Unraveling Spiritual Performance
By Matt Kahn
Posted on January 23, 2024
For most of my upbringing, I was filled with an unshakable despair and sense of invisibility, unsure where I fit into such a vast and mysterious jigsaw puzzle of a planet. I coped with these feelings by trying to perform my way through the play of life. Attempting to be “all things to all people”, I cleverly mastered the art of estimating people’s expectations and did anything within my power to make myself the most approvable character in their eyes.
I knew how to perform the role of a good student for the approval of my teachers. I knew how to appease my parents as a way to minimize judgment and avoid rejection. I was adept at making friends and constantly aimed to climb the unstable totem pole of popularity.
Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I devoted myself to earning others’ approval—yet, in the secrecy of my inner experience, I could never escape the feelings of profound loneliness, a deep sense of unworthiness, and a constant uncertainty about my decisions, intuition, and personal power.
As I evolved, some of these patterns began to unravel, but a part of this performance carried over into my early spiritual journey. Where once I feared failing school teachers, I now worried about upsetting spirit guides. Instead of triggering parents, I feared disappointing the Universe—a Source I struggled to fully embrace. I treated my Divine connection like a fragile gift, always trying to prove my worthiness, afraid it might be withdrawn.
In the early days of my spiritual journey, instead of earnestly exploring manifestation, I performed it—groveling at the feet of some celestial being in the clouds, attempting to be so impressive in my behavior that I’d attract my desires in a shorter span of time. Even my initial stages of emotional healing were subtly performative, as I faced the wounds of my past in an attempt to earn the arrival of my beloved.
Interestingly, this divine partner only entered my life years later, long after these cycles had faded—ensuring I didn’t misconstrue her arrival as a result of these spiritual reward and punishment games I had been playing out.
Of the many milestones my awakening journey has offered me, perhaps the most humbling and fulfilling gift of all was a spontaneous dissolving of the sense of inner performance that I had carried for decades.
I was finally given the chance to know what it means to be myself, to trust in the instincts and wisdom within myself, and to know what it feels like to accept and love myself from a space of freedom, relief, and authenticity.
While there are dazzling experiences and insights that can connect you to the infinite wisdom of the cosmos, I assure you, one of the greatest gifts life continually moves into your awareness is the simple permission to be the fully inspired, naturally empowered, and truly liberated version of yourself.
Here in this moment, you are offered the chance to feel safe in reality, comfortable in your own skin, and worthy of all the fulfillment and goodness that life is longing for you to receive.
With no other requirements, you are allowed to simply move through each moment in time, sensing how connected you are to life’s highest truth and without a plan to negotiate, a mission to complete, or an inner performer to sustain.
You are the perfection of the Universe, manifest in human form—and this sentence is a divine mirror reflecting that truth back at you. Release, relax, and rest knowing you are loved in all that you are, always.
And so it is.
All for Love,
Matt
