How to Feel Loved without Searching for It
All of us want the same thing in life. We want to feel loved. We want to feel appreciated. We want to feel like we matter. If we’re aware of it or not, we spend most of our lives trying to figure out how to feel loved.
We spend the majority of our lives searching out in the world for love, acceptance and validation. We strive for an accomplished career with the underlying hope that it’ll make us feel significant. We push to accumulate wealth with the underlying hope that materialism and money will garner us the validation that we ache for.
We anchor ourselves to romantic partners with the underlying hope that they’ll make us feel loved, whole and special. We long for approval and respect from our co-workers or our friends with the underlying hope that it’ll make us feel worthy and cherished.
(Photo by Tim Gouw)
Over the long term, none of these things will truly fulfill our deepest desires. We’ve been searching for love and validation in the wrong places.
What we’ve been looking for all along is found right here inside ourselves.
How to Feel Loved
When we come home to who we really are, we discover the unconditional love and acceptance that we’ve been craving. When we come home to the light and love of our own souls, we realize that WE are what we’ve been searching for. Within our souls is the love that we’ve been pining for.
It’s just that we forgot to look here.
When we discover that our souls unconditionally love us regardless of our perceived human flaws and perceived failures, it’s as if a heavy, dark blanket is lifted from us. We can finally let go of our secret grievances against ourselves and our painful self judgements.
We can finally see and embrace ourselves as the innate magnificence that we are. We can finally love ourselves. We can finally stop trying to prove our worth to ourselves and quit searching out in the world for something to fix us or complete us.
Our souls are safe harbours shining a loving, warm light that always welcomes us. On days when our humans selves feel scared, uncertain or defeated, we allow our souls to hold us, heal us, nurture us and remind us that we ARE enough. The truth is we are more than enough.
(Photo by Etienne Girardet)
Our External World Reflects our Inner World
When we stop searching outside of ourselves for something to make us feel worthy and loved, and instead anchor ourselves to the love and acceptance that is within us, our external world shifts too.
Opportunities arise for us. Good people are drawn to us. We witness our dreams manifesting. Our days seem lighter, more fun and seem to flow. Things seem to work out for us (when they’re meant to). We’re more easily and confidently able to navigate challenges and obstacles.
From “Shot-in-the-Heart” to Healthy Love
During an intuitive healing session with a beautiful woman in her late 30s, I saw what appeared as a hole in my client’s heart. It felt as if a boyfriend had shot her through the heart. (She confirmed that her recent ex-boyfriend had cheated on her and that this was indeed how she felt.)
We completed our session that day with me showing her how to come within herself to feel love, as well as suggesting that she engage in activities that made her feel happy. (Without understanding why at the time, I told her that I saw her boating and feeling free and happy.)
I informed her that as her happiness and self-acceptance blossom there would be a guy who would show up in her life. I could already energetically see him.
Six months later, my client updated me that she had followed my guidance and had been feeling really good. Out of seemingly nowhere, a guy who she had met several years prior had spotted her on Facebook and reached out. Long story made short, they’re now in a healthy and happy relationship.
Now here’s the interesting part of this story…
My client had decided to go to see her parents for several weeks in the summer, where they had a great time boating. The photo that she posted on her Facebook that caught her new boyfriend’s attention was a picture of my client with a big, bright smile while boating! (Now I understood the significance of the image I saw of her boating.)
What had attracted him to her was that he sensed that she was happy and genuinely liked herself. This is an awesome example of how our external world responds when we quit searching “out there” for love, acceptance and validation, and instead go inward to discover the peace, joy and love that already exists within our souls.
Looking for Acceptance & Love from our Parents
We were born into this world open, pure and innocent. As babies, we handed our parents (or our caregivers) all of our needs and desires. When our parents showered us with love and admiration, we basked in it. We glowed in it.
As we grew from babies to toddlers to small children, we continued to look to our parents for acceptance and love. However, we didn’t always receive it.
Sometimes our parents got angry with us, criticized us or abused us. Sometimes our parents were unavailable or didn’t give us their attention. Maybe our parents were deep in their own unhealed emotional pain; they were unable to give us the love that they themselves were unable to receive or feel within them.
As a result, we developed beliefs that we were bad, flawed or unlovable. Even harsh scoldings, being yelled at or punished are often translated by small children as “I am bad. I am undeserving of love”.
(Photo by Thomas Park)
Left unhealed, we walk through our adult years feeling inadequate and unworthy. We then hunt in the world for something that will alleviate our pain. We hunt for something that will fill our deep longing to be loved.
A beautiful client in her mid 50s told me that her mother had recently come for a visit. This kind and caring woman had done everything she possibly could to make her mom’s visit enjoyable. However, nothing was good enough.
Beneath my client’s desire for approval from her mother was a deep, painful yearning to be loved by her mom. It was a love that she had ached for since very early in her childhood.
During our intuitive healing session, I energetically turned my weeping client away from her mom and brought her back into the radiance and love within her soul. Her tears ceased, and she was overcome with a profound peace and a sense of liberation.
Coming Home to the Love within Us
In Western society, we’re raised to get out there and chase after everything we want in life. We grow up to believe that what we crave is found outside of ourselves.
In my personal experience, everything changed for the better when I discovered how to align with the bounty within me. I transitioned from chronic anxiety and self-loathing to faith, inner peace and self-acceptance.
Learning to surrender ourselves into the love and light of our souls takes practice. Meditation is a powerful tool that helps us become familiar with the compassion and love that is our true essence.
As an Intuitive Healer, I help guide people back into alignment with their souls. When we learn to identify with our soul, we immerse ourselves in an ocean of wisdom, love, joy, courage and peace. We tap into who we truly are.
We no longer look outside of ourselves to to fill a void, for there is no void to fill. Everything that we long for and need is already within us.
*** xoxo ***
To read Rachel’s story, click HERE.
(Photo: Carla Hedges)
