Author Matt Kahn: “Seeing Light at the End of the Tunnel; 5 Reasons To Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”

Anxiousness just wants to be heard, not rescued — While it can be nearly instinctive to want to rescue anyone from the plight of discomfort, it is often due to our inability to find comfort in any degree of turmoil that only exists to signal the arrival of greater aspects of our highest potential in form.

As a part of my series about the things we can do to remain hopeful and support each other during anxious times, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Kahn.

Matt Kahn is the author of the best-selling books Whatever Arises, Love That, Everything Is Here To Help You, and The Universe Always Has a Plan. He is a highly attuned empathic healer who has become a YouTube sensation with his profoundly healing, and often humorous videos. With over 17 million YouTube channel views, people from all corners of the globe are finding the support they seek to feel more loved, awakened, and opened to the greatest possibilities in life through the invitation to join the “Love Revolution That Begins with You.”

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

When I was a child, I had the rather mysterious experience of feeling the emotions of others and not knowing what it was. I could feel the discord a friend had with his family, but instead of knowing what I was tuning into, I interpreted it as their opinion of me. This led me to believe everyone was always mad at me and, as intense as it was, it ultimately led me to realizing my gifts as an empathic healer. As these gifts were refined, I was able to use my emotions to tune into the emotional bodies of others to sense what someone intuitively needed to heal and awaken their highest potential. Because there are so many empathic energetically-sensitive beings awakening on this planet, my work is to help transform underdeveloped empathic sensitivities into a masterfully-honed intuitive skillset for light workers worldwide.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

When I was a child with many spiritual questions, my parents gave me a book they read to instigate their inner journeying. It was Three Magic Words By U.S. Anderson. It blew my mind because it put into words the exact experiences I couldn’t explain or know how to process. It instilled in me the confidence to trust my intuitive instincts and set the path for much more to open up along the way.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. The fears related to the coronavirus pandemic have heightened a sense of uncertainty, fear, and loneliness. From your perspective can you help our readers to see the “Light at the End of the Tunnel”? Can you share your “5 Reasons To Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

I think the good news is how difficult it is to distill the reasons to be hopeful during the Corona crisis into just 5.

