Whatever Arises, Love That

by Matt Kahn

  Through these examples, you see how natural it can be to openly meet such intense emotions that may have distracted you in the past. By celebrating the vulnerability of your childlike heart, you discover the true purpose of compliments as a way of transforming whatever arises with love, acceptance, and authenticity.

  From this space, the heart of surrender reaches an exciting point of completion as you ascend into the next level of spiritual growth and energetic expansion.

  9

  Conscious Communication

  AS THE HEART of surrender is completed, you continue with your journey by discovering the skill of conscious communication. It is the next stage in mastering relationships that allows you to focus on the gifts you are delivering to others, instead of waiting for others to provide the attention, support, and care they may unknowingly withhold from themselves.

  The reason you appear to live in a world among many others is because the recurring benchmark in spiritual evolution is noticing how well you communicate. No matter how anyone chooses to express themselves with you, your response reflects how open your heart tends to be. As the wise parentlike mind and the innocent childlike heart are reunited, love emerges to the forefront of your daily encounters to speak on your behalf. While you will still be the one responding, it may feel as if your words are emanating from a deeper, richer, and more inspired state of being.

  A true enlightened master in a modern-day era knows how to communicate the love of their true self by translating it into a language that anyone can interpret. As you become aware of the skills and capabilities of a masterful conscious communicator, you are able to enhance your relationships, savor each encounter, and cherish any experience no matter the circumstances.

  The reason communication is such an essential skill to master is because it is where most misunderstandings can occur. When there is an inability to consciously communicate, you may feel misunderstood by those around you, which can cause your heart to feel less inclined to open up at full capacity.

  Mastering the Skill of Listening

  Conscious communication begins with mastering the skill of listening. When listening, you give others a chance to be on the receiving end of your loving attention, which allows their subconscious mind to match your vibration.

  While there are many evolving spiritual masters who yearn to wake up so deeply that they’ll be able to levitate, walk through walls, or shape shift, one of the most impressive demonstrations of awakened consciousness is the ability to listen. An awakened being knows listening to be the most direct way to remind someone of their highest value. Whether lost in the beauty of a lover or exchanging smiles with a neighbor, the gift of your attention remains an extraordinary treasure you are capable of offering just by observing the innocence around you.

  Have you ever acknowledged the power contained in your loving gaze? Have you seen how quickly and effortlessly everything falls into place when you accept that everything is here to be blessed by the grace of your attention?

  Once you realize this, the activity of witnessing the transformation of all occurs by allowing others to be heard. When you are listening, you are no longer focused on what you think about things, or how they’ve been labeled, but on honoring the unique way such divine works of art have come to appear.

  From this depth of awareness, you free yourself from needing to constantly prepare or rehearse your responses to what others are saying since a greater willingness to listen to them is one of the most loving ways to engage. This means you don’t need to know the answers to anyone’s questions, including your own, since the best answer is taking a greater interest in the questioner.

  How profoundly would your life change if you no longer had to answer your own concerns or solve anyone’s problems? What if you simply listened and gave loving attention to whatever comes your way?

  An overstimulated nervous system doesn’t allow you to listen without an agenda since it causes you to feel as if you are someone who is unsupported, overlooked, and misunderstood on a regular basis. This is often why human beings wrestle for control in conversations or find the time to debate one another. If consumed in ego, it’s easy to feel as if no one is listening to you no matter how much attention has been given. Whenever you are in constant need of being heard, there is no ability to hear others or realize that you are the only one who can give yourself the attention your heart desires.

  When anyone fails to give themselves the attention they seek, a feeling of being unsupported or misunderstood permeates their interactions. As that occurs, they can be motivated to recruit others to provide the attention they deny themselves. When two people come together in an attempt to get each other to offer a depth of approval that only comes from within, neither is listening to the other. This is how conflict is created. In conflict, the end result is propelling the overstimulated nervous system into greater momentum.

  On the other hand, when two beings view conversations as a way of gifting their own heart with undivided attention, by practicing to be a better listener to others, there is no need for conflict to erupt. This is because both are aware of the fact that they are the only ones who are in need of hearing whatever they have to say. When human interactions become a way of practicing self-acceptance by treating others with more patience, kindness, and respect, a constant need to be heard shifts into listening as an act of love.

  It is important to remember that your heart doesn’t know the difference between you listening to others and others listening to you. The more openly you listen, the more accepted your heart tends to feel. As long as you develop the skill of listening, your heart feels safe to be open even if others lash out in defense.

