Author Matt Kahn: “Here Are 5 Things That Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”

Author Matt Kahn: “Here Are 5 Things That Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”

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The more we appreciate the mind, the greater likelihood it has the space to function miraculously, instead of from states of fear, worry, guilt, or shame. Because we have a physical body, we must give our bodies equal time to rest and recover, as well as regular forms of exercise to increase circulation for the renewal of cellular health. It is important to know that true rest does not include constant mental engagement, which is why someone can veg out on a couch and watch TV all day and still feel exhausted. In order for the body to recharge, the mind must be free of stimulation which is why meditation and yoga are equally vital forms of passive and dynamic forms of rejuvenation. And, because we have an energy body, it is essential to balance our lives with creative projects as well as time to spiritually explore as a way of getting to know the unknown equally to all that is known to you.

As a part of my series about the ?5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness? I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Kahn.

Matt is the bestselling author of Whatever Arises, Love That and Everything Is Here to Help You. He is a spiritual teacher and highly attuned empathic healer who has become a YouTube sensation with his healing and often humorous videos. His more than 16 million YouTube channel viewers are finding the support they seek to feel more love, awakened, and opened to the greatest possibilities in life through the invitation to join the Love Revolution That Begins with You. You can visit him online at www.MattKahn.org.

Matt Kahn is a spiritual teacher and empathic healer who has become an Internet sensation thanks to his transformational and often humorous videos. He is author of the best-selling books Whatever Arises, Love That, Everything Is Here To Help You and The Universe Always Has a Plan (Hay House, March 2020). Matt was listed as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in the World in 2020 by Watkins Magazine. His YouTube channel has drawn more than 17 million views, helping people find the support they seek to feel more loved, awakened, and open to life?s greatest possibilities.

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.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One of the most intriguing stories was a dialogue I did with a woman at an event. She was in Stage 4 Cancer and I was helping her ?befriend? her diagnosis versus ?fight it?. It led to a huge breakthrough that was so powerful, she and the entire room felt the palpable shift. She already had a doctor?s appointment scheduled for the next day, and after a routine scan, they were astonished to notice 60% of the Cancer had vanished. To me, it?s interesting ? not because of the role I played in it ? but to acknowledge how miraculously the Universe can shift your circumstances the moment you are ready for such a healing. I was deeply touched to be a part of her healing journey and so glad she was given more time with her loved ones.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

In the beginning, I had a tendency to be so excited about what I had channeled earlier in the day, that I would come to an event with so much to share on stage. I?d start a talk with a main point and, soon enough, I?d just branch off in all these random directions. The audience didn?t mind because of the potent energy being channeled, but my events always seemed like a verbal Pink Floyd concert in the beginning. As my channeling became more refined I learned to trust it on a deeper level and, instead of walking into events with so many tidbits to share, I would take the stage completely blank. Over time, I have found being blank to be my greatest source of inspiration and how I feel the most prepared. I simply take the stage, bring through what comes through spontaneously, and a unique journey of healing unfolds for each participant. Nowadays, it?s the only way I can work, so I look back on how I was in the beginning with such compassion and endearment.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I remember having breakfast with a Sufi mystic. He was intrigued by Indigo children or kids born with advanced psychic ability. I was in my early twenties at the time and just starting my teaching career. I was at the point of being aware of what I knew, but not knowing what I didn?t know, which he would play an auspicious role in resolving. His wife greeted me at their front door and guided me into their living room where Llewellyn Vaughan Lee sat. He was a lovely, quiet man who simply wanted to know what I was teaching and about how I taught. He then told me a Sufi parable involving a snake and a rope that was meant to be a pointer to perception. When he got to the end, he laughed out loud. I joined him in laughter, while not actually knowing the point of the parable or the punchline. I ate breakfast with his family and left, wondering why the Universe brought us together for that fateful meeting. Literally 48 hours after meeting him, my mind spontaneously collapsed and dissolved revealing a no mind state where all that is known can be accessed without anything to track or keep straight. I know he knew I didn?t get the parable when I was sitting with him, and he was so humble to let me just absorb the energy that ultimately accelerated my abilities on every level. To this day, I am forever grateful for that one fateful encounter.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

