S1E5: The Life Changing Benefit of Knowing You're Already Loved

Have you ever wondered if God truly loves you, especially during life's most challenging moments? This question lies at the heart of our spiritual journey, and today's episode explores the profound revelation that transformed my relationship with the divine.

Despite decades of meditation, mindfulness practice, therapy, and personal development work, I discovered in 2014 that I still didn't fundamentally feel loved by God, others or myself. Standing in an auditorium listening to praise singers declare "God, we know you love us," I experienced a heart-breaking moment of clarity – all my spiritual seeking had somehow missed this essential truth. This revelation marked the beginning of my authentic journey opening my heart up to God.

Working with my spiritual coach became pivotal when he asked, "Do you believe God is benevolent?" My immediate "no" revealed deep-seated anger and betrayal I felt toward the Divine. Years of combined spiritual coaching and trauma therapy helped me uncover what blocked my relationship with a loving God. I learned not to believe "the first lie" – that I wasn't whole, complete, or perfect already, in the eyes of God. And understanding the truth that nothing can ever separate us from God; we're always connected to the Source of It All.

Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is loving your neighbor as yourself and loving God with all your heart. Yet how often do we overlook the "as yourself" part? This self-love isn't selfish – it's alignment with divine truth that can heal relationships and transform our experience as humans. As Anita Moorjani explains, loving ourselves in the present moment has the power to heal the past and shape our future.  It's that powerful!

I invite you to explore these questions: What would change if you truly knew you were loved by God, no matter what? How might you cultivate the same unconditional love for yourself? Take time today – through journaling, meditation, or contemplative walks – to discover what embracing divine love could mean for your life. Your journey toward accepting God's love might be the most important spiritual work you'll ever do.

Please subscribe wherever you listen and consider leaving a review or rating, as it helps others discover this kind of support on their spiritual journey.

Check out Anita Moorjani here.

Music by Song Channel Music.  Listen at SongChannelMusic.com

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Transcript

Introduction to God's Love

Speaker 1 0:05

Hi and thanks for joining me on Welcoming God. Thanks for joining me today. My name is Sarah Haeckel, host of Welcoming God. Today, let's talk about God's love. So we finished off the last conversation around God's love being in the present moment, that when we are in the present moment, the best things are happening, because this is where God is. God is right here, right now, loving us wholly, unconditionally, and the only question is how will I, how will we, how will you love yourself like God does unconditionally, and why? Why is that important? Why is it important to love ourselves wholly and unconditionally? What is important about that and this would be a good time if you want to pause the podcast and just sit for a moment and inquire. You could journal about this, meditate, talk with a friend what truly is the gift of us truly loving ourselves, truly loving who we are, as God truly loves us?

Breaking Through to Feel Loved

Speaker 1 1:54

Now you might be thinking well, I don't know that God loves me. I don't feel that God loves me all the time. Things can be hard, things can be challenging. Things aren't working out the way that I want them to. You know, one of the phrases in my head over the years has been I've worked so hard. Why don't I have this yet, this thing, that thing that I've been wanting for years and trying to work towards. And then through the help of my spiritual coach, who has really been instrumental in helping me understand God's love. Also, tawadakwe, a native elder here locally that I've done some healing work with, has also helped me understand what I would call God's love. He doesn't frame it that way, but yeah, it's the love that is. It's what's happening, it's the truth, and it doesn't always feel good. But when I can learn to understand that God is a benevolent source I know this now and it's been trying to help me my whole life when I can just work in harmony with it, it makes life so much easier. But what if I don't know that I'm loved? What if I don't know that God truly loves me and cares for me? So this is where the inquiry begins. It begins with an exploration.

Speaker 1 3:40

I took a course called Feminine Power years ago and they would say okay, let's look at our inner selves like an existential detective, so turn on your inner eyes, turn on your inner ears and look around and just inquire and inspect and see what's going on in there. Going on in there. And I remember the moment I realized I still didn't feel loved. I was shocked because I had done years of healing, growth, work on myself personally, spiritually seeking therapy. You know all kinds of things mindfulness, meditation, personal daily practice. For decades I still didn't know that I was loved.

Healing with a Spiritual Coach

Speaker 1 4:35

And that realization came to me in 2014. And that was the moment that God came back into my life and it was remarkable for me. And I remember standing there. I had heard the call of God. I felt this call in my heart to open my heart to God again. And I'm standing there in this auditorium and these praise singers are on stage singing these songs that I'm going to be painting to the following day at this Easter Sunday service. That just happened to this job happened to land in my lap right at that moment when I was feeling the call to open my heart to God, and God literally put me right there. And I remember the praise singer on stage standing there, pointing his finger up towards the ceiling, towards the sky, looking up and saying God, we know you love us. God, we know you love us, god, we know we're loved. And that hit me square in the center of my heart space and broke me at that point on learning to love myself, that I still didn't know I was loved, and all the healing work and everything I had worked on for decades. It was a revelation to me and that was truly the beginning of my journey, of coming back home to God, to Source and, you know, being spiritual, just being on a spiritual path, it wasn't enough anymore. I needed something more and I truly know now I needed to connect with God, the one true source. I needed to know it was there and I also needed to know it loved me, and it would be years more until I finally came to terms with the fact that, oh my God, god really does love me, and that was really largely, mostly with the help of my spiritual coach. Hey, sarah here, if you're enjoying listening to this podcast, please click subscribe. It helps more people find and benefit from this show. Thanks so much, and let's get right back into it.

