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Whatever Arises, Love That

The holiday season is a chance to offer gifts and goodwill as symbols of gratitude to those we love. Whether enjoying warm meals with family, watching marathons of classic movies that remind us of a more innocent time, or feeling the winter magic that allows us to be more open, generous, and kind to others, the holidays somehow make life a more precious gift to receive.

What if the magic wasn’t reserved just for the holiday season, but could be celebrated within you in every moment?

What if the perfect gift, which was created just for you, is to awaken the unconditional love that always resides within your heart? What if this holiday season became an opportunity to explore the joy of emotional freedom in the most profound and heart-centered way?

While so many yearn for the grace of unconditional love, many tend to be confused, overwhelmed, or frustrated at not knowing how to open up to it. This is why I wrote Whatever Arises, Love That.

This book has been described as “an owner’s manual for a new spiritual paradigm.” It acts as a wise and loving companion throughout the uncertainties of an ever-changing world.

Now available as an unabridged audiobook, Whatever Arises, Love That is a powerful catalyst of healing for all stages of spiritual evolution.

This holiday season has a new soundtrack, reminding us that no matter what arises in life, “You deserve more love, not less.”
Many blessings always,

Matt Kahn

Becoming a Person

When I first met my partner Julie, almost thirteen years ago, I remember telling her that my greatest fear in life was that I would turn out to be “mediocre”. She looked at me and said, “there is only one thing that is mediocre about you and that is the way you’re dressed. But we can fix that. Just give me your credit card.” And Julie has done a great job of improving my wardrobe over the past ten plus years. But my point is that I had a dreadful fear of mediocrity, of somehow being like other people, being average and unremarkable; I felt like I would do anything to stand out and be different.

Recently, I have begun experimenting with dropping all need for specialness. I can see that there is a small child in me that wanted love and attention in a crowded environment (four older siblings) and that a large part of my motivation was not a spiritual need to express my unique being (which is how I had explained this unrelenting drive to express myself uniquely) but a psychological need to earn love. What if I am perfectly love-able and I am not doing anything particularly extraordinary? What if I am going to the laundrymat (we are renovating our home and our washer and dryer have been offline for several months), and I am as ordinary as ordinary gets, and I have no need to stand out in any way? (As an important aside, it is always so interesting to me when I uncover something that has psychological roots, like this need to be extraordinary in order to receive love, and to notice how I have been operating under a spiritual justification, in this case that I have been focused on expressing human uniqueness).

So I have been experimenting with enjoying the ordinary, not solving any big Sounds True problems or making “big deals” or creating a big splash of any kind. And I am noticing that I am happier than I have ever been. I am relaxing into being one of six plus billion people and simply being “one of us.” I don’t have anything to prove or anything to earn. Instead, it is about being present to what is needed and asked in the moment without a big agenda. I feel like a person instead of a striving determined-to-be-extraordinary achiever. And what I am noticing is that the glistening of the trees is brighter, the fur on Jasmine’s back (Jasmine is our 16-year old cocker spaniel) is even softer, and that I really enjoy going to the laundry mat!

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Transitions, Anyone?

I’m going through what’s called a “major life transition.” (Are there “minor” life transitions?) Perhaps the hardest part is my impatience with the natural progression of said transition and my desire to get the next chapter going already. I tell myself things like “the only way out is through” and “the present moment is not a means to an end.” These adages serve as a kind of inner compass that keeps pointing me to my experience right now. “Drop in” is another one I keep telling myself; that is, feel what’s alive within me fully and notice my mind as it races away from the moments it doesn’t like and yearns for some future when it will be “all good.” Without judgment—that’s the tricky part I guess.

Another tactic of mine is simply to observe people I know that have experienced a similar transition. Their sheer existence is evidence that survival is possible. Those that appear to be thriving after the big change are particularly inspirational and hope-giving. (I try to ignore the people whose lives seem worse for the wear…) This isn’t an exercise in comparison; it’s more about assuring myself that life goes on even if it’s rarely if ever as we think it is supposed to go.

Last but certainly not least, I turn toward the teachers I make a living writing about. If they don’t work for me, they’re kinda hard to pitch to all of you smart folks out there. Two of my favorites when I’m finding myself in resistance to what is: Jack Kornfield’s A Lamp in the Darkness and Bodhipaksa’s Living As a River. Jack’s teachings always help me shift my perspective to one of deeper compassion and understanding. Bodhipaksa’s book offers a wonderful opportunity to practice embracing change aka impermanence. If we don’t we tend to make ourselves and those around us pretty miserable. If we do, we align with the flow of life and open the doorway to freedom. At least that’s how the teachings go…I’ll continue to test them in the days and weeks ahead…and I’ll let you all know how it goes!