1. Our current climate of uncertainty is a gateway into global unity consciousness — The notion of unity is when deeper similarities of experiences help us melt away perceptions of differences, so we may come together as communities in support of a more evolved and fulfilling experience for all. While our society has been steeped in a storyline of have’s verses have not’s, we have been given an opportunity to enter into a new world where everyone must come together, replacing the tendency of competition with a willingness to compromise and cooperate given the circumstances at hand. From high school seniors offering to babysit for first responders and everyday people using their skills and hobbies to make face masks for medical personnel, we are witnessing how truly powerful we are as a planet when inspired to join together in pursuit of a common goal.
2. Self-quarantining is an opportunity for greater self-reflection — When not lost in comparing how life used to be with the way things are now, we acknowledge the opportunity to balance out a life of constant doing with the soul-nourishing necessity of learning how to let things be. All too often, human beings promise to let things be, once they have used their efforts and ambitions to make life into environments of a preferred outcome. This conditioned patterned has been successfully interrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, where no matter how deeply we want to speed up the quarantining process, it is an opportunity to strengthen the equally-vital skillset of letting things be, as a means of discovering that while we may not be able to change the cards we’ve been dealt, we always have the chance to make the most of this moment by becoming more aligned with the inherent flow of nature, which means strengthening relationships with ourselves as well as those we love. Whether this time of incubation gives us the time and space to explore the inner ambitions that a full-time schedule rarely made time for, or the ability to finally enjoy quality time with those we love, or even a chance to process vulnerable emotions based on current or past losses, we are living at a time, where learning to let things be is the only way to peacefully move through this moment of global pause.
3. This is humanity’s opportunity to release engrained patterns of fear — In a modern-day reality where the fulfillment of many human desires are just one keyboard click away, we have been ushered into a new phase of evolution, where despite what we personally want and insist must be delivered into our reality, each and every person is having to set aside attachments to outcome to serve the immediate needs of their families and communities at large. The vibration of fear is created when desires for new or different circumstances leaves no room for being grateful for all we currently have. As we are momentarily unable to control when and how things come and go in our reality, we settle deeper into states of beingness, where we can be grateful for all that we have, no matter how decisively our reality has been stripped down or dramatically altered. As we take time to savor each breath, hold our loved ones close, and serve the needs of our fellow human beings, we are able to see, through the eyes of gratitude, we always are given exactly what we need to satisfy the desire of each moment, no matter how differently things seem from however we wish them to be. Through a renewed practice of gratitude, the vibration of fear, which often shows up as FOMO or the fear of missing out, we are able to individually and collectively move beyond perceptions of scarcity, so to acknowledge it is how we respond to experiences, not the circumstances at hand that defines how joyfully or frightfully we move through these extraordinary times.
4. Coronavirus is helping humanity confront and transcend the tendency of greed — In order to transcend the pattern of greed, it must be confronted with awareness and compassion. In order to confront it, there must be a catalyst that amplifies the very tendencies we are invited to face and overcome. The initial spreading of coronavirus triggered the unconscious pattern of greed, which manifests from a foundation or scarcity, or the inability to believe our needs can be met without trying to control the fate of our circumstances. We saw this with the initial hoarding of toilet paper, where the very scarcity that has hypnotized our culture for so long became impossible to avoid or overlook. As we learn how profoundly overly-stocking up on any commodity empties shelves that deprive others of basic needs, we learn to act from a space of greater awareness and compassion that supplies us with all that we need without taking away the very things others equally require in order to make it through these incredible times. As we each learn to gather all that we need from a space of mindfulness, awareness, and compassion, instead of overcompensating during moments of unexpected loss or change, we are able to see how truly abundant a planet Earth happens to be. Knowing in the depths of our soul, no stockpile will ever be enough to resolve the sensations of fear that are resolved by being more grateful for what we have, instead of being run by the unconscious programming of the ego’s insatiable hunger for more, bigger, or better. In order to recreate a social and political climate that reflects the generosity and global harmony over the tendency of greed, we must confront such tendencies in ourselves, so as to create households and communities where we are actively demonstrating the very values we demand our global leaders to embrace and act upon.
5. Uncertain times are an opportunity to heal unresolved grief — When not needing to constantly play catch up in a fast-paced world of endless details and demands, we are given the time and space to face the deeper feelings that may have been pushed to the background of our daily schedule. As we see so many perish as a result of coronavirus, we are given opportunities to process the inevitability of loss on a deeper emotional level. Whether mourning unexpected losses in our current reality or revisiting losses from the past, we are able to move through the grieving process, where feelings of despair are given a chance to be seen, once we are no longer bargaining or negotiating for a more preferable experience. When we no longer cast blame on the play of politics or news headlines that are merely the way in which the mystery of life invites us into the depths of emotional healing in need of being processed, we exchange judgment, blame, and discord for a willingness to savor the precious gift of life that offers gains and losses only for the benefit of our greater evolution and expansion.

From your experience or research what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

Whether as support for ourselves or those around us, there is much we can do when allowing the wisdom of our hearts to lead the way.

1. Anxiousness just wants to be heard, not rescued — While it can be nearly instinctive to want to rescue anyone from the plight of discomfort, it is often due to our inability to find comfort in any degree of turmoil that only exists to signal the arrival of greater aspects of our highest potential in form. While anxiousness symbolized the growing pains of evolutionary progress, all it really needs is just to be heard. Without a need to change anyone’s opinion or make others see life the way we do, we are able to validate the importance of their experience as the fertile ground of inevitable growth — even when someone is stuck in judgment, blame, or fear. If we wish to soothe anxiousness with the gift of authentic support, then we simply offer the gift of acknowledging the varying spectrum of human experiences, knowing each and every feeling acts as a stepping stone for greater perspectives to emerge. While we don’t have to share the same social, political, or spiritual views as others, we can relate from a space of kindness, where the grace of evolutionary benefit is received when everyone has a chance to be heard. When we are heard, we feel valued. As we feel valued, we are likely to find greater value in others, helping them discover the inner value that assists them to pass such value along to others. As we all pass along the precious gift of personal value, we come into more consistent contact with moments of gratitude, which creates the essential balance to release the grip of fear.

