a clear idea of how to actually do this. So, if I were to write down a personal love statement—these are the words that I love to hear the most. I was always waiting for someone to tell me. These are the words that melt me on the inside.
OK. I’ve written this down now. Now, how do I work with this? What do I do?
MK: So, if we were going to start to love what arises, what we would do is we would find a comfortable place to sit. We would just relax in our body and we would bring our attention to our heart. Whether we think of it as the beating organ in our chest or we just think of it as the center of our body, we just put our hands on our heart and we close our eyes. Again, we come up with, “What are the words we’ve always wanted to hear that we’ve never heard before? What are the words we didn’t hear enough of?”
Maybe it’s, “I love you.” Maybe it’s, “You’re safe.” Whatever that sentence is, we just sit and we repeat those words in our unconsciousness to our heart. Whether we feel anything [or] nothing, we are just repeating those words as if we are treating our heart like it’s a child in need or we’re embracing our heart as if it’s an animal in pain. We are just allowing ourselves to bring down the walls, to soften our core, and to really start just speaking to ourselves the words we’ve always wanted to hear.
It can be like a mantra, where you say the sentence, “I love you.” You take a breath. “You are safe.” You can change it in every breath. You can keep it the same. “You are wonderful.” We always want to speak very gently and softly, because the innocence within our heart is very sensitive. It is very delicate and it is to be treated with the absolute compassion and kindness that may have been absent from our lives.
So, when we just gently embrace ourselves [while] saying the words we didn’t hear enough of, and we do it softly and authentically—not doing it for a certain outcome, but just sitting with the fact that we—knowing all we survived, knowing how far we’ve come—we know in our hearts how much love we deserve. In knowing that in most other egos, an ego is only capable of giving us compliments when they are momentarily in harmony with their life—so, even if someone gives us a compliment, it is often only a sign of how momentarily harmonious they are with their circumstances or complimenting the fact of how powerfully we complement their life circumstances.
So, even when someone gives us those compliments, it’s a gift to us but it’s not really about us. So, instead of waiting for someone to be in harmony with life to give us what we need, we can at any moment—even while waiting for someone to tell you exactly what they may not be designed to say; even while disappointed by what someone did do or hasn’t said—we can begin our own love revolution at any moment by stopping, bringing our attention to our heart, and saying those words to ourselves slowly [and] for at least one to two minutes. As we say it repeatedly for up to one or two minutes, the subconscious mind records that and absorbs that and files that away as, “That is a moment of self-love that has been recorded.”
As we keep doing it on a regular basis, it becomes more familiar. As it becomes more familiar, there’s more emotional resonance to that ability.
TS: Now, let’s say that what comes up for someone is some buried negative voice. There’s this positive, “You’re so astounding. You’re so fabulous.” Whatever. “You’re so loveable,” and then there’s another voice inside that says something like, “You know, actually you’re kind of a fuck-up, to tell the truth. And you haven’t really accomplished everything that you should have by this point in your life. On top of that, you’ve gotten a little fat and you’re a little lazy.” What do we do then?
MK: [Laughs.] Any negativity that arises within our own self or from the consciousness of another is showing us a part of ourselves that is so unresolved in a feeling journey that—in order to assist in healing—we meet any negativity with a compliment.
See, I think in the earlier days of positive thinking, it was “positive thinking versus negative thinking” or “positive people versus negative people.” The positive people are trying to get the negative people to be converted into positive-thinking people.
This is way different, because when there’s negativity within us—and let’s say that voice arises to say those things—the negativity is just one other aspect that’s in line to receive your love. The negativity is not going to change and become positive. It’s just a part of ourselves that deserves love even though it’ll always seem to be a negative part of ourselves.
So, if we were to hear that voice in ourselves—we hear that negative self-talk or judgments—and we were to realize, “I don’t have to agree with this, but this part of myself is here to be embraced and to be taught that it matters even while believing it’s worthless or trying to attack me. May I respond with a compliment. May I say, ‘Thank you for this feedback. Thank you for letting me know how you feel. I always want to hear what you have to say.’”
When someone hears that and tries it, it is completely, outrageously revolutionary what occurs when the most insidious level of judgment and inner criticism is met in a complimentary fashion. Even in our outside life, if someone were to give us a negative piece of feedback and we were to respond more graciously than their judgment is hurled our way, not only do we not drink their poison of criticism, but we transmute that poison of criticism into a healing elixir that transforms both hearts.
