This more archaic word ‘Beloved' has a spiritual connotation, where The Beloved is a term used to refer to the Divine. Love always arises from the Divine, because the Divine is love. As our deepest nature is also Divine, we are also love. When we open our hearts to feel the love that is there, this is one and the same thing as opening our heart to the Divine.
Love is a felt experience in our own body, and therefore is always ours. Even when we would say we love another person, the love that we feel is still the same love - we are merely accessing it more easily in connection with that person who is putting you more in touch with the divine, so you feel the love more vividly.
What we sometimes call romantic love is often not much to do with love at all, but might be limerence or lust - that butterfly feeling and the rush of hormones that comes along with new relationships. It is not actually love, because it doesn’t last. Love never really goes anywhere, although we can close our hearts to it, put our attention elsewhere, and stop experiencing it the same way.
You are Love. But if you are love, why don't you feel it? This probably just sounds like spiritual nonsense if you don't have the experience of feeling loved, or living from a place of love - then it's just a headgame to say "you are love". Good point... and here's my answer.
The love inside is always there. But it can be veiled from you. There are parts of you that don’t believe you are loved, or even lovable, and there are also parts of you that want more than anything to feel loved. These parts of us bring in a tension around the heart that inhibit the flow of love there. They usually look for it in other people, seeking love by getting others to love them. Sometimes they have pretty creative ways of doing that, like being shiny, pleasing people, over-giving, getting outward success, and trying hard in all kinds of ways to earn, win, and keep it. All of these parts, for as long as they are busy doing this, are actually blocking the love that is there from being felt and experienced.
The key is for these parts to relax, and allow the love that is already inside to flow and nourish them. Once these parts of us turn inwards towards the true Self, it will give as much love as they can receive. They’ve just been looking in the wrong direction. Once this re-orientation happens, this is the best evidence that they are lovable, as they will then actually experience the feeling of love.
I’ve often felt myself in the past, and heard clients say the same thing, that there is a real resistance to self love because they want to be loved by someone else. Even if you feel some self love, it will be blocked when you are in a state of longing to get it from outside. The real shame of it is that as long as someone stays stuck in the longing for external love, not giving it to themselves, they will be much more likely to repel love than attract it. The irony is that as soon as you surrender this and self source your love, the quality of love flowing in this way is actually beautifully attractive to the right people, and relationships will be more loving.
The important implication of what I'm sharing about love here today, is that even when people around us do love us, they are not actually giving us this love. When they love us, they are the ones feeling that love in their body. It's theirs. What they may do, is express the love in ways that resonate with us so that our own feelings arise, which may include love. And this is ours. When we love someone else, it can't be given, but can be expressed. Any love that you feel "for" another person, is just love that you are feeling in your own body, which seems to be about the other person but is actually still just yours.
Some people bring up parts of us that we like and enjoy, accept our flaws, remind us of our divinity, and other things that bring us more in touch with the love inside ourselves. We see the divine in them, and it reminds us of the divine in ourselves. I think this is what we really mean when we say we love someone. They bring love more into focus.
You are already beloved, because your true self is always there and it does love you. But you won’t be noticing and feeling that if you’ve got blocks, veils, and protective walls obscuring it, or if you’re not keeping attention in your body. This happens to some extend with everyone, and will be reinforced more strongly the more trauma that is present. My 9 week programme “Be Beloved” shows you how to reawaken and re-remember the natural state of self love, which is your birthright. You can once again have access to the innocent open and trusting love that you had before your walls went up. It is never too late to begin, gently, softly, and safely, taking these walls down one brick at a time.
The transmission you’ll receive during “Be Beloved” will enable you to see, and build a relationship with the parts of you that have been blocking your self love, so that you can finally realise the intimate longings of your heart in a way that depends on nothing outside of yourself. I draw on my Internal Family Systems training and divine energy healing training to guide you during live group healing sessions to realise this in the deepest way you can. You'll also have access to videos and meditations and other resources, informed by my PhD research on inner transformation. It's thoughtfully and lovingly presented as an accessible, grounded, and clear step by step process. If you're looking for a portal to awaken to the love that you are, so you can start living from this self loving place, I invite you to the "Be Beloved" course page to see more.
With love,
Joy