Whatever Arises, Love That

by Matt Kahn

  While you may appear to be one person loving one heart, the blessings and resources that you offer are infinite and far-reaching. It’s never a matter of anyone being excluded when loving your heart is your focus. Since the love you send to the world passes through your heart first, you are the first one your blessings touch as they ripple out to every soul.

  You can think of your heart as a shipping dock for the endless blessings of divinity, where all wishes, dreams, and desires are sent out to be granted in the lives of every dreamer.

  Imagine the miraculous implications you cultivate by loving your heart more often. Perhaps a farmer who depends on growing crops to feed his family discovers a greater harvest than ever before. As a result, maybe they are able to afford gifts for their family during the holiday season. What if someone who was stuck in an abusive relationship spontaneously finds the courage to move into an environment that honors their true worth and value? What if such courage came to these people as a result of your loving choices?

  Perhaps a country inundated by drought, unable to grow crops to feed their communities, all of a sudden finds changes in weather that fertilize the soil of their land. As they spontaneously rejoice in the miracle that allows them to grow food and nourish so many families, they may not even know this was made possible by a momentum of energy created by you loving your own heart.

  This doesn’t mean that you are ever the cause of anything you see. More precisely, you are the solution emerging in every form. Even if you misunderstand these words and feel guilty about not loving yourself enough to support the well-being of all, it becomes another opportunity to embrace your guilt as the next one in line to be loved. As you welcome guilt with open arms, you are assisting in releasing it out of the collective unconsciousness for the well-being of all.

  Although loving what arises can help you to immediately transform discomfort into something more preferable and spacious, I encourage you to take this practice beyond the benefits of a conventional healing modality. Instead of using this practice as a cosmic fire extinguisher to merely resolve the flames of personal despair, I invite you to treasure your heart on a regular basis, until the world you are viewing reflects back the light that your love reveals.

  3

  The Heart of Surrender

  IT IS COMMON for seekers to anticipate spiritual evolution as a static event or one gigantic moment of realization. Throughout my journey, though, I have come to see how your deepest discoveries are not typically contained in a specific mystical event, but are rather a lifetime of realizations that increase over time. As the maturity of your path unfolds, it becomes easier to see how you cannot define the progression of your journey by how many mystical experiences or awakenings you’ve had since many more are sure to come. Equally so, there is no need to judge yourself, as if you are falling behind by not having the experiences that others seem to encounter. While moments of transcendence are incredible to behold, the true benchmark of spiritual maturity is how often your words and actions are aligned with love.

  The willingness to allow your choices to come from a place of love no matter the outcomes or circumstances at hand is what I call the heart of surrender. This shift into heart-centered consciousness makes welcoming each moment with openness, kindness, and compassion more vital than what you hope to gain from life. Instead of trying to control the things you can’t seem to change, you redefine the way you relate to the world.

  The heart of surrender is accessed by asking a bold series of questions. They are not questions that require you to search for an answer but to unearth a visceral response in your body to confirm your deepest wisdom. To enter the heart of surrender, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions:

  What happens if I stop fighting the things that seem to fight with me? What happens if instead of trying to change the behavior of others, I become the first one to stop fighting, even if others still fight with me?

  What do you feel in your body when asking these questions? Even if there is a sensation of fear, the mere consideration of no longer fighting against the things that fight with you becomes another opportunity to release unconscious patterns just by loving the heart that feels so threatened.

  Perhaps your innocence believes that to stop fighting would result in being overpowered, hurt, or feeling unsafe. What if the circumstances of your life are not what are making you feel unsafe? What if it’s your willingness to fight that causes you to feel so disempowered? Without a need to blame anyone for your experiences, what then happens to the sensation of fear?

  If you can sense a willingness to fight within you, this is surely the next one in line to be on the receiving end of your loving attention. Perhaps you’ve never loved the part of you that fights because you’ve been busy joining its crusade. Maybe you’ve pushed that part of yourself to the background when it didn’t seem to act in a spiritually appropriate manner. Whether agreeing with the reasons that justify a fight or trying to get your most relentless thoughts to change their position, within these two extremes, the one who needs something to fight or fix has never been loved as an equal expression of divinity. To resolve this oversight, please repeat the following healing mantra:

  I accept that the aspect of self that fights is only here to be loved as only I can love it. I acknowledge that the aspect of self that fights is not in a fight with anything or anyone but is actually fighting for the beauty, ecstasy, and perfection of my own loving attention.

  I accept that the aspect of self that fights—that is fueled by a need to be right or have the final word—is only fighting for my attention.

  Since this innocence is only fighting for my attention, I no longer fight against the things that I think are fighting with me. Instead, I offer loving-kindness to the innocence that no longer has to work so hard to receive my support.