TS: So, Matt, the book—Whatever Arises, Love That—invites people to what you call “a love revolution.” So, I want o make sure I understand the love revolution and how I can participate in the love revolution. I hear what you’re describing in terms of how I could relate to myself. How does the love revolution have us relate to each other?
MK: So, the love revolution is the love in my heart or my alignment of consciousness or how I feel in the world around me is solely dependent upon how I respond to others, and how I view and speak to myself. So, the love revolution is—instead of waiting for others to be in harmony with life to give us what we won’t give to ourselves—we become the ones that, on a daily basis, speak to ourselves, treat ourselves, and view ourselves the way we’ve always deserved to be treated. In our human interactions, we honor the fact that other people seem to exist as extensions of consciousness—to give us a chance to practice speaking to other people in such a beautiful and honorable way.
So, by the end of your day, when you’re home with yourself, you have practice speaking so beautifully to others [and] you have cultivated more love to give as gifts to your innocence. Equally so, the more time you spend speaking so beautifully to your innocence, you cultivate more gifts of compassion and heart-centered consciousness that become the gifts that you pass along to those that you meet.
TS: So, I’m wondering if you can give me an example from your own life of the love revolution in action—perhaps around an interaction with somebody that it could have gone into a difficult direction—let’s just say because it was challenging or the person was rude or something like that—and how you took this love revolution approach in a situation like that—or how someone could take a love revolution approach.
MK: Absolutely. I remember a very specific example. It was a—well, I could say a few years ago. But, I have no concept of time.
It was many years ago. It was at a family reunion-type event. I was sitting at a table next to someone who was kind of like a distant, extended member of our family. You know when you go to family reunions, you have your immediate family and then these kind of extended people that just show up all the time.
So, I was sitting next to this person and we were all eating at the same table. I’m just sitting there eating as I normally eat. Standard operating procedure. The person turns next to me—and it just struck me internally as so funny, because it just to me seemed so audacious. They said, “Do you mind chewing in a more quiet fashion? You’re chewing so loud.”
As I took in that feedback, I thought to myself, “Well, my mouth is closed. I think I’m chewing normally.” I just turned to that person—because at this point in my journey, I’m so rooted in understanding where people are coming from, and I thought, “Here is someone that is reaching out to kind of subtly attack me because they’re recruiting me—someone more rooted in love—to respond more lovingly to them because they don’t take time to love themselves the way they need to.”
I turned to them when they said, “Can you chew softly? Can you be less loud about it?” and I said, “Thank you so much for that feedback. Here I was just chewing and I almost embarrassed myself. Thanks for telling me and letting me in on that. No problem.”
They just looked at me and they were completely stunned, because it was as if they had never had someone respond to them that way. It was almost like I was talking to someone who hurls out an insult and—on a subconscious level—expects someone in my position to want to disagree with them because—in their subconscious mind—they had spent most of their life comfortable in some form of conflict. So, they subconsciously operate in a way to constantly recruit that.
And here I was—someone who met that invitation for conflict and looked at it as, “This is someone who needs to be complimented more than ever before.” And I just shifted the way that I responded to them. It literally transformed the relationship at that dinner table for the rest of the evening.
TS: Now, when you said, “Thank you for asking me to chew more quietly,” did you mean it? Did you actually mean “thank you?” Like, “Yes, I really am grateful to this person.” Or was it kind of like a tactic?
MK: It was—from my perception, and I can see how it can probably go either way in a lot of situations. In my experience, it was being so aware of how much graciousness they had yet to receive from themselves and others that I took it upon myself to ask myself, “What is the most constructive gift that they’re giving me and how can I respond as if it’s a gift so it’ll honor this being that doesn’t take the time to honor themselves.”
So, it wasn’t like, “Oh, wow. I’m aware that you’re correct. I’m chewing loudly.” It really wasn’t about whether what they were saying was valid or not. It was [that] I was so aware of a heart that was waiting to be honored and validated and loved that I was literally working on behalf of their innocence just to give the gift even though the interaction itself was designed just to bring about more conflict that the person’s more comfortable in.
TS: One of the points you make in Whatever Arises, Love That has to do with not fighting—not fighting not just with other people, but not fighting with our own experience. Kind of giving up struggling. Can you say a little bit more about that?
MK: Yes. You know, the interesting thing about fighting is that—if we imagine fighting with another or fighting with ourselves—when fighting is occurring, the innocence within ourselves or within another is not being honored.
So, what’s really interesting is that—and I think this is what clarifies some confusion on the spiritual journey—is a lot of the spiritual journey is about ending the internal fight. But, there are a lot of people who don’t know what that really means because in their life—on the surface—they’re not necessarily fighting with things.
