How do you know you are loved?

Getting beyond "love languages" and reality TV to the real deal

Years ago, when I was in the early throes of a passionate love affair, it looked like my new beloved was going to succumb to the "thrall of the ex" and go back to a previous partner.

Devastated, I remember getting up one morning and, in tears, walking down the stairs to go make coffee. Halfway down the steps, I had the thought: How can I ever really know that I'm loved?

And the answer came back swift, loud and clear: You can't. The only love you'll ever feel and know for sure is the love you are and experience from within.

The response stopped me in my tracks.

Riveted, I started blankly down into the living room, mind racing to the image of Jesus calling forth bread, wine, and fishes for wedding guests, healing the sick, raising Lazarus from the dead, and comforting the poor. Did any of those people feel love from him? I wondered. Or did they just see the miracles ... the manifestations of his love?

Surely, if people had been able to actually feel his love rather than getting fixated on his words and outward tokens of it, surely, he would never have been betrayed and crucified?

I mean, if people could feel Jesus’ love, wouldn't the living torch of that love kindle their own inner fire? How was it possible that in response to his presence some had picked up the sword and condemned him instead?

How could such love go unrecognized? Unappreciated? Unfelt?

How indeed.

Further musings

I've since realized that the nature of love itself—the potency and power of it—stirs up that which is not like itself.

Love kicks that which is not love straight out into the open to be felt, expressed, and dealt with. (Which is why it currently looks as if the world is going insane. The love field of Earth is rising exponentially, exposing everything that is not love to view.)

Which means back in 35 AD, if such a man as Jesus actually existed, those with hardened hearts and dead eyes would naturally be triggered to pick up a sword and set out to slay that which had disturbed the cruelty and narrowness of their own psychic field. The love of a man such as Yeshua Ben Joseph would have been enraging and impossible to endure.

Equally, those with love already in their hearts would resonate to his frequency and follow him.

It was pure physics ... or metaphysics.

Of course, when I use the word "love," I'm not talking about romance. I'm not talking about angels and unicorns and being all sweet and nice all the time. I'm talking about the raw power of the life force itself that we call "love." The love that births universes and allows them to fade and die away over and over to make room for the new. The force that sets the fierce fragile beauty of the hummingbird into motion and sets fire to the sky as night falls.

The intelligent force that can turn water into wine.

I remember getting my coffee that morning, then sitting quietly in my living room, contemplating the insight given to me. I closed my eyes and felt "love" for my lover, then dove into the sensation in my body. Then I imagined the love of Yeshua—the love of all life itself beaming through me from him ... and ...

It was the same feeling. The same energy in motion. The same e-motion.

And it hit me, what difference did it make if I couldn't feel the love of another? I can feel love! It was inside me.

How can I mourn the loss of a fickle lover when I have this? I thought. This love that pours through me, exciting every cell and atom and molecule! I'm bathed in love! I AM pure love!

OMG the only love I'll ever need is the love I feel ...!!!

It was a long moment of sovereign grace. And then …

Being human, I decided it's nice to have the love mirrored back and acknowledged.

It's fun to have a companion on this journey. After all, I'm not a stand-alone unit—a universe unto myself. Nor do I desire to be. Life and love are about relationship.

I wiped my eyes and felt better about my earlier very human upset. Hurt feelings, tears, and a sense of abandonment were only to be expected in the situation I found myself in. But .... I tingled all over with delight at my newfound understanding of the constant availability of love and took another sip of coffee.

I now have this!!

The love languages

Recently, a close friend asked me, "What makes you feel loved?" And the question took me straight back to that long-ago morning's discovery. But instead of bypassing the query with a highfaultin' answer, I stayed with my humanity and thought about it.

Predictably, the next thing that popped into my head was the five love languages Gary Chapman wrote about back in 1992 in his incredibly popular book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate.

The premise, of course, is that every person differs in the ways that they want to receive love. By learning to give love in the ways one's partner can best receive it, and by asking one’s partner to do the same, we can create stronger relationships.

Okay. Great!

Quickly I ran through the list. Words of affirmation? Saying nice supportive things to me? Well, that's nice. But, no.

