Being Loved and Feeling Love – Is it the same energy?

Is being loved different from feeling love? I am learning to heal my own heart, and through this experience, I came to the understanding that being loved and feeling love are two very different situations.

As I healed my inner child, I remembered that my dad was rarely home. I barely knew who he was. And yet I understood that it was Dad that provided the resources for our home, food and clothing. I knew I was being loved by his actions to provide us with the things that made us feel secure as a family. But is feeling secure the same as feeling love?

Dad was also the disciplinarian. So when he was home, he was often judging or criticizing us for who he thought we should be. I was taught by my dad that being loved was attached to judgments and criticisms. Hence, I used this same pattern with my own children. I used judgment and criticism to replace love. I have since learned and understand that judgment and criticisms are not of the same essence as love. Judgment and criticisms are anger; and anger is not love.

My mom on the other hand, was a gentle, nurturing person. She did not work when we were younger, choosing instead to stay home and take care of her 5 children. Being loved by Mom was cooking dinner and serving after school snacks. Because my dad was rarely home, her time was consumed in assuring there was food on the table and clean clothes to wear. There was little time for anything else. Mom took care of us to show her love, but were we feeling love?

Being loved is an action. It is something you can put your finger on and say, Mom did this or dad did that. Feeling love is an energy. It is the true essence of who we are. There is nothing attached to it. Love just is.

How can we feel love? In order to feel love, the heart must be opened to receive. At some point in our lives, most of us have chosen to shut our heart for fear of being hurt or because we no longer trust outwardly. We use pain and torment to replace the feeling of love. Why would we do that? Because we are feeling beings, and feeling pain and torment is better than feeling nothing at all.

Closing our hearts is a form of protection. What are we protecting ourselves from? We are protecting our "self" from the negative aspect of our self.

Our bodies are storage tanks for our emotions; and in the moment we choose fear over love, our energy becomes encased in negativity from learned behaviors. This fear, dependent upon our experiences, can be transformed into anger, guilt, intolerance, anxiety, etc. Now this energy must be stored waiting for us to make a different choice; the choice to feel love. As long as we choose to attach to the negative aspect of our “self, we will attract negativity into our lives. Hence, close the heart to protect the "self" from what we attract.

Let me see if I can explain it in a simpler way:
I know when a person is angry. They don’t have to say or do anything. I can feel their anger. It is emitted outwardly as energy and I am accountable for attracting it to me. Why am I accountable? I am accountable to the same energy that I see in that person. That person becomes my mirror; what I see in them, I am being asked to change in me.

This person directs this energy towards me because “like attracts like”. When someone decides to express their anger (so they don’t self destruct), the heart opens to release it outwardly. It is energy in the form of anger being expressed through the heart, and they have attracted a person who stores this same energy within themselves to express their anger to.

Why is anger expressed through the heart? Because anger is an emotion and all emotion is expressed through the heart. The heart is our emotional chakra. Anger is not stored in the heart; it is expressed through the heart.

Why do we choose to express anger? It is in that moment of anger expressed that a person is energetically asking for help. And they have picked you to help them. It’s a game and, “tag, you’re it!” Why you? Because you store the same anger within yourself, so you now have a greater understanding of that person’s feelings and needs.

We have been taught through experiences that when someone shows anger towards us, we reciprocate with anger. This mentality will never create peace for anyone. However, it is in this moment of recognizing their anger that we have the ability to choose differently. We can make a different choice! Instead of being angry back at that person, we can now choose to feel love towards them.

It is that single moment when their heart is opened (even if it is only to emit anger) that we have an opportunity to consciously send love back to them. This is not an easy feat, for as we have all experienced, our anger body wants to play that anger game.

How do we send love back to an angry person? By opening our own heart because it is through the heart that we can express love.

And how do we open our own heart? Through forgiveness. We forgive by the simple words, “I am sorry you are angry.” And in that moment of forgiveness, their heart will heal that anger because they have felt your love. And in that very same moment, you will feel their love in return. There is nothing more beautiful than the moment we learn to share the feeling of love.

How does the heart do this? It is through the act of forgiveness that the heart has the power to transform anger back into love, which is the true essence of each being. Now that person can choose to feel love instead of anger. You have taught them differently. What a gift you have shared.

That moment of forgiveness is who we came to be, forgiving beings. And it is through forgiveness that we can help one another heal. Forgiveness is the doorway to the heart where we can now feel love. And as we feel love, we will attract love. And in no time at all, we will attract everything we love in life.