Welcome to Healing Through Love

Speaker 1 0:13

Welcome back to Roots of the Rise with me , sarah Hope . What if the key to healing every kind of pain mental , emotional , spiritual wasn't something you had to search for , but something you've always had within you ? Today , we're diving into the heart , not just the love you see in movies , but the raw , transformative power that lives at the core of who you are . Let's explore what it means to live from the heart , why so many of us have closed ours and how we can begin to gently open it again . And how we can begin to gently open it again . We've become almost blasé about the word love . Oh , my god , I love these shoes , I love having Fridays off , I love watching Netflix .

Speaker 1 0:56

Somewhere along the way , our understanding and appreciation for the power of love has been diluted . It's become casual , almost throwaway . But love , real love , is anything but . As one of my mentors , dr Paul Douglas , says , love is a verb . Love is divine expression in action . It is always present , always accessible . Even when we don't feel loving or loved , love is still there . Even when it feels impossible , love is possible . Love is your birthright . Love is the answer . Love heals the heart . Love is wiser than the brain . Gandhi once said may my actions arise from the wisdom of the heart , not may my brain be smart enough to figure things out . We can cultivate a heart that is ready for anything , not because we should be any certain way , but because this is our true nature . It's like chocolate . We don't need to be persuaded to take another piece , it's natural . It's already what we want Not everyone , but most of us . We often separate things heart from brain , forgiveness from compassion , presence from awareness but at their core they're not different . They're all facets of the same source . We ask what is presence ? Is it awareness ? Is it something sacred ? We ask the same of love . Is it just a feeling , just an emotion ? No , love is far more than that . It is sacred . It is the foundation of everything that matters .

Speaker 1 2:35

Brian McLaren , who is an author speaker . He's the Dean of the Faculty for Center for Action and Contemplation , which was founded by Father Richard Rohr . He says this of the many radical things said and done by Jesus , his unflinching emphasis on love was most radical of all . Love was the greatest commandment , his prime directive love for God , for self , for neighbor , for stranger , for alien , for outsider , for outcast and even for enemy , as he himself modeled . The new commandment of love meant that neither beliefs nor words , neither taboos , systems , structures nor the labels that enshrined them mattered most . Love decentered everything else . Love relativized everything else . Love relativized everything else . Love took priority over everything else , everything . This theme that love is the foundation of everything that truly matters echoes through philosophies , spiritual traditions and ideologies across time

The Facets of the Heart

Speaker 1 3:45

.

Speaker 1 3:45

Love gives us a power and strength that defies measure . There are different ways to access this power . One is through the process of unlearning , releasing the old programming and patterns you've inherited ways of seeking love , thinking , reacting , emoting . Letting go of these conditioned strategies brings you closer to the pure , unfiltered essence of the heart . Or you can go directly to the heart's essence by connecting with any of love's qualities .

Speaker 1 4:15

This is what I mean when I talk about the facets of the heart , expressions like acceptance , presence , invincibility , authenticity , gratitude , joy , presence , invincibility , authenticity , gratitude , joy , forgiveness and compassion . There are even more than that , but that's a start . You can't grow in this life without love . To wait for it , to passively hope it finds you , is one of our greatest mistakes . Plants don't wait for water , they seek it , they stretch roots towards it . In the same way , we must seek , cultivate and open ourselves to love , not just wait for it to happen , because love isn't something that lives in others , just like happiness doesn't come from others . We feel love when our heart opens to it , when it remembers that infinite unity and bliss that already lives inside us and within life itself . We feel love because we are in awe of another divine being . But make no mistake , being in love isn't because of the beloved . It's because love is your natural state . Let's take a closer look at some of the facets of the heart . This will not be a deep dive into each one . That will come later . For now we're painting in broad strokes .

Speaker 1 5:31

So , in no particular order , let's begin with acceptance

Acceptance and Invincibility

Speaker 1 5:34

. Acceptance is the gateway to non-resistance and freedom from suffering . It doesn't mean you have to like what's happening or pretend to be okay with it . It simply means allowing what is to be , without adding layers of judgment or denial . Even if you can't fully accept something yet , you can start by accepting that , accepting that you can't accept . When we begin to practice radical acceptance , we start to trust that there is a deeper order to life . Things aren't random and with this , the illusion of victimhood begins to dissolve . The truth is there are no victims . Life is for us . Often , our greatest challenges carry our greatest teachings calling us to strengthen the heart , restore balance or learn a soul lesson we came here for . That said , acceptance is not about bypassing pain or sugarcoating trauma . There's a difference between authentic spiritual insight and spiritual bypass . I'll explore this more deeply in the Chakra 7 week , because it's essential to acknowledge that acceptance requires nuance , care and deep compassion . It's an art .