  In repeating these words, can you feel a struggle coming to an end that doesn’t leave you immersed in doubt or shrouded in fear? Maybe there is a realization that while it feels as if there’s much to fight, defend, fix, change, or even maintain, there is an innocence within you that uses these tendencies as attention-seeking devices.

  Just by recognizing how often you act out the very behavior that cries for your own heart-centered support, you have boldly taken another step forward in an exciting new direction.

  Creating Your Own Personal Love Statement

  The next step in the heart of surrender is creating your own personal love statement. Although you can find much benefit from embracing your heart one “I love you” at a time, such an offering is just the beginning. A personal love statement is very powerful especially if the words “I love you” come with memories you would prefer to bury. It is very possible that you’ve heard encouraging words from those who wanted to love you but wound up lashing out in moments of frustration, anger, and desperation. If that is the case, there may be painful associations in your subconscious mind that obscure your view of love based on the actions of those who hurt you the most.

  Creating your personal love statement begins by asking yourself the following questions:

  What are the words I never heard that I always wanted to hear? Who in my experience hurt me the most? And what are the words they never said that really would have allowed my healing to occur?

  Whatever words arise are always valid, since any information you receive could only be the authority of your highest wisdom.

  Sometimes with unresolved pain, you do not need someone from your past to say “I love you” if they were never able to do so. Instead, you might need them to say “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Your personal love statement can evolve day-by-day, week-by-week, and sometimes even minute-by-minute. Whatever you never heard from someone else or wanted to hear more often becomes the words you offer yourself.

  Just as you may have practiced with “I love you,” you can respond to any emotional upheaval by repeating your personal love statement in two-minute intervals as many times a day as you need. Even when you’re
not caught in storms of personal turmoil, you can continue offering your personal love statement as a way of uplifting and blessing all beings in existence.

  As your personal love statement is created or modified, it’s important to allow your innocence to fully participate in the process. In order to dissolve each threat and end your fight with life, it is crucial to uncover the words you’ve always wanted to hear. Maybe they are the words that you have heard but not often enough, or maybe these words were never spoken in an authentic tone of voice.

  What if the words you’ve always wanted to hear can be inspired from a spiritual or even a religious context? If so, what are the words your Source could say that would make you feel as if you can do no wrong? What could be said that allows you to fully be yourself? What would you need to hear to unlock your potential and bring it forward for the liberation of all?

  As you may already be starting to see, your personal love statement establishes a deeper level of communication with your heart. Even if you were shunned, silenced, or overpowered in the past, your inner child is always willing to be a part of your healing journey. When you offer your personal love statement with patience, softness, and consistency, your heart will soon open up and share with you the secrets that ensure your growth and expansion.

  As a way of discovering the words you’ve always wanted to hear or never heard often enough, please repeat the following phrases:

  You matter.

  You are enough.

  You are worthy of being seen and heard.

  You are special.

  There is a reason you are here.

  You are beautiful.

  You are so talented.

  I always want to know how you feel.

  Please don’t hold back.

  You are perfect just the way you are.

  I am so blessed and honored to have you in my life.

  Thank you for forgiving me.

  I am so sorry for all that I have done to you.

  I did not know how deeply you were hurt.

  I’m sorry I did not consider your feelings.

  I was wrong.

  You don’t have to forgive me if you don’t want to.

  Your talent knows no limits.

  Perhaps one or more of these phrases satisfies a heartfelt desire to hear the words that seemed missing from your past. If so, can you become the one who offers your heart the gifts it has waited to receive for far too long?

  No matter how you wish to be treated by others, can you be the one who supports your emotional needs with greater consistency and enthusiasm than ever before?

  The Difference between Victimhood and Empowerment

  In the heart of surrender, the difference between victimhood and empowerment is simple; in victimhood you hold yourself emotionally hostage while waiting for others to tell you what they may not be able to say. Until they do, you remain at odds with life, blaming those who haven’t spoken the words you need to hear as the reason for your suffering. As this occurs, you are more likely to defend yourself at every turn and fight against the things that no amount of effort ever seems to change.

  On the other hand, empowerment is not about waiting for other people to say the right words at all. It is realizing how you are the one who needs to say the things that you’ve waited your entire life to hear. No matter how much you wish to be validated by others, only the one who survived each ordeal could ever be the one to speak the words your past seemed to withhold. As the one who endured each struggle and overcame every obstacle, only you hold the key to opening your heart by supporting yourself in a more consistent and intimate way.

  Since your subconscious mind does not know the difference between someone else saying certain words and you saying them to yourself, your heart will heal the same way even if the words don’t come from the person of your choosing.

