Spiritual Love Sanctuary

Healing, Transformation, and Rebirth

Stay tuned for more details on changes coming to the Spiritual Love Sanctuary in the future. Right now my work is focused on Healing Single Mothers.

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Forgiveness

Learning Forgiveness

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Forgiveness feels like such a heavy word and I think it’s because we hold on to things. Unforgiveness is so common. We’ve been conditioned to think that Forgiving is simply saying sorry. When we are little we’re told to say sorry.

Learning from Little Ones

I notice with my little one, Savvi — who by the way is so unapologetic and I love it! But she won’t say sorry if you try to tell her to. She does say it when she means it and it’s so genuine that you can tell she is processing and releasing.

When we try to force forgiveness, it doesn’t work! It has to be genuine.

We have to learn how to forgive and to do that it starts with knowing what the practice of forgiveness is all about. During my early twenties, I was in a shitty situation. I was in a volatile relationship that I felt trapped and was unsafe.

The Pain and Trauma of My Past Leading to Forgiveness

That was my first ‘real’ relationship and it played a huge role in shaping who I am today, the good and the bad. I stayed in that relationship way longer than I should have because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that things were as bad as they were and I thought it was my fault and I had to fix it.

The breakdown I had once it all crumbled apart, is what introduced me to forgiveness. It was not an overnight thing. It took years of pain, depression, anxiety, PTSD, smoking, drinking, loneliness, bad decisions, self-loathing, darkness, and all the other bleak, end of the road words I can think of.

I was in a horrible place trying to numb myself from what I experienced. I was basically hurting myself because I had been hurt. Craziness!!! On top of that, I kept attracting horrible situations because I wasn’t in a good space. I couldn’t forgive him for what he had done to me and all the ways that affected me.

The Truth Hurts, But Is Freeing

My life started to change when I took responsibility for the role I played in the dramas of my life. When I tell you that was hard…that was one of the hardest truths to accept. It hurt. It was eye-opening. It was enlightening. It was the start of my healing.

I realized that the problem was within me. It forced me to look at how I felt about myself and why and to forgive myself for my actions or lack thereof. This was some deep inner work I had to do. It wasn’t a one-time thing. Forgiveness is a process. It’s spiritual and deep; it’s not always pretty, but it’s so worth it.

When You Don’t Want to Forgive

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This video was inspired by a post I saw online. A woman was angry and didn’t want to forgive someone.

Forgiveness is a topic that is close to my heart, so for Day 10 of the Spiritual Love Series I share some nuggets about Forgiveness:

Forgiveness is a spiritual practice, the more time I spend studying its influence on a spiritual level, the more I come to see ways that we can start to integrate this in our daily lives.

Love Is Limitless

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Limitless, Unconditional, Spiritual Love

Love is unlimited, but it is also kept in a small box. When you hear the word ‘Love’ what do you immediately think of?

I’m guessing images of couples kissing and holding hands, weddings, and dating comes to mind. Or either certain types of couples, cheating, heartbreak…the pain is love concepts, but do you know what gets left out of the scope of love…A LOT!

Part of my mission as The Spiritual Love Healer is to shift how you view and think about love. It is NOT just about romantic relationships and the associated heartbreak and drama that has become synonymous with love.

We talk about this in the Spiritual Love Secrets Masterclass. Love is unconditional meaning it is limitless! Limitless Love sounds amazing doesn’t it?!?

Love is deeper than that.

Love is Spiritual. It encompasses you, your family, friendships, and relationships as a whole. The people you interact with are included in the sphere of love.

The Number 1 component of love is YOU! When I ask people about love, rarely do you mention yourself. Instead we talk about the limits and conditions of love instead of the limitless, spiritual nature of love.

You Are Love

Often, people will ask what I do and when I say I’m The Spiritual Love Healer, they assume that I only focus on dating and relationships. I am all about healthy relationships, but that starts with a healthy you. I want everyone to find their Person, but most importantly I desire for you to be in a place to accept and receive love, not only from your person, but from yourself.

If you aren’t right mentally, emotionally, or spiritually it will be hard for you to give and receive love. Truth is a lot of us are hurting and have a fearful view of love. That along with the hurt and challenges we experience during this journey called life, has a big impact on our view of love and can keep you from seeing your worth and so much more.