So, if a fight is defined by overlooking our innocence, then that means too that the mentality of innocence—if we do not take time every day to say loving things to ourselves and giving our innocence that positive attention—the lack of positive attention is interpreted by our innocence as being in a fight with ourselves or with life. So, it’s not just for those of us in the world who are constantly fighting with circumstances and need to learn to love ourselves as a deeper form of surrender—but to learn that our innocence interprets opposition or fighting as anything allows that innocence to feel ignored or invisible.
So, there are so many of us that are feeling that we’re in a fight with life and we’re not actually fighting. It’s just we haven’t learned to on a daily basis give ourselves the positive, loving attention that allows that inner turmoil to dissolve and to bring forth the light of our higher self.
TS: Now, Matt, kind of in passing, you said, “I started having intense spiritual experiences when I was eight years old, including many encounters with angels—as well as in my current life having almost daily encounters with angels.” I thought, “OK, I’m going to have to circle back on that one.” Tell me what goes on now in your life in terms of encounters with angels.
MK: So, when I was younger, I began having these visitations from angels and spirit guides and ascended masters. I would see in my third eye—kind of like what people would experience as a daydream—[and] I would experience seeing these beings in front of me as a daydream. In my head, I would hear their voice and I would speak to them. I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence in my bedroom at my parents’ house every day meeting different spirit guides and angels and ascended masters who would not only teach me about the mysteries of the universe, but as I was speaking to them I was actually feeling and sensing all of my intuitive gifts and abilities being activated, honed, and refined.
Then, after a certain period of meeting these guides and beings and ascended masters, I had this experience where it was as if I was in front of all of them. They lifted up their faces like masks and it was me underneath all of them. I gasped because it was a very profound experience.
At the same time, I really didn’t get it. I said, “I don’t get it.” They said, “We are not only what you’re becoming, we are what you have already become. We are agents of the divine, stepping back in time to visit ourselves in spiritual childhood.”
In current days, there is the complete knowing that an angel and an ascended master is a divine being just as I am a divine being, and they are aspects of my own consciousness. They are expressions of the one I am. And yet, the messages that that consciousness gives to itself still take shape and form as a play of communication.
So, I still have communications with beings and angels. But, it’s as if the vibration of information I’m receiving seems to be decorated as angels and ascended masters received by a consciousness that’s called “Matt Kahn.” And yet, it is all one and the same. And yet, the passing back and forth of information is the play.
So, there is both oneness and there is the play all at once.
TS: Could you give me an example of a meeting with a guide or master that happened relatively recently and what was exchanged? What happened?
MK: Well, my main guide’s name is Melchizedek. When researching him, he looks like Gandalf the wizard and he talks to me in a very loving and biblical tone. He was the teacher of Jesus, and whenever he talks to me—and this is my best impersonation of Melchizedek—he always says, “My son.” That’s exactly how he sounds. “My son. You are wonderful. You are the one.” He says all these beautiful things.
So, even this morning, as I was driving into town and there were two different highways I could have taken. I literally said, “OK, which one should I take?” And he says, “My son. If you take the 5, it will be 25 minutes time. But if you take the 99, it will be 10 minutes time.”
He’s talking to me in this very loving but biblical tone, so I know, “Oh, take Highway 99 and it’ll be 10 minutes.” I went on Highway 99 and I was literally on that road exactly 10 minutes.
TS: That sounds extremely useful, Matt.
MK: [Laughs.] It’s so useful. It’s not just for parking spaces anymore.
TS: Yes. Yes.
MK: And I talk to my guides every single day. There is no limit as to how much guidance any of us can receive. It just depends on how honed and refined and activated our abilities have become.
Again, it is the wisdom of our higher self coming through a channel. The best way I can describe it is that the divine calls upon the divine to carry out the will of the divine. So, the divine is a collective reality of oneness. Even the light of divinity calls upon itself to bring forth its highest will.
So, it’s as if divinity as a collective reality is always living in this harmony and endless service to all aspects of itself. In my life, I’m just demonstrating what is soon to become the experience of all—that we can literally step into our highest mastery and to allow our consciousness to guide us and assist us in rather miraculous ways on a daily basis.
TS: Now, you had these spontaneous meetings—spontaneous experiences—they started occurring to you when you were a young person and through your adolescence, and then into adulthood. What about people who are listening who are like, “Well, that sounds great for Matt. But, I haven’t had those experiences and I sure would like to.”
