Awakening to the True Status of My Life, and Awakening to Love
I could not feel love in my heart at all. That is the state I found myself in after a successful career and living a life that seemed successful to everyone else.
You can call this moment an awakening, because I realized the true state of my life. Regardless of my status in any other way; financial status, societal status, all of those measurements. Regardless of travel and experience and business accomplishments or connections.
If I was going to be honest, here was my status update. The truth of my life was that I felt terrible, I felt angry, I felt fear, and I felt unhappy. And all of the data said that this would lead to ill health and a lonely death. Nice going, I thought.
How Could I Change?
My mind said that analytically, if I could somehow feel love, that my health would improve, and my life would improve. It’s what all the songs say, it’s what the Beatles advocated, it’s what I was taught in church, and it’s what I knew instinctively was the path to follow.
If I could feel love, in my heart, then maybe I could finally feel true happiness, maybe I could find and feel joy.
It was shocking to realize that these were missing from my life. I had spent years ‘building my life’ and I had missed these key, important elements. I had followed the recommended path and gotten to a brick wall emotionally. And I did not trust that there was anyone I could talk to.
These burning questions caused me to have a spiritual experience of intense magnitude.
You Have to Ask to Receive
I’m going to describe the spiritual experience I had, and before I do, I’ll just say that I’m going to write it down but I don’t have any explanations for how what occurred is possible.
I was lying in bed, realizing that fear and anger ruled my world, and that these were the only emotions I could feel in my heart. I ran through the list of people I could talk to about this and came up with no-one.
I realized that the only beings I really trusted were from my childhood. I had a relationship with Jesus from going to church all of those years. And I dreamed of a young man in my dreams, through childhood, who was like my best friend. I call this person my twin flame, now. (Now that I can feel love, in the present day, I see him as an ever present, loving spirit, or an angel, if you will.)
So I called up Jesus in prayer, and I asked. I asked from the deepest part of my heart that I could reach. I desperately described my situation, and that I deeply wished to feel love. I asked Jesus to cause me to feel love again. I said I choose to open my heart. Please help me.
Some amount of time went by, months, most likely.
My Spiritual Experience: Struck in the Heart by Love
One day, I was in the grocery store, and suddenly a feeling literally struck my heart like a lightning bolt of the most intense, most pure, and most indescribable love I have ever felt, before or after in my life. But first I had a waking vision.
As I was getting something from a cold case, I turned around, and time seemed to shift, and everything slowed down, and a man was walking towards me, and he seemed to flow and to float, regal and with majesty, yet completely loving. If you could imagine what Jesus was like in person, he felt that way. It was like a special moment in time opened. And suddenly everything was normal, like a door opened and closed, and I was walking away wondering what had just happened.
A few moments later I was at a checkout counter, and the love that struck my heart like a bolt of lightning was so pure that it was all I wanted to feel, forever. The intensity is beyond what I can describe or give words to. But I deeply wish that I could transmit it to you, because its beauty and complete love for me was overwhelming. And I know with complete certainty that this love exists for you, also, and for us all.
If I could have just melted into it, or become it, in the moment, I would gladly have done so. Its beauty was so compelling. It was like intense fire lit within the center of my heart. Like it ignited my Soul. Its effect on my body was complete trembling, and I had trouble standing.
I was actually physically writing a check at the counter, just before it happened, and I had to stop and hold myself up, to keep from falling. In my mind’s eye I completely fell to my knees. My breathing was altered, as if I had just gone for a run.
I wanted to feel this feeling, forever, I wanted to go to it and be with it because I could feel its loving presence, its care for me, and how much I passionately loved it back. It felt like God and I felt like a child, it felt like my Soul, it felt like joy and ecstasy beyond human capability, it felt like Jesus and it felt like angelic intervention, it felt amazing and I was in awe and gratitude immediately.
Actually, since I was writing a check, I remember that this was in May, and it had been about five months since I had prayed to feel love.
That’s a pretty good turn around, and one that I’m grateful for. Its five years later, and the changes I’ve made in my life to align with this love had taken me in directions I never could have anticipated.
After the lightning bolt struck my heart with love in the most intense way, I started to meditate and develop a spiritual practice. I have worked intensely on healing my emotions and thought patterns. And I admit it’s been hard work and many times when things haven’t been easy.
It all has been worth it, in an amazing way. I have developed an inner life that chooses love over anger and fear. And I can feel joy, and happiness in my heart. This alone is a miraculous feeling. A miraculous change for me. And I am grateful.
My relationships of all kinds have improved and are more authentic. In pursuing this spiritual path, I was gifted with learning to write from a meditative state, and I learned to create tools for people to use in business and life while doing so.
If you cannot feel love in your life, I’ve learned that all we have to do is ask, from a true and deep place, and change will happen, we will be offered the opportunity.
And if you are on a spiritual path, I’ve learned that there are twists and turns, good days and days of questions, but this is the most gratifying life I could have imagined, one filled with friends, and surprises, and yes, one filled with love.
© 2016-2018 Susan V. Lacerra. All Rights Reserved. Permission is given to share this article on other blogs and websites as long as the text is posted in its entirety without alteration and with the accompanying photos (if photos are in the repost), and with the author’s credit, copyright and live website links included in the article. Twitter handle is @SusanInspired.
Image credit: Emma Tingey
1st: June 13, 2016
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.