Notes: Matt Kahn Retreat, Sunday AM

Here’s the sixth and final installment of my notes from the Matt Kahn retreat in January. And my initial impressions are written up here in case you want some context.

NOTE: He uses certain words interchangeably: the Universe, Source, Life, God, Light, the Divine. If you have any baggage with a certain word or words, just pick one that works for you! The last thing we ever want to get hung up on is a word, as I’ve done a million times before. It’s just a symbol, so always look at what the speaker is pointing to rather than what your meaning is. Because they’re often not the same. And they’re the one that said it anyway. This is such an important thing to be aware of as humans that are always in communication with one another. Okay, here we go…

He said there’s nothing like the feeling of getting all areas of your life dialed in. His last was getting healthy, which he said was the hardest thing he’s ever done. And his recent marriage tied into this as well.

Back to abundance from yesterday, he said it’s hard to talk about it without it sounding like reward and punishment. So he asked the universe for a way to talk about it objectively to take the personal sting away. So here it is, and it’s pretty awesome. And so simple!

The universe is objective and energetic. It responds to intensity. The polarity is excitement and fear. Which are you most aligned with? Whatever you desire, are you more excited about it or afraid? If you’re more afraid, then the benevolent universe would rather protect you from what you’re afraid of than give you what you’re less excited about.

We’re always sending mixed signals. Children are good manifestors because they just want, want, want. Be specific and decisive with the universe.

Why be afraid? That’s in the ego’s domain. The ego wants what it wants like crazy, as long as it’s not here. Anticipation is the prime function of the ego. The ego lives to anticipate, needs to anticipate. That’s why people get so triggered at retreats! The ego can’t stand to sit still with nothing to anticipate.

Ask, “What would this moment be like without anything to anticipate?” Everything is waiting for you, and you’ll get there when you’re supposed to. It’ll all be revealed when you’re ready. All we do is commit fully and live this moment out and let it all come.

Waiting for enlightenment is anticipating what happens when we stop anticipating. Bam!

Do we anticipate the breath? We don’t, and it just comes. And it’s already within us. I’m saying this so you can relax.

So what else can we not anticipate? True love, plus everything else we desire. Anticipating is just what most of us do to pass the time until it comes. Life already knows what you want, whether you have a vision board or not, so just relax.

You can’t prepare for your destiny. It’ll show up not when you want it but when you need it. It doesn’t come when you expect it because it’s there to take you beyond your ideas, not to confirm your ideas.

Relationships often come when each person isn’t ready, because they’re being more themselves. The more natural we are, and normal, the more doors open. That has big implications to all this spiritual work, too, with so many of us always trying to attain and be better.

It’s actually normal to feel good about yourself. Of all things to question, why question yourself? Unless you’re doing things that are really bad for you, that’s obvious. Judging ourselves so much is like making a judgment about a movie character before they become the hero by the end of the movie. They’re still being molded. So just sit back and watch the movie!

We balance the deep stuff with being normal: a routine, interactions with others, etc. And not always having something to process! Don’t try to always better yourself, because it’s going to happen anyway. Let life be in charge.

Take a break from checking in on yourself. If you’re going through emotional upheaval, then check in; that’s common sense. Else relax. We have a spiritual hyper vigilance. Then he gave the hilarious analogy of a hotel employee constantly knocking on your door to ask if you’re okay and if you need anything. Like every few minutes. Finally, you say, “No, I’m not okay! I’m not okay because you won’t leave me the hell alone!”

Even self-love needs to be spacious and natural.

Also let’s not use inner spiritual work to hide from other areas of our life that need attention. Spiritual work is what we do when all of that has been taken care of.

Ask if you always have to have a spiritual process going on. Often there’s a secondary gain when you always have a spiritual process, because if you don’t then you might not feel connected to God or to yourself. But you’re always connected! Have a hobby or interest instead.

His desire for us is to be the most heart-centered, awake beings we can be. But he wants to instill in us the most natural way of approaching it. He and others (like his friend Kyle Cease) are part of a new breed of spiritual teachers that are teaching how to go about all of this. The “what to do” has been taught, but the “how” hasn’t been taught in a way that doesn’t leave us feeling spiritually insecure and weird. Just weird people, not normal. And that leads to insecurity. Hilarious.

There’s a time for spiritual stuff and a time to be normal. It’s like a firefighter that always has the full set of gear on. Trying to eat with the mask on, trying to sleep with that huge suit and mask on. Wait until the alarm sounds for all that! If we relax our spiritual impulse, then everything we’ve received this weekend will be fully integrated and will stick.

After so many years of intense spiritual process to prepare for the work that he’s doing, Matt’s spiritual process now is just being a human without a process.

Have at least one interest other than spiritual growth that’s in the direction of self-expression and creativity.

Consciousness has a masculine and a feminine aspect. The drive for spiritual truth is masculine. But the receiving is feminine. We need balance. The expansion of consciousness must be tempered with creativity because creativity is in the domain of the feminine. Creative expression plus spiritual expansion is the magic combination.

He’s helping us to become more settled, which is what he means by “normal.” And those that aren’t settled are in the process of becoming settled.

The deeper we go, the more natural life wants us to be. And when we’re not, it comes to a halt. And then some external things might shift, too. Like relationships coming to an end.

We can be settled right now, and it begins with having nothing to anticipate. There’s everything to receive and nothing to anticipate. Being settled is just being you, exactly as you are. It’s your natural state. Your life’s purpose is to be settled in yourself.

Sometimes when the universe doesn’t seems to be answering your questions or responding to you, it’s helping you to become more settled. It’s like the parent that’s holding a child so that the child can fall asleep. If the parent keeps talking to it, it won’t fall asleep. That’s the universe with us, but we’re falling awake. Whoa…

No matter how near or far we are from our goals, life’s trying to settle us right here, right now. Then we taste and feel perfection, and life really begins. The universe can’t help us decorate our space until we move in. And this is what it feels like to move in (that amazing feeling in the room now and throughout the retreat in every session). WOW!