Welcoming God
Hey spiritual seeker! My name’s Sarah Haykel and I’m the host of Welcoming God, a podcast for spiritual seekers.
In this podcast, I’ll be sharing the goodness of Welcoming God back into my life after years of rebelling against the God of my Catholic upbringing and years of honest seeking on a personal spiritual path. I’ll share my consistently evolving understanding of God and what I’m learning on the path, to help create a God accessible to the every day person.
We’ll have honest and sometimes hilarious conversations about how to go from being a “spiritual” person to a God-loving person. Understanding God as a benevolent guide. What does it mean to have a relationship with God? What does it mean to surrender to God? Cultivating a spiritually mature understanding of God. Learning how to discern God’s truth and will for our lives. How to cultivate the most important relationship you’ll ever have, with God, on a daily, moment to moment basis.
Come along on this spiritually rEvolutionary journey where we get to know God.
This podcast is marked as explicit because there may be swearing or content appropriate for mature audiences in some of the episodes.
Welcoming God
Finding Your Way Through A Spiritual Crisis: A Journey of Questioning and Growth
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What happens when you begin to question the spiritual path you've been walking? When the God you thought you knew becomes a question mark rather than an exclamation point? This deeply personal episode explores the disorienting yet ultimately transformative experience of going through a spiritual crisis.
After an unexpected ending to a five-year relationship with my spiritual coach, I found myself adrift in questions about God's benevolence and the nature of spiritual truth. This crisis prompted me to examine how we navigate periods of profound uncertainty about our most fundamental beliefs. Rather than viewing these questioning periods as unnecessary or negative, I share why they're actually essential components of authentic spiritual growth—clearing space for deeper truths to emerge, ie. spiritual maturation.
Drawing from my own experience, I offer practical guidance for supporting yourself through existential questioning. From finding the right therapist or spiritual director to establishing daily journaling practices, connection within nature, and community support, these anchor points provide stability while navigating unfamiliar spiritual territory. I explore the critical skill of discernment—learning to distinguish between fear-based resistance and genuine spiritual guidance—and how embodied wisdom helps us recognize what paths are truly aligned with our spiritual development.
The journey continues as we continue riding the wave of life. And, as uncomfortable as existential questioning can be, it opens us to what Thomas Hübl calls "the receptivity of revelation"—the capacity to receive new insights that transform our understanding of life, God, and ourselves. Join me in embracing the sacred discomfort of not knowing, where our deepest spiritual growth often happens.
Sign up at WelcomingGod.com for our new ebook that will help you integrate these tools for navigating your own spiritual journey.
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Episode Introduction
Speaker 1Hey everyone, sarah here, just to let you know sometimes I do use swear words in these episodes and we may at times discuss adult content. In case you happen to be listening around, little ones or people that won't appreciate that. Thanks so much for listening and let's get right into it, hi, and thanks for joining me on Welcoming God. You know what? The growth never ends and that can feel daunting, frustrating, angering, exciting up. Understand, I am not sure I don't see clearly or I'm not seeing clearly what's in front of me because I'm not accepting the truth of reality. So that's a big thing as well. But what is apparent to me more and more is life truly is a journey. As cliche as that saying is, it is valid and true. It speaks to our experience as human beings, and I see it in my parents, I see it in other elders no matter how old you get, you still have the capacity, we still have the capacity to learn, grow, heal, evolve, transform, transcend, and that is a blessing. Does it mean life is always going to be easy and effortless or feel easy and effortless? No, and that sucks to the part of me that doesn't want to suffer anymore or doesn't want to see life suffer anymore. I feel really over that. I'm really ready to see us live in a better way. I'm ready to see myself live in a better way. And it's gotten better and better as I've gone along on the path, on the journey healing, learning, growing, new insights, revelations, veil lifting moments where I see things I didn't see or understand before. Yes, it is getting better and it has gotten way better than it ever has been. And I'm still going. I'm still on the journey. I am on the journey here. So how do we deal with an existential crisis? How do we deal when we're confronted with big questions like I don't know what I think or how I feel about God right now? I don't know if what I've been thinking and believing is actually true for me anymore, and I'm not sure what is true. How do we deal with that? How do we process that? So just a little insight into my life.