  Listening as an Act of Self-Love

  When listening becomes an act of self-love, a stunning truth is discovered. In ego, it is common to believe that someone else’s words or behavior is the reason you feel unaccepted, judged, or rejected. In reality, other people cannot affect you. It only seems as if they limit your experience when you refuse to hear a point of view that doesn’t match your own. The more you allow yourself to listen, whether you agree with anyone’s ideas or not, the less likely you feel rejected in the presence of another. The catalyst of rejection is life’s way of reminding you how other people are not always created to treat you better than you treat yourself. Instead, they help you practice treating yourself better by how lovingly you interact with them.

  This doesn’t mean you should pretend to enjoy the company of those who treat you poorly. Instead, it invites you to cultivate greater compassion for yourself by allowing others to speak their mind. As the skill of listening is mastered, every heart is healed by the brightness of your being. When others have the right to speak, you inspire everyone around you to shine their light.

  The Link between Attention Span and Listening

  Throughout my work as an empath, I began to see how important the role of listening plays. I would notice people from so many different spiritual paths seeking my guidance mainly to resolve a feeling of being lost, disconnected from Source, or wanting to know what to do with their life. Even though I gave intuitive answers on every conceivable subject matter, it didn’t seem to cut to the core of the issues. This challenged me to further explore why human beings felt that way. Soon enough, the answer became surprisingly clear.

  Anytime a human being feels lost, disconnected, or unaware of what to do with their life, those feelings act as a feedback mechanism from the nervous system. They reflect the degree to which a person can become a better listener. Just as in breathing, when one listens shallowly, their love for themselves and others is conditional and shrouded in the stickiness of personal agenda. As the skill of listening expands, the feedback of being lost, disconnected, or without direction begins to dissolve.

  While many sought my intuitive guidance, hoping I would know something they didn’t, it wasn’t the true reason why life had brought us together. The reason they were there was to learn how to listen, more deeply than anyone
else had ever heard them before. As I helped others learn how to intimately listen to themselves, I discovered the mysterious link between listening and the nervous system.

  I had already seen how listening remained shallow when a nervous system was overstimulated and deepened as it unraveled, but what was the link between the two? The link is your attention span. A short attention span indicates how overstimulated a nervous system happens to be. When the nervous system is overstimulated, you are bound to feel unsafe in your body, unsupported by the world, lost, disconnected, unable to make wise, decisive choices, and without direction in your life. As the nervous system unwinds, your attention expands to dissolve self-doubt, to enhance your interest in listening, and to guide you toward the most inspired choices that are always in reach.

  One of the primary reasons a teacher offers spoken teachings of wisdom is because the act of listening lengthens your attention span. As it is lengthened, the body relaxes to invite your heart to feel safe enough to open. When attention expands, you are liberated from the core of human conflict. No matter which character appears in your reality, each person is healed and returned to their original form just by giving them permission to speak.

  When your nervous system is overstimulated, you aren’t able to hear the extent of what anyone is saying. You might hear the first three or four words that remind you of associations to other things. While the overstimulated nervous system often causes you to quickly respond and share what the other person’s words have inspired, it can get in the way of allowing another to be heard.

  There can also be a tendency to interrupt others to correct how they see you. If lost in ego, it can be difficult to spend quality time with someone who doesn’t perceive you the way you want to be seen. When you are driven by an agenda to be viewed in a certain way, you are unable to hold a space for anyone’s heart to heal.

  As a remedy, it is important to remember that how others view you is never about you at all. While they can share their views and opinions about who you are in their play, it doesn’t have to match up with who you know yourself to be.

  No matter the conclusions that others suggest when looking in your direction, each of their ideas represents outdated clusters of cellular debris being purged out of their field. This means that when it is time for others to purge patterns of judgment, the innocence of your loving heart may inspire their harshest criticism to be spoken. Despite what is said, that cannot lower your vibration or affect your energy field unless you agree to be the character they have imagined.

  In most cases, it’s not necessary that you even respond to those who are asking you to listen, simply because listening itself is already the best answer. Despite how judgmental anyone seems to be, your ability to let them be heard enables their innocence to feel important, cherished, and supported. Even if they don’t seem to be transformed as a result of your listening, you are always the one who exits each encounter more expanded and evolved than any moment before.

  As others are speaking out the clusters of cellular debris released from their nervous system, you can use that as an opportunity to offer full eye contact and listen with renewed heartfelt interest. From that space, you can notice that when people are inflamed, the speed of their words will match the shallowness of their breath. As you slow your breath to hold space as an active listener, the more your energy field expands to raise your vibration.

  By elevating your vibration, you send a message to the other person’s subconscious mind to acknowledge the energetic difference between you. In response, their subconscious mind will do whatever is necessary to raise their vibration in an attempt to match yours. This is how you are able to help pull other people up to a higher level of consciousness instead of lowering the standard of your energy to match where they are.

