On my own spiritual journey and as I accompany others on theirs through spiritual direction I have come to believe and experience that the greatest spiritual struggle is to receive, rest in, and radiate love and recognize our belovedness. It is interesting that the greatest two commandments in the Christian and Jewish traditions are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Why do we so often struggle with truly experiencing and radiating this love? Honestly, I am not going to theologize this one or presume that I have all the answers. Each person's journey to love is unique, I never cease to be in awe and wonder as I walk with my clients into a greater awareness and experience of their Divine Belovedness, helping them notice and receive this love.
I was sparked to write this blog this morning as I woke up with an old song going through my mind, Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All." The stanzas I want to focus on are: "Because the greatest love of all is happening to me, I found the greatest love of all inside of me. The greatest love of all is easy to achieve, learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. And if, by chance, that special place that you've been dreaming of leads you to a lonely place, find your strength in love." Whitney said this greatest love of loving yourself is easy to achieve. From my own experience and also from accompanying others, I would beg to differ. I might even call this walk toward love a "Love War" because of the struggle. We truly have this Divine love of God available deep within our souls but experiencing, receiving and communing with Love can be a challenge. Often these challenges to love God, others and ourselves may be from our own false images of God, others and ourselves. These false images and soul wounds can occur in many ways throughout our lives and become barriers to Love. My desire as a spiritual director is to create a loving, non-judgmental sacred space for you to discover your belovedness and connection with Divine love.
What do you notice within your life that blocks love and what do you notice that draws you into Divine love?
May you receive and rest in Love this day.
Blessings,
Carol Mullen
Soul's Sanctuary Spiritual Direction