Roots of the Rise
Grounded wisdom for the journey inward and upward.
Roots of the Rise is a soul-centered podcast hosted by Sarah Hope—Ayurvedic health practitioner, spiritual mentor, meditation teacher, biodynamic craniosacral therapist, and energy healer. Drawing from thousands of hours of client work, group facilitation, and her own journey through childhood trauma, grief, and the profound rediscovery of love and joy, Sarah offers a grounded, heart-led space for inner transformation.
Short episodes (10–20 minutes) released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, offer bite-sized insights, ideas, and practices for inner growth and self-development. Whether you're seasoned on the path or just beginning to explore, this podcast gives you digestible nuggets to stay inspired—without overwhelm. It’s perfect for those who want to stay engaged in the work, curious newcomers feeling overloaded by long-form content, or anyone wanting to understand a loved one's journey from a broader, more accessible perspective.
Sarah’s intention is to expose you to a wide range of spiritual concepts, therapeutic tools, philosophies, and practices—all in service of helping you become the healthiest, happiest, most authentic version of yourself. The journey can be hard. It can feel lonely. But you’re not alone. Come walk this path with her—learning, healing, and rising, one grounded step at a time.
This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Sarah is not a licensed therapist, and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist, or any other qualified provider. That said, she hopes it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.
Roots of the Rise
Episode 67 - Integrating the Essential Truth We Are Both Human and Divine
We explore the profound truth that we are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience in human bodies, and how fully understanding this concept unlocks radical acceptance and forgiveness. This episode unpacks how to hold the paradox between human pain and divine purpose.
• Bad things happen to good people, and even devoted spiritual seekers struggle with acceptance and forgiveness
• The spiritual path isn't about avoiding mistakes but learning to accept our fallibility while striving to improve
• Every one of us is the villain in someone else's story at some point
• We live in two worlds simultaneously: the world of divine truth and the world of humanity
• Life isn't random but provides opportunities for spiritual growth through relationships
• On a human level, no one asks for suffering or pain, and suggesting otherwise is spiritual bypassing
• To transform energies like victimhood, fear or hate, we must first fully experience them
• The integration of human and divine perspectives is a process that requires patience and self-compassion
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Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hogan. Today we're diving deep into a truth we've all heard but often gloss over we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It's a phrase tossed around casually, but when you truly get it, you truly grasp its meaning. It unlocks the secret to radical acceptance and profound forgiveness. So let's unpack this together and explore how it can transform the way we navigate life's toughest moments. Bad things happen to good people. It's a harsh reality.
Speaker 1:If you're on a spiritual path, you've likely been told to practice letting go by embracing radical acceptance or offering total forgiveness. But let's be real. Some situations test even the most devoted seeker. How do you find peace with atrocities like those in Gaza, the Holocaust or personal betrayals like child abuse or someone stealing your inheritance? Today, I want to shift the focus. Instead of striving for perfect forgiveness in every moment, what if the real measure of your spiritual growth lies in holding the paradox between your human and divine perspectives? Understanding this duality can fast track your ability to accept life's challenges and even forgive yourself when you fall short. It's about giving yourself grace when your human side takes over Because, let's face it, we are all beautifully messily human, and being human means we're not perfect. Obvious, right, but it's worth repeating when you're on a path of inner growth, whether you're healing trauma, clearing energy or just trying to be a better person. It's so easy to judge yourself harshly when you don't live up to the spiritual ideal. We all judge, we get angry, we struggle to forgive others ourselves. Here's another hard truth Every one of us is the villain in someone else's story. We hurt people, we offend them, we cut them off in traffic or in conversation. We forget important moments, say something thoughtless. It's inevitable. The spiritual path isn't about avoiding these mistakes. It's about learning to accept our fallibility while striving to do better. It's walking the fine line between self-compassion and accountability, without slipping into complacency, excuses or blaming others. This is an integral part of becoming the best version of yourself, developing this recognition and love for the human part of you. But equally so is recognizing that there is divinity even in the worst moments of our lives.
Speaker 1:Colin Tipping wrote the book Radical Forgiveness I'll link it in the show notes and he laid out one of the simplest and like the best explanations of the divine side of things I've ever read. So I want to highlight the assumptions necessary Now. He said the assumptions necessary for radical forgiveness, but I say it's for so much more than that. These are the assumptions necessary for acceptance, for making peace with your life, making peace with any hardship you've experienced. So here they are.
Speaker 1:We have bodies that die, but we have immortal souls that existed prior to our incarnation and continue to exist after death. Therefore, death is an illusion. This is always, to me, an aspect of the first law of thermodynamics Energy is neither created nor destroyed. The energy remains. It just transforms. While our bodies and our senses tell us that we're separate individuals, we are one. We all individually vibrate as part of a single whole. We've been talking about this kind of often on in the past few weeks. As we've talked about energy, we agreed to forget unity in order to fully experience the exact opposite of oneness, which is separation.