Speaker 1I was working with a spiritual coach for five and a half years or so and that relationship ended this year in a way that I didn't expect and, surprisingly, I did not anticipate that relationship ending, even though I was curious about what it might be to work with other people. But we had what I thought was a good thing going and I learned a ton and healed a ton through working with him. And the relationship ended and it didn't feel good the way that it was ending and I felt so confused and upset and disturbed by that, like what the heck is going on here, and I just prayed about it. I did my best to be upfront and honest with him. We finally had a conversation to complete things, which felt challenging at first as well, but I just used the tools that he taught me as far as bringing God in to the conversation, doing whatever is God's perfect will for my life and our lives and the greater good, and eventually it was clear okay, this relationship has ended and now it's time to move on. And, to be honest, in our last session I was asking him a question about God's benevolence and he said, well, yes, god is benevolent and it may not always feel good, and that just put this huge question mark in my head and I never got to process through that with him because then our relationship shifted. So I've been holding this question and wondering about it and wondering about God and wondering about praying and wondering about you know, all of these things that feel like some big question marks for me right now. And the biggest thing for me right now is that I have help in my life. Thankfully I have a therapist that I see weekly. I am a part of three different spiritually or evolutionary transformative groups online memberships that I touch in with one weekly, two I touch in with a couple times a month, once or twice a month, and I get a lot of support from that. I have a dear cousin who is very spiritually minded who I can bounce things off of and get support from, and family and some friends and that kind of thing.
Dealing with Existential Crisis
Speaker 1But going through any kind of change or existential crisis or existential questioning, like I don't know what I believe right now oh my God, like I'm doing this podcast and I'm having an existential questioning moment this doesn't feel good and it's totally normal. No-transcript, searching, seeking opening, softening healing to let more of the truth in, to open up to more of the truth, to reveal, like Thomas Hoople talks about revealing, the revelatory experience of being a human being on a healing path is the willingness, the capability of being willing to allow for the receptivity of revelation. What is being revealed to me, what's being revealed to you, through our life experience, through our inner life, what we find ourselves thinking about or feeling, or experiences from the past that are coming up to be dealt with, healed, etc. So, although an existential crisis can feel very scary and unsettling, even disturbing, uncomfortable, don't stop there. Allow yourself to move through it, get support. Do you work with a spiritual counselor, director, companion? Can you find a good therapist? Can you talk to a trusted friend? Whatever it is? How will you support yourself? Can you start a journaling process daily to journal out your thoughts and feelings, so you don't feel so alone in it?
Finding Support During Questioning
Speaker 1What do you need to do to help yourself process through an existential questioning period of your life? Because most likely, it's going to happen again, and it doesn't mean you're going to go back to where you were today, but it might happen in a new way. You might have new questions, new thoughts, new ideas that are helping you clear out more stuff inside so that you can be more a space for the truth of life, this mystery that we call life, because we really don't know exactly what is happening here. It is a mystery and we have a lot of experiences that we can see, tangible experiences, human experiences. So how will you support yourself.
Speaker 1If you're going through some questioning about spirituality, about God, about higher power, maybe it's even questioning about your career or relationship or your living situation. What will you do to support yourself through this questioning period of your life? What practices will support you? How does being in nature support you? How would journaling support you? Or getting a good therapist to work with? Or a spiritual coach, companion director and therapists and spiritual directors? You know you've got to try some out, possibly in the beginning to see who's a right fit. But how will you know? Yes, I feel called to work with this person. I feel that movement within my spirit to say yes to this. I do not feel a movement in my spirit to say yes to this. I feel a movement that this is a no. So we have to start learning how to more deeply clearly discern what the guidance is that's coming up through us. Is that just fear or is that a real, valid clarity? This is a yes, this is a no. And that takes some digging sometimes and it can take some time to understand and figure out. So how will you support yourself in this time in an existential questioning of where you're at in life or your relationship with God, or work, career relationships, etc.
Episode Closing and Resources
Speaker 1I look forward to talking with you next week and again, we've got the Welcoming God ebook coming out. All you have to do is sign up for the email list. Go to welcominggodcom and you can sign up for the email list. The ebook will be sent out via the email list and it basically goes through the first season of the Welcoming God podcast with some existential, open-ended questions that you can ponder, inquire about as you go through that first season again to more deeply integrate all of these different tools to living a more spiritual life. So definitely head over to welcominggodcom and sign up for the email list and thank you so much for being here and sign up for the email list. And thank you so much for being here. I wish you well on your journey, your existential questioning journey, and more love, more blessings, more truth, more peace. Aloha nui loa and I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1Hey everyone, sarah Haeckel here from Welcoming God, a podcast for spiritual seekers. This is a legal disclaimer to say that this podcast is not a substitute for therapy or professional help. I am not a trained therapist. I also have not studied theology in a formal setting. This podcast is purely for educational, inspirational purposes, to share the goodness of welcoming God back into my life and all of the things that I'm learning on this journey. So thank you for joining me here. 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, thank you.