  With each step forward, the heart of surrender frees you from viewing your life through the eyes of victimhood. Instead of seeing all the people who lash out, verbally assault, judge, or criticize, you can recognize such behavior as desperate ways their innocence cries out for the attention they don’t know how to give to themselves. In recognizing this deeper truth, you can give their heart the loving attention that no one else may have ever provided by offering a more gracious response than their actions deserve. Even if you cannot dare to love the heart of another in response to their cruelty, you can always remove yourself from volatile situations and allow your own heart to become your point of focus. As your heart is honored, blessings are sent to everything in existence, including the ones who lash out, without you having to do anything else but acknowledge the innocence within you who feels mistreated.

  In the heart of surrender, treating people far better than they treat you becomes an acceptable way to live, especially because their inability to treat you well has nothing to do with you, but reflects the kind of relationship they have with themselves. This allows you to forget how to be a victim when the unconscious actions of another clearly reveal a heart in need of healing and a child lost in pain. Whether someone glares at you while drowning in their own self-judgment or you find yourself hurt by someone you deeply admire, you have every right to accept a more noble invitation to love yourself more, not less.

  To take your next step in the heart of surrender, please repeat this healing mantra:

  I no longer fight with those who insist on fighting with me. I acknowledge anyone who fights as only fighting for the grace of their own loving attention.

  I freely give loving attention to whatever calls out for it, whether appearing as jumbled emotions in my body, a noisy mind of endless thoughts, or the relentless behavior of those I encounter.

  By speaking to others in a tone and manner that suggests how much better they deserve to treat themselves when not in my presence, I help raise the vibration of the planet. I know full well that my path cannot be defined by how others treat me but only how I choose to respond.

  Even though it seems as if I’m speaking to other characters in my play, as the truth of all that is, whatever I say to another is a love letter sent to every heart. Knowing this, I relinquish any desire or tendency to fight, negotiate, or defend, and I return to love by embracing the truth of all.

  Whether or not those I love consciously receive my gifts, it is I who walks away from each encounter more open, conscious, and empowered than any moment before.

  Choices and Outcomes

  In the heart of surrender, you are no longer matching other people’s behavior with the same frequency of unconsciousness. Because you have greater respect toward yourself, you are able to recognize the cruelty of others as coming from those who are entrenched in too much personal turmoil to remember their divinity, let alone consider your feelings with the respect they deserve.

  Personal turmoil is often a sign that a person is totally engulfed in a healing crisis they may not even know is happening. Those who are embroiled in drama but completely unaware of the spiritual opportunities presented in every breath can be viewed as innocent beings who just don’t know anything deeper than the surface of life. Whether you believe others deserve your kindness or not, their situation can always become another opportunity to say to yourself the words you would love to hear from them. This transforms any identity of victimhood into the embodied grace of love in action, so you no longer hold yourself emotionally hostage awaiting someone else’s attention, respect, or validation as your ransom.

  One moment of surrender at a time, you become more aware of what you need to provide for yourself rather than spending your time arguing with those who are fueled by fighting. On an even more intimate level, you also begin to realize something important about the power of choice. Instead of imagining how choices are ways to control outcomes or manipulate reality, you see each choice from a higher perspective.

  Each of your choices correlates to a vibrational frequency. While it isn’t necessary to understand the exact frequency as a number, it’s important to use your emotional
body as an energetic barometer. Choices aligned with a high vibration often bring excitement, ease, and relaxation into your body. The choices reflecting a low vibration feel contracted, heavy, and fill you with doubt, shame, guilt, worry, or resentment.

  Many of us have been conditioned to make choices from a fear of missing out on opportunities, which stems from a belief that your choices create outcome. As your consciousness expands, you realize that outcomes are orchestrated by the Universe only to put you into the exact situation to awaken your next highest level of consciousness.

  While outcomes cannot be guaranteed, the feeling produced as you tune into each choice provides a sneak preview of what it’s going to feel like throughout the duration of any decision. It’s as if someone invited you to dinner and you had a feeling of expansion within your heart. This wouldn’t ensure that your meal would be delicious; it couldn’t guarantee that you would get a reservation at your favorite restaurant or take away from the fact that you might end up waiting an hour for a table to be ready. No matter what the circumstances turned out to be, the feelings you notice when considering choices let you know the type of experience you are capable of having. It’s as if your emotions are telling you, “Here is what it’s going to feel like by venturing in this direction with no consideration for the circumstances that may come your way.”

  Since love is the highest vibration in existence, you have the power to bring forth the most incredible experiences by welcoming the decisions that feel most loving to you. When the wisdom of your body reveals which options are aligned with love, your life becomes a more inspired, enjoyable, and fulfilling journey to explore.

  Making Decisions from the Heart

  What if you were to take a permanent vacation from the intensity of self-doubt by allowing your heart to make each decision? When you allow your body to determine the most relaxed, loving, or exciting choices to make, you no longer have to feel the pressure of wondering what’s going to happen or overthink what you should do. By following the feedback of your feelings, your life is guided by a precise flow of intuitive guidance. This frees you from the exhaustion of trying to control a reality that only exists to ensure the fulfillment of your highest destiny.