Speaker 1:Now he says we are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience in human bodies. You know it's common and what I said earlier, you know it's common to hear we are spiritual beings having a human experience. But I agree with them. I think that dumbs it down. It diminishes the incredible nature of being alive. There is magic and beauty and wonder all around us and within us. The human body itself is miraculous. The more I work with it, the more I see it. I mean, these skin suits we have are not something we should be turning our noses up at, and this messy life we are all living it is a spiritual experience that we can only have if we are human. So let's not act like it's something less than to be human.
Speaker 1:Now, this next one is very pertinent to today's discussion. Vibrationally, we live in two worlds simultaneously the world of divine truth and the world of humanity. The world of humanity is a spiritual classroom and life is the curriculum. Our lessons are the events that happen in life. We come into this physical life experience with the mission to fully experience a particular energy pattern so that we can feel all the feelings associated with it and then transform it through love. We learn through what we feel. So to deny our feelings is to deny our purpose for being here.
Speaker 1:Life is not random. It provides for the purposeful unfoldment of our own divine plan, with opportunities to make choices and decisions in every moment, guided by our higher self and ego. In every moment, guided by our higher self and ego, we create our reality through the laws of cause and effect. Our world offers a mirror of our beliefs and at the soul level, at the divine level, we get precisely what we need in our lives for our spiritual growth. How we judge what we get determines whether we experience life as painful or joyful, and it's through relationships that we grow and learn, through relationships that we heal and are allowed to return to wholeness and truth.
Speaker 1:We need others to mirror our misperceptions and our projections and to help us bring repressed material to consciousness for healing. And, through the law of resonance, we attract people who resonate with our issues so that we can heal them. For example, if abandonment is our issue, we will tend to attract people who abandon us. In that sense, these people serve as our teachers, and our teachers can really hurt us. They can bring us to our knees, they can bring up every dark thought we have ever had about ourselves. They can send us into financial ruin and instability. They can make us question everything we've ever believed, not in like an interesting intellectual debate kind of way, but in a destabilizing, turn your world upside down kind of way, as Tipping puts it.
Speaker 1:Ironically, the people who seem to upset us the most are those who, at the soul level, love and support us the most. They are often the souls we made contracts with prior to our incarnation to do certain things with us during our lifetime. Almost always, and often at great expense to themselves in terms of their own discomfort, these individuals try to teach us something about ourselves and encourage us to move toward our awakening. Remember, this is not a personality to personality exchange. In fact, more than likely, our personalities clash terribly. Instead, the souls of each player set up the scenario in the hope that we will eventually see the truth.
Speaker 1:That's beautifully put, and here's where I think so many people on the spiritual path go wrong. They think they're supposed to just jump right to forgiveness and acceptance. Someone does something hurtful and they're just supposed to let it go. Rise above Right Once you get to a certain point and have deeply integrated that everything is happening for you, not to you. Fully erasing victimhood which is a task in and of itself, let's be clear, not easy. But once you've gotten to that point, shouldn't you just be able to immediately let things go, if you understand that, if you deeply know it? Obviously it depends on the situation. There's a difference between letting a murderer walk free and letting a hurtful comment roll off your back, but accountability is as much a part of the spiritual path, as acceptance is.
Speaker 1:Colin Tipping points out again in the book. If we were never held accountable for our actions, forgiveness would be meaningless and valueless. With no accountability demanded of us, it would appear as if, no matter what we did, no one would care. For instance, children always interpret rightful parental discipline, applied appropriately, as caring and loving. Conversely, they interpret being given total license by their parent as non-caring Children know. So in every life situation we need to be able to hold two truths at once. First, the divine doesn't make mistakes. Everything unfolds for your growth, even in the darkest moments.
Speaker 1:There's another powerful book, your Soul's Plan, by Robert Schwartz. I'll link it in the show notes. That explores why a soul might choose profound challenges like addiction or paralysis. Now, fair warning as with the Colin Tipping book, schwartz frames his ideas through the lens of pre-birth planning and references mediums which might feel out there. But even if reincarnation or soul contracts aren't your thing, approach either book as a thought experiment. Ask what if? What if I chose to experience childhood abuse? What if I planned to lose mobility? What if I agreed to raise a child with severe health issues? By entertaining these questions, you shift from seeing life as happening to you, to life happening for you.
Speaker 1:This perspective dissolves victimhood. It reveals the silver linings and the gifts, even in the hardest experiences. But and this is critical here's the second truth we are human. We are allowed to feel pain, anger or resentment, and no one on a human level asks to be abused, assaulted or devastated by loss. Suggesting otherwise is cruel and dismisses real suffering. It is spiritual bypassing at its worst. Seriously, stop for a moment right now and take that in. On a human level, you did not ask for suffering or pain, abuse or neglect. You did not do anything to warrant or make it okay for someone to harm you in any way.
Speaker 1:Sometimes what makes it so hard for people to see with a divine perspective is thinking they asked for their suffering on all levels. But that's not how it works. The divine God makes choices for us, to help us grow and learn that our human selves are not always on board, for would never have chosen, and integrating both perspectives is a process. You start by having zero ability to reconcile how God, the divine, whatever you want to call it, any well intentioned organizer of life could possibly be involved with the tragedy that's befallen you. You are wearing only the human glasses. You can see only through your human eyes and you might struggle. You might struggle to imagine how a loving God, a loving divine, could allow your pain. You're seeing through the human eyes and that's okay. But then try asking if there's a purpose. What could it be If I could see through divine eyes? What gift might I find?