2. Uncertainty inspires the inner artist — Whether our medium of choice is music, painting, writing, singing, dancing, cooking, collaging, jewelry making, metal work, or woodcarving, each moment of loss or limitation calls to life the emergence of each inner artist to help us process the difficulties of our most overwhelming emotions through the healing power of creative self-expression. Whether inspired to create art celebrating the new world being birthed or allowing each artistic medium to the be voice of our deepest emotional pain, the beauty of true healing is when we allow any degree of limitation to be mindfully expressed instead of suppressed or projected onto others. Even if we don’t know what to create or how to feel during times of uncertainty, such states of uncertainty can be channeled into cathartic journal entries where we explore what it’s like to not know what’s next or how to be with it all. Since anxiousness just needs to be heard instead of rescued, creativity remains one of our most essential tools of transformation, which is always available to all, even for those who insist they don’t have a creative bone in their body.

3. Self-Love is the compassionate parent anxiousness yearns for — Just like a child yearns to be held during dire moments of change, loss, or despair, it is our willingness to love ourselves that allows the inner child dwelling in the activity of our emotions to be seen and heard. As each feeling is acknowledged, seen, and heard, it receives the gift of personal value. This creates an inner climate of greater self-worth that inspires true inner strength, autonomy, and safety — no matter how uncertain life seems to be. Self-love doesn’t mean to pretend to love the circumstances we may not prefer, but to acknowledge how much love we deserve during such an unprecedented time in history. Whether we have experienced holding ourselves the way we wish to be held, hearing ourselves the way we wish to be heard, and honoring ourselves the way we wish to be honored, we learn, moment by moment, to become our own greatest support system, instead of waiting for others to be the way we wish they would be. Thankfully for the perfection of authenticity, we don’t need to like our circumstances, in order to offer greater, love, reverence, acceptance, and respect to the innocence in us that simply needs our own loving presence in order to feel safe and be set free.

4. Generosity transforms both the giver and receiver — It is natural for such anxiousness and uncertainty to pull us deeper into the scarcity of self-preservation, and yet, it is the gift of other people’s suffering that often rescues us from such inner pitfalls by inspiring heroic acts that spreads goodwill and positively supports the lives of others. Whether this means donating our time at local food banks, making face masks for first responders, cooking meals for families in need, making time to bless first-responders, and pray for the healing of those with Coronavirus, we are able to see how powerfully the actions of inspired generosity equally support the livelihood of others as they transform the experiences of those inspired to give.

5. Breathing determines the quality of your experience — While everyone breathes from one moment to the next, the majority of people are not aware of their breath, which inevitably creates perceptions where we are only as far away from true individual happiness and collective fulfillment as we are unaware of the presence of our breath. Since breath is the living evidence of Source energy always flowing through us, it is our willingness to spend more quality time breathing in and out that allows us to feel more connected to our most conscious responses, highest perspectives, and greatest attributes that such moments of uncertainty call forward. As we take the time to let things be, we are able to be one with the very breath that guarantees to serve all of our needs the more we get to know it. Beyond all ideas and concepts, the only way to get to know the transformative power of our breath is by spending time with it. Perhaps this is truly why each and every human being has been invited to self-quarantine, which on the surface has to do with reducing the spread of coronavirus, while offering a deeper opportunity to commune with the highest, most loving wisdom that always live within us.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My life is rooted in the mantra: “Always Be Polite.” The majority of my upbringing was spent making sure everyone liked me and at a certain point, such a co-dependent way of living became exhausting. At some point, I found it easier to feel good by how politely I treated others, which was way more in my ability to assert than waiting for someone’s feelings to change — especially knowing their feelings were their own experience, having nothing to do with how I would make their feelings about me. As I grew up, I discovered how incredibly fulfilling politeness felt as a mindful way of spreading goodwill, harmony, and joy to others. Whether anyone has had a good day, a great day, or the worst day of their life, it is my joy to simply greet someone politely as a way of letting them know how honored I am to be in their presence. No matter how they respond or perceive me, this is how I honor the oneness of light alive in every heart.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Many years ago, I referred to the global network of heart-centered awakening beings as the Love Revolution. Since that point in time, so many people who have been touched by my teachings have gone on to do incredible things in the world. Some have started global non-profit organizations to assist refugees on many continents, others have opened pre-schools that teach children about the importance of self-love. I am so proud of how the Love Revolution continues to expand. I’m constantly inspired by how they implement each teaching into tangible proof of inspired action, and I often just sit in awe of what human beings are capable of accomplishing and creating for the well-being of all.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

Greater support in evolving in the most loving and heart-centered way, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and sign up for my free newsletter at MattKahn.org

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!