Heartache is Grief

Heartache is caused by so much more than a bad relationships. Sometimes is an issue around family, lack of self-love, a negative outlook, a life change or even a friendship.

What is heartache? It’s another word for grief and if it’s not released, it can keep you from being your best self and living your best life.

My work as The Spiritual Love Healer is deep! I don’t like being limited to dating and relationships, I help my clients with so much more. But, I do know the one thing we all have in common is that we want to Be Loved. I help you get back to that loving place within yourself, so you can live the life that you desire and experience Spiritual Love.

Life is Love

”Life is love and we are living.” Debra Laws said this in her song ‘Very Special’ (it’s a throwback that I love and was also quoted by Mary J. Blige). This is what I know to be true about Love, it is unconditional, limitless love. It is life. Love is Spiritual.

It’s the very thing that got each of us here. We too are love.

I want to help you discover that again with Spiritual Love Healing and Coaching. It will transform how you view yourself and the world around you. I bring healing through love and help you journey to inner peace, wholeness and love.

Stop Looking for Love and Be Love

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If you are looking for your Twin Flame, Soulmate, or THE ONE! STOP!! Look no further than within yourself. Love begins with you. When you are fully loving and accepting of yourself, love with naturally gravitate to you. Check out this Soulful Sunday session from the Spiritual Love Circle.

I was feeling like energy needed to shift in my office so I moved everything around. It looks and feels so much better!!

If you are fearful of love, you will block it. It’s time to be open fully to love. That does involve taking a risk. Opening your heart starts with forgiveness and self-love. Stop looking for love outside of yourself. Be Love! Be the love you desire and erase the fear and doubt, then you will start to manifest and attract love.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be exploring Forgiveness as the gateway to healing and self love. When we are able to heal from our past relationship issues, you can hit reset! Releasing fear and allowing you to open your heart to love.

Spring Clean Your Relationships

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Here’s a message that I shared in my private sister circle, the Spiritual Love Circle in honor of Spring. I’ve been sharing about spring cleaning and how you can use this concept to revamp your life and relationships.

Spring Cleaning Your Life and Relationships

This is a quick tip about your thoughts! Are you thinking new things about love, about life, about yourselves, about the people in our lives, about the world, or are we still holding on to thoughts and things of the past?

A lot of times we hold onto stuff for dear life, like the one time, your partner forgot to put the toilet seat down or he left his socks by the door or their shoes and you tripped over it or whatever the case may be, and we never let that go.

So we continue to stay in that energy and stay in that place and kind of looking for the problems instead of looking for the love in any situation.

So I just wanted to put that out there as you go about your day. Thank God it’s Friday. I am so excited for it to be Friday because like I said, this week has been just an adjustment.

Good things, to say the least, but still an adjustment and I didn’t realize how much change was happening with this spring!! Including welcoming a new baby into the family!

Your Thoughts Must Change Too

So talk about renewal, regrowth, rebirth and all of that is what we have happening. But with all these new changes, what I realized is, when things are changing, you cannot continue to think the same way that you were thinking before or the change won’t matter.

You’ll still be caught up in that old story. Part of transition into spring from winter is leaving behind the dead. What doesn’t work, what’s not serving you, what doesn’t heal you, and a lot of that can be your thoughts.

Your thoughts have so much weight. They create the world around you. If you’re thinking negative thoughts, that’s what’s going to manifest. You’re going to see, everything’s going to be negative.

So if you get in the car and you’re driving, you’re going to feel like everybody’s cutting you off. Everybody’s going slow, like what is wrong with everybody, but if you really stop and take a deep breath and kind of re-center yourself into a place of love and into a new way of thinking and new way of being, things shift just like that.

I hope that you pay attention to your thoughts.

Forgiveness Friday

It’s also Forgiveness Friday. Um, so make a list of the people and the things and the places and the circumstances that you need to forgive and release and I will definitely be doing that.

I’m sharing this message because I found my own self getting caught up in an old story. I had to check myself like, wait, this isn’t reality. This is, you know, an old story. So, you know, Little Jovhanna, my inner child, the little kid me was trying to drive the bus this morning.