Speaker 1 7:22

His first question to me was do you believe God is benevolent? And my first response was no, no, I don't. And I felt mad at God. I felt betrayed by God, like what the heck? I just feel like you have used me and abused me and you've taken things from me and kept things from me and why aren't things working out the way that I want them to. And I felt angry, mad, betrayed, sad. And it wasn't until years later of working with my spiritual coach and unpacking all of this stuff that was just in the way, and also doing deep level trauma healing with a therapist, which was very crucial to healing these deeper levels and layers of not feeling loved, not knowing I was worthy of love and loved and lovable. Those two things together, the trauma therapy for five years consistently and working with a spiritual coach who I still work with to this day those things together really helped uncover for me the things that were in the way of my relationship with a loving, true God, source of it all.

Don't Believe the First Lie

Speaker 1 8:55

And I remember a guy that I met many years ago said to me don't believe the first lie, and the first lie is that you are not whole, complete or perfect. Don't believe the first lie because you are already whole, complete and perfect. And that just follows up by remember who you are. I heard that phrase or got that phrase somewhere years ago. It just either came to me or I heard someone else say it and it's like don't believe the first lie, remember who you are. You are whole, complete and perfect. I am a part of this life and I belong to it. Nothing will ever separate me from the source of all of life, and this is the truth. That's the truth. Nothing we ever say or do will ever separate us from this love, and it is so our hearts to it Just open, accept, be in harmony, in harmonious relationship with this one true source. So when God comes through me and says, just stay with me. Me and says, just stay with me, that's where I can go, okay, okay, I trust you, I know you have my best interest at heart, I am loved by you, and that is what matters.

Loving Yourself as God Loves You

Speaker 1 10:59

And then from there, how do I cultivate my own self, love, knowing I'm already loved by the one true source? How do I then learn to actively love myself and show up loving my whole self, all my parts, all the parts I don't like, all the shame, all the blame, all the guilt, all the freaky stuff, whatever? How do I truly learn to cultivate this loving relationship that God already has with and for me, with my human self and all of my parts? So this is what I truly know we're tasked with. You know, jesus said something along the lines of the most important thing you can do. You know, the most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all your heart. Like that is numero uno Love your neighbor as you love yourself, which I think often kind of gets overlooked the loving ourselves part we focus so much on. I'm supposed to love my neighbor, but, like, if you don't love yourself, how do you love your neighbor? So, love yourself as you love, love your neighbor as you love yourself and love God with all your heart. And why? Why is this important? Because this is what makes life thrive. This is what cultivates more of love in life. It truly is what heals.

What Jesus Taught About Love

Speaker 1 12:58

I think of Anita Morjani, who wrote Dying to Be Me, an amazing book about her near death experience, and I took a course with her after I listened to her book and she said basically, loving yourself is the most important thing you can do. Loving ourselves in the moment literally has the ability to heal the past and shift things for the better in love, with love, and this is what God is trying to do for us in the present moment, right here and right now, and that is why it's crucially important to learn how to cultivate a loving, healing relationship within ourselves, like God loves us and is present with us. And it is a journey. This is something that I think I will be learning for the rest of my life, and I just encourage you, what would it be like to just spend some time inquiring about what's important about God's love, what's important about knowing that I am loved?

Speaker 1 14:22

What does this do for me, when I know I'm loved by God already, no matter what, no matter how I act, what I do, etc. How does this change me? How does it support me? What does this knowing this do for me? What does this knowing this do for me? And then, how can I, how will I cultivate, grow the same loving, nurturing, compassionate, patient relationship with myself, unconditionally, like God has for me already and always? And what's important about this? What does having a truly unconditionally loving relationship within myself and with all of the parts of myself do for me, do in my relationships with others, do in life, do for my relationship with God? How does this affect my relationship with God? How does loving myself fully and wholly in the present moment allow me to truly live out this commandment that Jesus spoke about To love your neighbor as you love yourself and to be able to love God with all of your heart.

Questions for Self-Reflection

Speaker 1 15:56

Let's leave it there for now and I ask you when will you inquire about these questions? When will you sit with yourself today, whether it's to journal, whether you go on a walk and be active in your inquiry? When will you take a few moments today to inquire about these questions today, to inquire about these questions? Have a beautiful one, a beautiful day, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Take care for now. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Welcoming God. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen and consider leaving us a review, as it helps more people find and benefit from this show. Music by Song Channel Music. You can listen and hear more at songchannelmusiccom. Until we meet again, aloha nui loa, take care and God bless.