MK: Right. Well, usually—for a lot of people—the experience of their angels and spirit guides talking to them occurs within the sound of their own voice. So, some people have an intuition. They have an inner voice that says, “I should do this.” Or maybe they call it a “gut instinct.”
But, in all of us we have a certain inner knowing. That inner knowing is how our guides and angels speak to us.
It’s hard if we think that [we] want [our] guides to speak to [us] in exactly the way that it happens to other people. Or, I think it’s supposed to be like this. Or I’m supposed to wait for an angel to appear in my living room and talk to me.
What we have to really all do is really look to the uniqueness of our own experience and say whether it’s a visceral feeling in my body, whether it’s the sound of my own voice in my head, or whether it’s just a gravitational pull in a certain direction. During times of my life when I felt guided—when I had a deep, irrefutable knowing—how did that message come to me?
For me, it’s a unique experience of having guides deliver messages to me. But, for some people it might be very different. So, if we all just look at, “When I have a deep knowing, how does that arise?” and, “Can we begin to accept that that is how our guides or angels are speaking to us in a way that allows us to receive the message in the most direct way?”
So, that to me is the most powerful thing—not, “Why am I not having experiences like others?” but “When I’ve had a deep knowing, how does that arise in me?”
So, we start to see in our own unique experience what languages the universe is using. Is it, “I don’t even think about it. I’m just guided in a certain direction and I figure it out later”? Is it a knowing of a few seconds before I’m going to do this, do I maybe have a premonition in a dream—a déjà vu that guides me? Is it the sound of my inner knowing?
For all of us, there is a certain language the universe uses to guide us. All we have to do is look for how we are being uniquely guided so that can keep opening up and opening up and bringing forth our highest mastery.
TS: Now, Matt, a very interesting part of your new book, Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins with You—an interesting section was about the ego. In it, you begin the section by talking with one of your guides and asking this question: “What really is the ego? I really want to know. I really want to understand.” You get this response: “The ego is the imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system.”
I thought it would be helpful for you to unpack this for our listeners. “The ego is the imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system.”
MK: Absolutely. The reason I ask the question, “What is ego?” is because I thought, based on the common understanding of what an ego is—whether we’re taking a psychological approach or a spiritual approach—is that when we refer to something inside of us as “ego,” it seems to come with this natural bias of, “That’s the enemy. That’s what we blame. That’s the cause of all of our problems.”
In my deepest knowing, I always know that the highest truth is always rooted in the greatest love. If we are perceiving ego in this way or perceiving it even in a problematic way, I knew it couldn’t be the highest consciousness because it wasn’t the most loving approach. It didn’t make sense that there was this universe of pure divinity overflowing with nothing but love, and somehow there was this problematic ego that just kind of raises havoc inside the consciousness of all. That didn’t really make sense to me.
So, I kept asking, “What is ego?” I got the answer, “Ego is the imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system.”
What I realized was [that] as babies and as children, we are primed to match the energy of the family or the world around us because subconsciously we think, “If I can be more of a mirror and like these other people, maybe it will increase the odds that they’re going to like me more.” We think that they don’t like us as much as they do because the lack of love that we feel in our hearts as a separation we feel is actually tuning into the emotions of those around us and feeling where they are fractured in their own journey.
So, we take their experience. We feel where the fractures are. We imagine that’s how they perceive us. Then, subconsciously, we say, “I need to be more like them in order to be liked by them.”
Since the world many of us have come into us already operating in an unconscious, over-stimulated state, we literally match that rhythm of overstimulation in our nervous system. When we do that, the innocence starts to feel unsafe. Then we develop this inflated character called ego that serves to become something important to the world or it seems to strive to become something bigger than itself so to receive the love that it felt it didn’t receive before.
So, I kind of look at ego as a stage of development. It is the stage of incubation. It is the cocoon that we all rest in, preparing for our awakening journey.
As a result, in matching the world around us when the ego starts to unravel and flake apart as we start to wake up out of ego—as we wake up out of ego, we are equally cracking the shells and cracking the cocoon, and unraveling the egos of those around us. So, it’s almost like we go to sleep in ego so that when we wake back up, we can actually create a momentum that begins to wake up the world around us.
TS: What happens with our nervous system? What does it feel like in this waking-up process that you’re describing? How does the way our nervous system function change?
MK: As we love ourselves, the nervous system begins to relax. As our nervous system relaxes, the body begins to soften. In the beginning, as your body begins to soften and your nervous system relaxes—perhaps for the first time on a consistent basis—the mind in its associations says, “Wow! We’re only this relaxed when we’re asleep at night. Therefore, it must be time to go to bed,” and we start to get drowsy.