  Through a more sincere willingness to listen, you are freed of a tendency to match another person’s vibration or interrupt someone before they’re done speaking. Often, interrupting someone in the middle of their sharing slows the healing already in progress.

  It may feel distinctive to make a “better point” or correct their misperceptions, but to interrupt them equally reveals the overstimulation of your nervous system. This is why the most heart-centered approach is to hold a sacred space for both hearts to heal through the practice of conscious communication. Otherwise, a spontaneous moment of healing can quickly escalate into a shouting match in which two people fight to have the final word while the innocence of both hearts gets ignored once again.

  Offering Advice, Interrupting, and Lashing Out

  As a lightbearer of heart-centered consciousness, you are always in a position to hold sacred space for life’s deepest healing. When a desire to interrupt becomes an opportunity to slow your breathing and listen at a more intimate level, you increase the likelihood of the other person being more open to receiving what you have to say, once you’ve allowed them to make their point.

  Even after someone has stated their case, you may experience the ways in which others are unwilling or unable to be as masterful of a listener as you are for them. As tempting as it might seem to point out how faithfully you’ve listened or how unfair it is that they’re not giving you the same in return, it is far more beneficial to acknowledge any degree of frustration or your disappointment as the next ones in line to be loved.

  Even though an act of engaged listening may increase the likelihood of someone reciprocating the same interest in return, it cannot be guaranteed to unfold in any way other than to inspire your most profound healing.

  Conscious communication levels the playing field of your daily interactions by reminding you of the ways in which listening to others offers you the chance to practice being a better listener to yourself. No matter how one-sided conversations seem to be, they can always feel fair, adequate, and equitable, as long as listening is viewed as an active meditative practice. Even when a willingness to listen inspires a response, whatever you wish to say out loud is not necessarily what they need to hear or absorb. In many cases, your response to others reveals the messages of inner guidance that only you need to hear from yourself.

  When overlooking that truth, you may find yourself in situations where the righteous inflammation of ego causes you to draw from your favorite spiritual insights in an attempt to educate those who seem misinformed. By projecting your advice onto others, conversations can quickly become heated debates when the greatest advice you know is ignored or rejected. And yet, conscious communication will remind you, time and time again, the one who speaks is primarily the one needing to hear the words they say.

  The fact that you are in a position to hear them out offers you more opportunities to practice being a better listener by holding a more conscious space than they may ever be able to hold for you.

  When your heart has been put in charge of how you respond, you can see that you’re motivated only to give advice to another to remind yourself of the next important step for you to take in your life. Even if the advice you are eager to offer another person matches the actions you’ve already implemented in your life, the fact that you are inspired to impart such wisdom motivates you to act upon it on a more consistent basis with renewed enthusiasm.

  As you learn to communicate consciously, you recognize the willingness to show greater interest in the uniqueness of another as one of the powerful gifts you can provide. Through a renewed commitment to listen in a more engaged way, you offer the innocence of others the chance to purge all they are willing to release through the words they are motivated to speak. Anything you would need to say to correct their assumptions, judgments, opinions, or conclusions offers you the chance to speak out loud the words you need to hear and to become more aware of the action steps that are pivotal for you to implement.

  Even though you are interacting in a world of others, the relationship with your true innocent nature masquerades through ongoing interactions with various characters. This doesn’t mean the way that others behave is a reflection of a behavior wi
thin you. It is more the case of meeting the emotional disposition of another as a reflection of times in your life when such behavior offered you less love from others, instead of more. It’s as if your history of life experiences is cross-referenced by categories of emotions. Any unresolved feelings that linger in your cellular memory take shape and form as the temperament of other people.

  While the words they share with you represent the purging of cellular debris from their energy field, they also represent aspects of your past that await the support, attention, and encouragement that seemed to be missing from your past.

  This is precisely why listening to others acts as a chance to practice listening to your innocence at a more intimate level. Even if the person speaking asks for advice, you can ask yourself the question, “What are the words I always wanted to hear whenever I felt that way?” The words that would have made a difference, if only those in your life had known what to say, become the gifts you are here to offer as a way of healing both hearts.

  In conscious communication, the way someone else acts, behaves, or speaks to you cannot justify matching their unconscious behavior and lashing out at them. Even if you were to lash out, you can notice this as an opportunity to take some private time to slow your breath, to actively engage with your inner child, and to listen to whatever your heart wants to say. This can include offering love to the aspect of self that lashes out at other people as if they are a sibling who gets all of your attention. No matter how frustrated you are in the presence of another, you are only crying out for your own loving approval, despite how much attention you believe another person owes you.