Speaker 1 6:46

Next , let's touch on invincibility . You have survived everything life has brought you thus far , every loss , every heartbreak , every turning point . You're still here , and if you resonate with the idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed , then perhaps you also understand . Mortality is an illusion . Life goes on , consciousness continues . This recognition is the key to deep , unshakable security .

Authenticity, Gratitude, and Joy

Speaker 1 7:13

Now , what makes life feel easier ? Unshakable security ? Now , what makes life feel easier ? Alignment or authenticity , the sense that your inner self and your outer life are in harmony . Alignment is the key to inner guidance and intuition . It dismantles the illusion that the mind must figure everything out , because the truth is the mind is a brilliant tool but a terrible master . To hear that inner guidance , though , you must be present . This is the key to what Eckhart Tolle calls the power of now .

Speaker 1 7:44

We've been conditioned to believe that innocence is naive that joy and love are things we'll find in the future , out there . But that's the illusion . There's only this moment . Anything you seek out there must be . That's the illusion . There's only this moment . Anything you seek out there must be touched in here first . Everything you long for in the future peace , joy , love can only be felt now , and perhaps nothing reveals the heart's wisdom more clearly than gratitude , the key to the power of attraction .

Speaker 1 8:14

When asked the secret to wealth , self-made billionaire Sir John Templeton simply said gratitude , because if you've got everything and you're not grateful , you're poor , and if you seemingly have nothing but you're grateful , even for the smallest things , then you're rich . Money won't make you rich , only gratitude will . Gratitude also opens the door to generosity , which is the key to meaningful relationships . You can't give what you don't have . And here's the deeper truth Everything you give to yourself , you give to others , and everything you give to others , you also give to yourself . This dispels the illusion that any kind of wealth material , emotional , spiritual comes from effort alone . No true wealth arises from gratitude and these facets of the heart . They don't exist in isolation . They overlap and illuminate each other .

Speaker 1 9:07

Brene Brown once said that the only difference between people who can fully embrace joy and those who can't is gratitude Just that and joy . Joy is the key to loving life . It dissolves the illusion that love , happiness or fulfillment can come from outside of ourselves . The truth , it all resides within us . Life becomes bliss when we choose to cultivate a blissful life . To do that , we need acceptance for all that challenges us . But we also need to remember our deep interconnectedness . We are not separate . We are all threads of the same tapestry and this is where forgiveness and compassion come in . Compassion is the key to unity consciousness . It dissolves the illusion of separateness and reconnects us to the truth . We are one . But sometimes , before we can access compassion , we need to begin with forgiveness . Forgiveness is the key to reclaiming our power and releasing judgment . It reveals the illusion that judgment is ours to make . The deeper truth is that what we judge we become . And where do we find all these spiritual tenets ? In the heart . They are facets of love .

My Journey to the Heart

Speaker 1 10:23

For the first 35 years of my life , I had a real aversion to anything even remotely related to the heart , or whimsy , for that matter . Hearts on Valentine's Day or any day really . Ugh , mushy , gooey sentiment , gross Unicorns , butterflies , care bears , disgusting . It's not that I didn't want love . I did desperately . I even chased it blindly and at times recklessly . But anything that felt too vulnerable or soft , anything that hinted at tenderness or emotional openness , I saw as weakness . If you had told me back then that I'd one day teach something called heart-based meditation , I would never have believed you , because for me , love meant danger , love meant pain . Love meant opening myself up , only to have the person I trusted and needed most devastate me .

Speaker 1 11:14

I grew up with a mother who would say I love you more than anything in the world and five minutes later sob you are the root of all evil and all my sadness is because of you . Talk about mixed messages . It's no wonder I wasn't very good at loving others for a long time . It's no wonder I wasn't very good at loving others for a long time . I made very painful mistakes . I hurt people I cared about . It's why I'm on my third marriage . It's why I swore I would never have children , even though deep down I longed to be a mother .