And I’m like, no ma’am, you need to go have a seat in the back. And I really had to kind of re-parent myself out of those old way of thinking.

So again, as I do the work, I come and I share the work with you. This is a process. It’s an ongoing process. It won’t ever stop.

There’s always growth and evolution in life and that is the beauty of life. And that is what spring reminds us after things have been barren, dead, hard, desolate, cold.

I’ve got to run, but have a blessed and magical day and we’ll talk again soon inside the Spiritual Love Circle.

Why Forgiveness Doesn’t Work

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Forgiveness is a concept as old as humanity. I’m not sure how it was discovered, but many religious texts reference the act of forgiveness in various ways.

A Course in Miracles

One of my favorite books, A Course in Miracles, has a lesson on forgiveness. Lesson 122, says “Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world.” Being able to forgive is an eye-opening experience. It lightens your load, but sometimes it doesn’t work.

Forced Forgiveness Doesn’t Work

If it is forced, it will not be genuine and you will still harbor those feelings. Remember when you were little and your mom made you apologize for something even though in your heart you didn’t want to? I bet a situation popped into your head right now!

Forced forgiveness doesn’t work. It needs to come from a place of self-awareness, love, and understanding. Not to mention it needs to be genuine. If you’re being made to do it…it’s not gonna happen. If you aren’t sincere about it, there’s no need to apologize. Save your sorry.

Save Your Sorry, Why Forgiveness Doesn’t Work

Forgiveness Starts with You

Another reason why forgiveness doesn’t work is that you haven’t forgiven yourself. You pardon everyone else for the things they did that hurt you, but you haven’t truly released because you didn’t forgive the most important person, you! When things happen in our lives, there is one person that is always present and they are usually the last to be forgiven and that’s you!

No one deserves anything bad to happen to them and I’m not condoning any traumatic experiences. What I’m saying is that part of the journey to true healing and moving forward requires you to forgive yourself.

It’s Hard to Forgive in a Cycle of Pain

Forgiveness doesn’t work in toxic or abusive situations. Whether it’s verbal, emotional, financial, or physical abuse. A lifelong friend, or even a family member. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to keep taking someone else’s shit. It’s misunderstood that forgiving someone means they get to stay in your life and keep doing you wrong. I’m here to tell you that is not the case. It’s not forgiveness when you are being mistreated and after apologies and promises, you forgive time and time and time again. It’s not going to work, it’s a cycle of pain and drama that needs to stop.

Love Lesson

Having to say sorry for the same thing over and over again is the sign of a sorry person. How many sorry’s can you bear? #lovelesson

Save Your Sorry, Why Forgiveness Doesn’t Work

Protect Your Peace

It’s hard to forgive anyone that keeps hurting you. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. If your job stopped paying you, how long would it take you to stop being forgiving and walk away or do something about it? Pretty much immediately, right? In our own personal lives, we need to be that protective of our peace by putting up barriers and boundaries from toxic people and unhealthy situations. Forgiveness doesn’t work when you’re hurting and still in the middle of the mess.

Genuine Forgiveness From the Heart

Once you are out of the situation, then you can start to close the door on it and focus on healing and forgiveness. For forgiveness to work, it needs to come from the heart and be intentional. You also need to be in a healthy place where you are able to be open to the idea of releasing that pain and the story that you have been carrying around.

When that time comes is different for everyone, but you will know when you are truly ready to forgive. True forgiveness starts with self. I know because before I could even think about forgiving my abuser, I had to do a lot of work on loving and healing myself and that included forgiveness.

Are You Ready to Forgive?

You may need help processing in order to get yourself to a place of forgiveness. Maybe you need help with the forgiveness process. Either way, there is plenty of support available to help you get to that place. Forgiveness is freeing and healing. I know because I’ve had to forgive someone who hurt me deeply. Until I was able to forgive them I was not able to heal my heart.

When you are ready to forgive you will know. You will get to a point where you no longer want to carry the weight of the situation. Erykah Badu warned us long ago about becoming a bag lady. Carrying all your worries, pains, and traumas will cause you to miss out on amazing life experiences. Are you ready to pack light?