If you’re also in the midst of transition, or on either end of one, and care to share you insights, I’m listening!

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Live from the Wake Up Festival!

Dear friends,

We’ve arrived in Estes Park and are preparing the ground for this year’s Wake Up Festival! We get started in just a few hours with an opening ceremony where we’ll be welcoming a few hundred friends from around the world who will be participating in one of our pre-Festival workshops. The main Festival begins on Wednesday which will feature a concert with Snatam Kaur. As a reminder, we’ll be live streaming Snatam’s concert at no cost for those of you who would like to tune in! We’re expecting upwards of 1000 people to share in the Festival with us, and are so happy to be in this field with you all!

This year’s pre-Festival workshops, which we’re quite excited about, include:

Into the Heart of Chanting with Snatam Kaur

Qigong Empowerment – Awaken the 4 Golden Wheels with Robert Peng

Energy Medicine: A Hands-On Experience with Donna Eden and David Feinstein

The Deepest Acceptance: Discovering an Effortless “Yes” to Life with Jeff Foster

Journey with No End: Writing and Spiritual Growth with Mark Nepo

Experiencing the Shamanic Journey: A Direct Path of Revelation with Sandra Ingerman

Leaving you here with a photo live from Wake Up central… sending our love to all our friends around the world.

estes

Donna Eden: Uplifting Energy

Tami Simon speaks with Donna Eden, a renowned energy medicine expert who has taught throughout the US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and South America. Along with her partner David Feinstein, Donna is author of the books Energy Medicine and Energy Medicine for Women, and with Sounds True she has produced the multimedia program The Energy Medicine Kit. In this episode, Tami speaks with Donna about her experiences as someone who both sees energy and has healed herself from serious medical challenges. Donna also shares two energy practices: a technique to evolve our fight-flight-or-freeze response, and another for opening with total trust to the energy of the heavens. (63 minutes)

Burning brightly

Is it necessary to make a commitment to study and practice within one tradition? When I first started meditating, I was introduced by Burmese meditation master S.N. Goenka to the old adage, “If you want to find water, don’t dig many holes. Dig deep in one place.”

And recently in a discussion with philosopher Ken Wilber, when asked this question in the context of a discussion about the future of spirituality, Ken responded by quoting a Japanese saying, “Try to chase two rabbits at the same time, catch none.”

But is this universally true? In our contemporary context, is it necessary to commit to studying and practicing within a singular spiritual tradition if one wants to radically grow and transform? Although I see the value in this perspective and the depth of realization it can bring, I am not convinced.

As an interviewer, I have now met some highly accomplished and wise teachers whose life experience tells a different story. I have spoken with spiritual teachers who have not followed any formal path at all and whose hearts seem wildly open and whose lives seem truly devoted to serving other people. I’ve also interviewed teachers who have simultaneously studied in several different lineages and who actually recommend such an approach as an opportunity for checks and balances (so to speak) as one matures on the path.

Having now met people who come from such a wide range of different spiritual backgrounds and paths of practice, my current view is that it is not the path that matters as much as it is the heart fire of the individual. What I mean by heart fire is the commitment and intensity of love and devotion that lives at the center of our being. When our hearts are lit up to the max—lit up with a dedication to opening fully and offering our life energy for the well-being of other people—there is a torch within us that begins to blaze with warmth and generosity. The real question becomes not are we on the right path but are we fully sincere in offering ourselves to the world? Are we whole-hearted (a word I learned from meditation teacher Reggie Ray) in letting go of personal territory? Are we whole-hearted in our desire to burn brightly and serve, regardless of the outer form our lives might take?

What I like about turning the question around like this is that now our finger is not pointing outward at some consideration of path or tradition or what other people say or have done or are doing. Now our finger is pointing directly to the center of our own chest. We can ask ourselves questions like: Am I hiding or holding back for some reason? What am I holding back and why? What would it mean to risk more so that the fire of life could shine more brightly through me? How could I live in such a way, right now, so that my heart is 100 percent available to love and serve?

My experience is that when we start investigating our own whole-heartedness in this kind of way, we don’t have the same need to judge and evaluate other people and their paths. There are a multitude of options, valid and viable. What becomes important is the purity and strength of the fire that is blazing within us.

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