Speaker 1 11:44

I thought I had to shut off the deepest parts of my heart just to survive . Even being in the vicinity of my heart felt unsafe . Like so many people , I lived with a chronic sense of deficiency , feeling wrong , broken and not enough . And when that feeling gets reinforced again and again , whether by your childhood or the relationships you choose as an adult , it can seem like the only way to cope is to close your heart even tighter . But then I found Ayurveda and heart-based meditation and spiritual mentoring , and I began to see , little by little , that the walls I'd built around my heart weren't protecting me . They were imprisoning me . They were creating the very pain I was desperate to escape .

Speaker 1 12:32

With a lot of support and some brutally honest self-reflection , I started to open again . I began exploring the facets of the heart , not as lofty concepts but as lived experiences . I found compassion and forgiveness , first for my mother and then for others who had hurt me along the way , and finally for myself . I found true acceptance for myself and for my life exactly as it is . I discovered genuine gratitude for my path , not in spite of my pain , but because of how it shaped me . I let go of all the shoulds and began living a life deeply aligned with who I truly am , not who others expect me to be . And then joy came unexpectedly , powerfully and more real than I ever imagined possible . I realized I am invincible , not in a superhero kind of way , but in the deeply human way that knows we can thrive no matter what life throws at us . I am more present to my life than I ever thought I could be , more than I ever wanted to be back when presence felt dangerous . Now I love well , I'm a true partner to an incredible husband and I'm a mom a good one . I'm not perfect no one is but I've done the thing that matters most , which is break the cycle of abuse .

Honoring What Has Kept You Safe

Speaker 1 13:55

My story is not unique . I share it so that you know you aren't the only one who has learned to close the heart in order to survive . And the first step back home to the heart is honoring exactly that . Honoring the very walls you built to protect yourself . Nothing in the wisdom of true creation is ever wasted , not even mistakes . One of my favorite necklaces reads beautiful mistakes led to the best version of her . Yes , mistakes can be beautiful . So can heartbreak . So can the walls we build to survive . If you've shut down your heart , if you've sworn , you'd never let yourself get hurt again . Honor that . There's wisdom in it , your heart is worth protecting and that protection has served a purpose . It's helped you survive . It's kept you safe when safety felt scarce . So thank it . That protective instinct was not wrong . It was intelligent , it was loving in its own way . Even when new insight starts to show you how closing your heart may have limited your life or your joy , still honor it because it came from a positive intention to keep you whole , to keep you safe .

Speaker 1 15:09

And this is where acceptance can become such a powerful starting point . What we resist persists . What we accept , we release . These are universal laws . The more you resist what's happening or what's happened , the more energy it drains . The more you accept it , the more space you create for healing , expansion and new choices . And here's something important Resistance is natural . It's not something to push against or judge . You can accept the resistance itself and that simple act of acceptance . That is a profound step out of suffering . The more you accept , the wider the opening for new energy to enter . And in that opening you begin to remember your true nature . You begin to come home to your heart , and as much as part of me still cringes and shakes my head in disbelief when I say it love heals all .

Speaker 1 16:07

Living from the heart , truly living from the heart , is the answer to every version of the question how do I heal from this ? Whether it's mental pain , emotional wounds or spiritual emptiness , the heart knows the way home . So here's the invitation start small , choose just one facet acceptance , presence , forgiveness , gratitude and begin there . Let that be the door you walk through . You do not have to do it perfectly , you don't even have to fully believe it yet . Just be willing . And the beautiful thing is that all the facets are different legs on a table . Pull one and the others will come along .

Speaker 1 16:51

As you've been listening , did you notice a part of you tighten or pull away when I mentioned one of these facets ? Did something inside you whisper that one's hard for me ? Maybe it's forgiveness or acceptance , or simply staying present . Or maybe , like me , you've realized that somewhere along the way you shut your heart down to protect yourself . Tell me about it .

Speaker 1 17:14

What came up for you ? I'd really like to hear . You can hit the message me button if you're listening on Spotify or email me at rootsoftherise at gmailcom . If today's episode spoke to you , please consider leaving a rating , a review or sharing it with a friend . It really helps spread the message . Consider leaving a rating , a review or sharing it with a friend . It really helps spread the message and stay tuned because on Monday we'll be diving into the fifth chakra , the seat of our programming around communication . Have a wonderful weekend 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 , the work to become who you want to be . Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice . That said , I hope it inspires you to grow , heal and seek the support you need to thrive .