A Way Out of Pain - Matt Kahn (TrueDivineNature.com)

[grannyfranny]

Matt Kahn is a spiritual teacher, mystic, and highly-attuned empath who, along with meditation guide and yoga teacher and sound healer, Julie Dittmar, travel the world inviting seekers of all faiths to discover their true divine nature.

Matt's spontaneous awakening arose out of an out-of-body experience at the age of 8, and his direct experiences with ascended masters and archangels throughout his life. Many spiritual seekers have experienced amazing, unexplainable healings, and have awakened to their true nature through his profound and loving teachings and his transmission of sacred heart wisdom.

Matt and Julie offer their clear intuitive guidance and loving presence to remove all perceptions of obstacles in your life, and to energetically support you through every aspect of the spiritual journey and experience of awakening.

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Never read anything about pain and empathy. Interesting perspective.

[Aianawa]

Totally excellent, watching for a fourth time, the first time I watched this for only 15 minutes, turned it off and waited till my partner could join me so as to watch together, an important spiritual milestone this vid imo.

[idigress]

Hi granny, thanks for sharing, this video really resonates with me as a leadership coach. I think pretty much everyone experiences feelings of empathy toward others who are in pain, some more so than others. How we choose to respond seems to be the key.

First, Matt describes how someone, like me, who's sensitive to other people's feelings experiences a crowd of people. We pick up on their pain and it overwhelms us. For me, it feels like I'm being squeezed from all sides, nowhere to run and hide from their pain. Matt's response is to acknowledge their pain (of which they often are not consciously aware of...) this causes them to pause and disrupts negative thinking patterns. I must admit, I've never thought to actually do this exercise (of acknowledging and validating other people's pain in this type of crowd setting...wonder what would happen If I were to do just that next time I'm in such a setting, lol).

As a coach, acknowledging and validating are tools I use to help others know that what they are thinking and feeling is normal for them, and that's ok - without assigning any judgement. I use these tools help them to develop conscious awareness around emotional triggers. With conscious awareness comes choices in terms of how they choose to respond to those triggers. This enables me to help shift them from catabolic to anabolic energy levels.

Second, Matt explains that pain is part of our spiritual journey, the "escort to higher levels of consciousness." That's an interesting perspective, one of which aligns with my coaching philosophy of we all have a genius within, we all have the answers to our problems - it's a matter of developing conscious awareness around what's holding us back so that we can com to terms with it and make better choices in life, at work and at home.

Here's an excerpt from Matt's talk:

01:01:00 "So what's the belief? Closer to pain is further from pleasure. Here's the spiritual truth: pain is the escort to a higher level of consciousness where upon your arrival and integration into a new time line of higher consciousness, experiences of pleasure are awaiting your arrival. Experiences of pleasure are momentary, hopefully frequent, usually infrequent bursts of opening that give you a sneak preview of what life at a higher vibration level is like. Going into the escort of pain frees you of the judgements to get you to that sneak preview as a new reality but we judge it as 'I was feeling good then pain showed up and it all went away.' So we push away the pain and chase the pleasure, thinking as soon as I can get into all sorts of pleasure that means pain can't get me. Then pain comes in and destroys your pleasure party only to show you the way to a level of consciousness where pleasure is already awaiting your arrival. Pain and pleasure are not opposites. They are counterparts of the deepest transformation you are already going through."

Fascinating stuff!

[grannyfranny]

Yes, definitely interesting, idigress. Are the dogs two coaches in training : ) Hum, wasn't that what that dog training TV show was really about: training the humans?

The empath in a crowd situation happened to me many years ago. A friend of a friend in our group told me to wrap my arms around myself as protection. Apparently many people don't even realize that they are seeking someone open to their pain. I still avoid crowds. If it is a must do activity, I usually arrive early before it is a crowd and can make some small talk before the scale of the event becomes too overwhelming for hypersensitive/introvert types.

Too bad such coaching wasn't available in the early days of women's lib. Maybe women would not have taken their clues from men. I had hoped that women in management would have added another dimension to the work place. Our corporate workplaces often have very heartless, left brain pathological cultures, i.e. "Look up the fines and see if that would cost less than correcting the problem." Are there any clues about dealing with psychopaths; that is a "biggy" these days.