For me, the greatest strategy to avoid burnout is creative expression. Because energy manifests in both masculine and feminine aspects, the seeking or sharing of consciousness is a masculine quality, while its feminine counterpart is utilizing the flow of consciousness to birth new creations. When I?m not teaching or on the road, I am creating new recipes as I cook each meal from scratch, I am writing poetry, songs, listening to music, and dancing around my apartment. I have found a commitment to creative expression to be my most incredible means for rejuvenation. This, paired perfectly with sleep, meditation, alkaline eating, exercise, and quality time with friends is how I am able to do the work I do and handle the demands of travel without burning myself out.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Any form of culture is the end result of a series of choices. The choices you make increase the likelihood of making similar choices again. The reasons why choices are made is because of the erroneous meaning we give to the choices we are most likely to choose based on our history of decisions. When exploring work culture, we are contemplating the deliberate choices each member of a team or company has the power to make to add to the team or company?s value system. The more in alignment any team or company is with their values, the more productive any team becomes. So to create a fantastic work culture, one must ask which emotion would be felt if their work culture functioned fantastically? Once each team member can agree on the same adjective, let?s say its inspiration, as an example. The team would agree to make individual choices pertaining to each department and all collective decisions based on the options that resonate with the vibration of inspiration. The team or company would function as they always have, just adding the extra layer of intention to ensure each choice is made to anchor the intention and vibration of inspiration. From this space, each team member feels as if they are deliberately contributing toward something important with the value of inspiration allowing them to feel a personal investment in the success of themselves and others, not just going to a job they wish were different. For me, any form of culture can be consciously co-created but it all begins with the setting of intention.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let?s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are ?mentally healthy? can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Mental illness is a spectrum of imbalance. Whether measured by brain chemistry or the tracking of behavioral patterns, it highlights how deeply into survival mode various aspects of self have become, more than likely as a result of unprocessed pain occurring at our most impressionable years of development. In order to free the ego from survival mode and invite the wellness of harmony and order back into the psyche, the key focus for optimal well-being is the cultivation of balance. As an example, if your body were a car and a light on the dashboard were a sign of imbalance, mental illness could be seen as what happens to the efficiency of the vehicle if and when these signals are overlooked. Just like a car needs to have air in each tire, gas in the tank, and fluids to help the engine function, so do human beings need balance within the various layers of our energy field. Because we have an emotional body, we need to maintain balance in our emotional centers by welcoming our feelings instead of judging or fighting with them ? no matter how inconvenient or daunting they seem. Because we have a mental body, we must say kind compassionate words of unending support to inform the mind of how appreciated it is.

The more we appreciate the mind, the greater likelihood it has the space to function miraculously, instead of from states of fear, worry, guilt, or shame. Because we have a physical body, we must give our bodies equal time to rest and recover, as well as regular forms of exercise to increase circulation for the renewal of cellular health. It is important to know that true rest does not include constant mental engagement, which is why someone can veg out on a couch and watch TV all day and still feel exhausted. In order for the body to recharge, the mind must be free of stimulation which is why meditation and yoga are equally vital forms of passive and dynamic forms of rejuvenation. And, because we have an energy body, it is essential to balance our lives with creative projects as well as time to spiritually explore as a way of getting to know the unknown equally to all that is known to you.

With greater time spent offering attention to circulating energy in each body of consciousness, the human energy field senses the unconditional love of Source which creates sensations of safety, well-being, harmony, self-love, as well as greater depths of forgiveness, inspired action, and moments of expanded awareness. Each person gets an entire lifetime of time and choices to co-create their perception of reality. As we evolve spiritually, we learn how to play our role as the means through which Source takes care of us, and as much care is taken to provide balance in your life, a brand new reality is given permission to dawn to escort you out of the plight of survival and into the ecstasy of your newly-discovered paradise.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ?life course transition? that can impact one?s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

Using the examples from the previous question, I think the most important key to vitality is maintaining as active a lifestyle as possible. Because many people perceive work as something they have given their life to, once retirement hits, they often don?t know what to do with their new-found time. From this space of rebirth, retirement can be an opportunity to allow self-care and personal evolution to be our new career of choice. Whether this also includes passion projects or donating our time to charitable causes of our choosing, we are able to maintain degrees of youthfulness by how consciously engaged with life we allow ourselves to be. The more time we take to embrace balance and self-care, the more fulfilled, aligned, happy, and evolved we tend to be.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

The greatest choice teens and pre-teens can make is to have deliberate breaks from technology and social media. Just as the human body needs time to digest after each meal, and rest required to balance out a life of activity, so does the human brain need time away from computers, tablets, smart phones, social media scrolling, and TV binge-watching to have moments to process experiences without being inundated with more images, ads, and information. For a teen or pre-teen, having each meal without a cell phone nearby, or only having only an hour a day to scroll social media would be a huge lead forward in cultivating a spiritually-aligned and purpose driven reality. It?s great advice for anyone of any age on this planet, but especially in children, pre-teens, and teens who are establishing the patterning of choices that will influence the way they view the world and how they believe the world views them.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

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.

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.

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.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

For those yearning to co-create a more heart-centered and spiritually-aligned reality, please follow me on Facebook and Instagram under my name, Matt Kahn. I also invite readers to visit: www.MattKahn.org to sign up for my free newsletter and receive a free audio activation.

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

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