So, one of the physiological aspects of awakening is learning how to relax the nervous system, learning how to soften the body, and giving the mind a chance to get used to this more relaxed and softer state without thinking it’s time to go to sleep, getting drowsy, and dozing off—which is very similar to when people start meditation. They close their eyes and their subconscious mind says, “We are relaxed and our eyes are closed. Time to go to sleep.” And we fall asleep.
TS: Now, [Matt], you talk about this time that we’re in [as] such an unusual time—an unusual time for human beings to awaken. Here you’re describing the relaxation [and] the unraveling of the overstimulated nervous system. Do you believe that we’re in some type of time in human history where more and more people are starting to experience the type of spiritual awakening—coming out of the cocoon of ego—that you’re describing?
MK: Absolutely. I think that we are in a time where—previous to this time, beings were awakening. But, it was more on an individual level. Those that would wake up would be seen as revered or special or otherworldly.
I think what we’re seeing is that the beings that have awakened throughout history were really just foreshadowing a time when the entire culture—when the entire world [and] when the entire planet [and] when all beings—would begin to awaken, going through the exact path of awakening that a lot of beings have described and demonstrated.
So, it’s as if the Second Coming—the Second Messiah—is the We consciousness. [It is] where we are the consciousness that is returned—that is awakening in all hearts so that it’s not just going to be an awakened being walking around on an unconscious world. It is an awakening planet existing and thriving in an awakened society, an awakened world.
This is just where our individual consciousness awakens so brightly and so powerfully and so profoundly that we can all be the awakened beings that we’ve always been—but within a world and within a society and within a planet that externally reflects back the brightness of our being just as definitively as our conscious has always been awake, whole, and liberated all this time. It’s a very exciting time indeed.
TS: What I notice often when I talk to people about how more and more people are starting to unravel the overstimulated nervous system—to use your language—and are starting to have a sense of that relaxed presence—that relaxed way of being; we’re in this great new time—often what people say to me is, “Tami, gosh. The world is in a terrible state.” When I hear you talk about all these people who are awakening, it just doesn’t make sense to me when I—going back to what I said in the beginning—turn on the news and see what’s happening in different parts of the world.
How do we make sense out of this? How do you make sense out of it?
MK: Of course. Well, it’s a great question because it can be very confusing.
If we just look at our internal state of being as its own reality, we will start to see consciousness awakening at a very progressive speed. When we look at the outside world, what we are seeing are paradigms of past, outdated realities. The atrocities we see—the weather patterns—in everything we see that seems so violent and that seems so destructive is literally just symbolizing the unraveling and the deconstruction of an old, third-dimensional paradigm.
So, the outside world at this time is showing the unraveling of the old. Your internal state of being—if we can perceive it directly—is showing us the emergence of the new.
Very soon, we are going to not have to have an outside world being deconstructed while your internal reality brings forth something new or fresh or clear. But, [the] old is only deconstructing in front of us so that—as the new awakening consciousness emerges—soon we will create enough space in our outside world where that outside world will begin operating and existing as a clear reflection of our own awakening consciousness. So, not to live in a destructive, unraveling world while on the inside we’re shining more brightly than ever before.
So, right now it could look like, “Wow, the outside world is not a reflection of awakened consciousness.” What we’re still witnessing is a planet clearing out and unraveling the old mentality so to set the stage for a new world to emerge.
And as each and every one of us awakens, taking the time to love our hearts as never before, we accelerate this process—helping the planet to clear the space [and] to allow that new heart-centered consciousness to enter this world.
TS: I would love for you to describe to me what you see in this vision of a heart-centered world, because I think—to be honest with you, Matt—I think there is an innocent part of me that wants to tune into that vision and another part of me that thinks, “Not in my lifetime. I hope I can help a little, but I’ve kind of given up in a way.”
I mean, just to be honest for the sake of this conversation—to share that. I want to keep contributing, but really? A heart-centered world? Really?
MK: Right. Well, it’s not a world of Care Bears. It’s a world where all of us develop the self-respect to be able to meet each other the way we want to be met and to have enough self-acceptance to know that all the experiences that we’re having are happening for a higher spiritual purpose to help us evolve and are not rooted in circumstances or chance in any way.