I think coaching would be a wonderful thing in elementary school through high school. How about as a substitute for marriage counseling or anger management when divorced parents almost duke it out in police stations on the usual Wednesday night transfer of the kids. Are you focusing on any particular market segment?

[idigress]

That's Grady (L) and Sophie (R) a.k.a. "WooWoo" and "Stinky, my Aussie Terriers, wanting (demanding) their morning treats. They've got me trained ;)

Those are interesting strategies for protection, will have to try them next time. I wonder if they make "thunder shirts" for humans...usually find something to tune out or distract myself, like my phone, although that's not always a practical tactic when in a workplace setting. Sometimes just making eye contact with a person will spark a physical response. When it happens in a workplace setting, I usually feel comfortable approaching that person to strike up a conversation, "how's it going" or "what's new in your world...." & they open up to me.

It's definitely a man's world out there, and women have learned to play their game, just not well enough yet to change the balance of power. In most organizations, men are set up with mentors and sponsors so that they have an advantage when it comes to promotions. Not so much for women though. I'd like to see that change but until the folks on mahogany row take a serious interest in developing women talent, I doubt that it will happen organically.

My focus has been on helping team leaders to overcome their overwhelm of having too much to do with not enough time/resources to get it done. Overwhelm is a symptom of larger, systemic problems found in most organizations. Gets in the way of productivity and impacts their ability to effectively lead their teams.

[grannyfranny]

My niece was shown around a new workspace and introduced to project managers and their assistants. While many of them did not seem busy, one gal perked up with,
Oh good some more assistants." They were told, nope, SHE is everyone's new boss.

[modwiz]

I did watch a reasonable amount of the vid in the OP. Not a fan of ties as a clothing accessory but, he has a lot of useful information in language many need to hear it in. A thumb up for Matt.

[Aianawa]

Hi Modwiz, did you see the last ten minutes when he talks about why spiritual communities have not worked ?, would respect your feedback and feelings on this if you have the inclination and time.

[modwiz]

Hi Modwiz, did you see the last ten minutes when he talks about why spiritual communities have not worked ?, would respect your feedback and feelings on this if you have the inclination and time.

Watched the last 12 minutes but, the relevant part was the last 5 minutes.

Having participated and lived in a planned/intentional community for 6 years some rich insights were provided to me. Most intentional communities do fail and Matt has the part of the problem that is certainly a core component. It would take a video from me to do the intentional community fail story its due. I would say lack of grounded planning is a big part. These communities form around an idea that too often does not coalesce into a coherent plan. The DNA structure of the community organism. Also, many people with poor work ethics are attracted to these communities and other on other side is often monied people who become the elite of the community and exploit those who bring the 'sweat equity'. If one is offering sweat equity to a community, in lieu of contributing to what ever cash is required to sustain it, one needs a good work ethic. I will not elaborate on the dynamics toward failure this can contribute. Lack of personal integrity will lead to finger pointing and victim playing on both sides. Dysfunction is entropic and the organism withers and dies.

Intentional communities require emotional 'adults'. One cannot be an emotional adult while still processing childhood wounds and not having the wisdom that is required to heal them. Matt was very useful on just this subject/point when he said the mean things people do are done out of their pain. I dumped a barge full of parental abuse concepts when it was clear it wasn't personal and it was their pain that drove them to insane abuses. Fortunately, that was a few decades ago. I needed to travel light for The Fool's Path.

Intentional communities require adults of integrity and emotional goundedness. Each know they are a link in the membrane that encases a community as well as the parts in the cell. All must bear weight and perform well enough for continuity and growth. All communities should be focus around "what they do" in a symbiotic relationship with the world around them. That is, what do they produce? What is their commerce? With proper organization and community member selection, a very skilled community could be composed and have wares to support the group. Through in some agriculture for both food, barter and use of the unskilled who will show up at such conclaves.

A few of my thoughts on that part of the video.

[Aianawa]

Thankyou,it is a thread in itself, know many who have tried some form of intentional community and been part of a couple, tough work with held pain and BS ( belief systems - clashing ), I do like the idea of the oneness university, in that one must be awakened to be within in it or it's core at least, for their eco villages.