Speaker 1:For example, a decade ago I lost nearly everything in a house fire, including my two beloved dogs. To smoke inhalation. The grief was crushing, it was devastating, and losing keepsakes from my late mothers was also really hard, because I am so sentimental. But, as I always say, I don't recommend the methodology. The human part of me hopes you never experience something similar, but the part of me that connects with the divine learned two things from that fire in a way. I don't know I would have learned otherwise. One is that like we really don't need all the stuff we cling to. You know I had to throw out so much and so much of it was clutter and while I'm still, you know that sentimental person, I purge often these days. Second, it restored my faith in humanity. Strangers, long lost friends, as well as my near and dear, rallied to help in ways I will never forget. Do I still check electrical outlets obsessively? Yes, did it take years to process the loss? Absolutely, but I don't blame anyone, human or divine.
Speaker 1:Let me share a few other examples. Imagine losing your job unexpectedly. Years of hard work gone in an instant. The human response is anger, fear, maybe even shame. You're allowed to feel that, but through a divine lens. What if this loss pushed you towards a new path? Maybe you discover a passion for teaching, you start your own business or find a role that more deeply aligns with your values. Maybe the gift is the freedom to redefine your purpose. Or picture being diagnosed with a chronic illness, like fibromyalgia that upends your daily life.
Speaker 1:The human pain, physical and emotional, is real and relentless. No one asks for this kind of struggle. Yet asking what if? Might reveal a deeper gift. Maybe it fosters empathy, leading you to advocate for others or build a supportive community. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Or consider the heartbreak of a close friend or partner betraying your trust, maybe through infidelity or a broken confidence. The human reaction is devastation, anger and a sense of loss. It's okay to sit in that hurt. But from a divine perspective, what if this betrayal taught you about boundaries or self-worth? Maybe the gift is self-love, though it might take time to see it. Once you identify the lesson or the gift, you can start shifting your focus from the hurt to healing. By dwelling on what you've gained strength, wisdom, perspective you move closer to acceptance, seeing through those divine eyes. Often you oscillate between the two lenses one moment at peace, the next grappling with the hurt. That's normal, it's part of the journey and you cannot skip this part. You must feel it completely. You must allow your humanness. When you struggle to forgive or accept, just say I'm wearing my human glasses right now and that's okay. The divine perspective will come the bottom line, and I can't put it better than tipping does. So I'm going to quote him again.
Speaker 1:If we are to transform anything, we must be able to experience it completely and fully. For example, to transform the energy of victim, we must feel utterly victimized. To transform the energy of fear, we must feel terrorized. To transform the energy of hate, we must be consumed with hatred. In other words, we must go fully into the experience of being human. It is only when we have fully felt the emotions connected with these energies that we gain the ability to move into the full forgiveness of them. And it is through forgiving them that we remember who we are, which means that to transform the victim archetype, we must first experience victimhood fully. There is no shortcut.
Speaker 1:So today I invite you to reflect on a situation you're struggling to accept or someone you haven't forgiven. Be gentle here. Do not tackle your biggest trauma first Start small, maybe a minor grudge or disappointment. There are two parts to this exercise and you must do both. First, start by embracing your human side. Put on those human glasses and let yourself feel anger, sadness, hurt, resentment, frustration. Whatever's there, it's okay. Maybe try journaling about it to get those emotions out. I'll link the episode on journaling in the show notes for some guidance. Second, when you are ready, set the human glasses aside and try on the divine ones.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself if I were a divine being choosing this experience to learn something. What might that lesson be? If it feels overwhelming, talk it through with a trusted friend or a therapist Sometimes. Often we need someone else to help us see through those divine glasses. The book your Soul's Plan I mentioned earlier. I linked it in the show notes. It might offer some insight too with this.
Speaker 1:And listen, if this whole episode made you uncomfortable, if you're rolling your eyes or really tempted to skip it. That's okay. If you made it this far, it might mean that this is exactly the step your healing journey needs right now. So give yourself some grace, ask these questions with care and don't go it alone. No one is meant to face their dragons without support. So take a deep breath, start small and see what shifts when you ask what if this was for my growth? And, most importantly, don't forget to allow your humanity. Allow yourself to be upset, to be hurt, to be angry. These are not emotions you are not quote unquote allowed to have. As a spiritual inner growth seeker, you have to allow these emotions in order to move through them. So allow yourself to have both perspectives. Cultivate your ability to hold both perspectives that of the human and the divine. That is it for today.
Speaker 1:If you learned something or enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it or leave a review and make sure you're following so you won't miss Friday's episode about my other favorite questions to ask myself when I get stuck or I'm having a tough time. If you have questions or thoughts about what I discussed today, I'd love to hear from you. Just click the message me button if you're listening on Spotify or email me at rootsoftherise at gmailcom. I hope you have a great rest of your day and remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist or any other qualified provider. That said, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.