So, I think—if we’re going to talk about how to imagine a heart-centered world in a way that seems more realistic and not so altruistic, or like I’m describing some sort of Disney film to you—what we would start with is: imagine a world where, instead of beings feeling like they’re being victimized by others, people are experiencing similar things to what they’re experiencing right now, but that everyone on some level understands that, “I’m only being put in this environment because of the healing that it will create and for the evolution of my spiritual journey that masquerades as life.”
If we could just start with that one point, that would be a clear example of a heart-centered world. So, not to try to—like I said—make it into some altruistic vision. But, just imagine a world where people are experiencing life exactly as they are, but just with a very deep knowing that everything is happening to help me evolve. I don’t have to like what I feel. I don’t have to love every single person I meet.
And yet, the one within me that experiences loss, that chases after gain, that feels disappointment, [and] that is sad is only here to be loved as only I can love them.
TS: I wanted to end our conversation, Matt, on one line from the book that really stuck with me—which is, when you’re going through a hard time or working with a part of yourself that’s suffering, it’s a chance to say this sentence. I really loved this. “You deserve more love, not less.” You deserve more love, not less.
I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that and how somebody can work with that in their life.
MK: Yes. It is very common to be conditioned to understand that I only know how to receive more love—or maybe in our past experiences, I only received more love, more adulation, more acknowledgment when I accomplished more, when I did something more, when I achieved more.
So, there is a belief in a lot of beings that, “I have to do more of something in order to get more of something.” What this teaching is helping people to realize is that you don’t have to do something more correctly or you don’t have to check everything off your spiritual to-do list in order to finally receive the love that you deserve. Really, what we’re looking at is it’s not about rewarding our good behavior with love and ridiculing our other behavior as less than. Really, what we’re starting to recognize is when I’m acting out—when I’m not being myself, when I’m lashing out, when I’m shutting down, when I feel separate from divinity, when I feel I live in a world of injustice—when I am feeling the way I am experiencing life (and however that seems to be), isn’t that a moment [when] each of us deserves to be embrace and honored and nurtured as never before?
So, instead of just holding ourselves hostage and waiting for our highest characteristics to be the ransom that liberates us—instead of waiting for us to do something spectacular in order to feel good about ourselves—can we just meet ourselves in any moment and—whether we feel good, whether we feel bad, or whether feel anything in between—can any which way we feel become an opportunity to say, “I deserve more love, not less. I always deserve more support. I always deserve more companionship. I always deserve more compassion. I always deserve more love. I always deserve more acceptance. I always deserve more forgiveness.”
Can we see that any which way that we feel is an opportunity to give ourselves more of what we deserve? When we do that, we no longer hold ourselves hostage waiting for something spectacular to be the opportunity to gift ourselves with the love we truly deserve. When we are always giving ourselves more love, not less—from that space, when we are giving that to ourselves on a regular basis—it becomes so much easier to give it to others whether their behavior earns it or not.
So, when we’re really rooted in love, love is not a reward we give to people based on good behavior. Love is what we freely offer to accelerate and resolve the healing journey that liberates the innocence in every heart.
TS: Beautiful. And Matt, I’m going to ask you one final, final, final thing—which is, if we could end on the note of some type of blessing—if you would be willing to offer that to our listeners to help them join the love revolution.
MK: Absolutely. To allow the love revolution to awaken within you, to step to the forefront of your highest reality, and to awaken the heart-centered consciousness that will transform this entire world from the inside out, let us just look at the blessing that naturally occurs in every single breath. What if on the inhale of the breath we are breathing in the love into the core of our being that we’ve always deserved and no longer hide from ourselves? With every in-breath, may we breathe in the light of love. May it go and be distributed to all areas of our body and parts of ourself where love needs to shine. And with every exhale, let that love that we’ve infused into ourselves become blessings that we breathe out to all corners of the planet and to all universes beyond.
With every breath in, the light of love soothes and heals all parts of our being. And with every exhale, the love that has healed us now is transmitted beyond in all directions to bless and uplift all beings in all planets and in all universes.
With every breath in, I receive the love that I am. With every breath out, the love that I am becomes infinite blessings as one for all.
TS: I’ve been talking with Matt Kahn. He is the author of the new book, Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins with You. First, thank you Matt. Thank you so much for this conversation and for the work you’re doing. You are lighting the torch of the love revolution. Thank you.
MK: It’s an honor to be here and to lead the way and to bring love to the forefront of this magnificent planet. Thank you so much.
TS: For more information about the book Whatever Arises, Love That and to watch a video with Matt Kahn about the love revolution, please visit SoundsTrue.com/lovethat.
SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