Acts of service? Helping around the house? Plunging the toilet and cleaning the garage when necessary? Again nice, but no. Receiving gifts? Puleeze. No. Quality time together not watching Netflix? Well, sure. Physical Touch? Now that’s definitely on my list!

But would any of these gestures actually make me feel loved? Ahhhhh ...... um …. Could any of these gestures in any way guarantee that I was loved?

No. Absolutely not. A clever sociopath could deliver me all those things while feeling nothing but the ice water running through their veins.

What about feeling known? The new sixth love language that’s grown popular on TikTok lately? Feeling understood in a meaningful way by my partner? Hmmmm ...

"I see you." The iconic statement Neytiri makes to Jake near the end of the film Avatar flashed in my mind. Now that is closer to the mark.

And then ...

Someone who loves to dance as close to the flame of truth as I do ... who seeks and delights in it as I do no matter what the personal cost. Someone to play with as we push back the veils. Someone looking for the same mirror as me ... who recognizes, honors, and responds in kind and in curiosity ...

Surprised at the sudden personal insight, I blurted it out to my friend who seemed genuinely moved by my answer. But the more I thought about it later that night, the more bemused I became.

Because essentially my response revealed that the only way I could know love was by looking in a mirror at myself.

External validation

Chapman's love languages—as superficial as they might seem—serve the universal human need to know that one is loved and lovable. A need requiring a fulfilling answer.

And if a deeply fulfilling, cellular-level validation of love isn't readily available, then feel good symbols of love, like chocolate and roses, or a heart carved on a tree with two peoples' initials inside, or breakfast in bed, or encouraging words, will have to do.

And there's nothing wrong with that. These love tokens are beautiful and needed.

And yet I'm convinced there's deeper level of testimony possible:

Witnessing love in action in another resonates with and activates my love field and naturally stimulates me to be greater. Thus in sync and attuned—two people can be affirmed in and by love and mutually lifted.

What does that mean? How does it happen?

When I say “Witnessing love in action” as a personal activation, I’m not referring to symbolic love tokens where my lover bringing me breakfast in bed one morning stimulates my generosity and an urge to go out and buy that Dremel Multi-Max oscillating tool kit he’s been lusting after.

Love in action means, to the best of one’s ability, embodying and expressing the qualities of love/life that support love/life and all of creation. Then, if one has magnetized a mirror of “same,” the dance of mutual uplift begins.

So, what are the qualities that support love/life?

Well, in my experience so far on this planet, I’ve found that traits aligned with nature—which is all about growth and evolution and nurturing what supports growth and evolution—foster healthy human growth and fulfillment. These qualities are:

• Faithfulness and loyalty to that which supports and nurtures love/life

• Kindness

• Fierceness

• Compassion and empathy

• Patience

• Respect

• Generosity

• Ruthless self-examination in service to love/life itself

• Willingness to face and endure the pain of what you see about yourself that is not love, combined with a willingness to change and let go anything that stands in the way of love/life flourishing within you

• Courage and stalwartness

• Appreciation and gratitude

• Honesty

• Forgiveness of self and other

• Doing no intentional harm

• Vulnerability and humbleness

• Focus and fire and defined boundaries protecting life/love—boundaries which will not be breached

• Nurturing and tenderness

• An open, encouraging, unhindering hand welcoming exploration and growth in self and other

• Curiosity

When I watch someone relentlessly choose to do their best to develop and embody such qualities. When they demand of themselves such integrity. When they sometimes fail, as all of us humans do, when they sometimes disappoint themselves and others yet pick themselves back up and try again, and again, and again, doing their best to discover and express the life and love within them ...

When such a person stands in front of me, looks me in the eyes and says, "I love you," I believe them because they are the embodiment of love itself. They know what it means and they know what it takes and they feel it in their hearts, and they don't utter the words lightly.

How can I know that I am loved?

I know I am loved when love is standing right there in front of me and I recognize it and accept the love I AM reflected back to me ...

Love and much aloha ~

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Check out the book:

Cracking the Matrix explores the astounding history and nature of what humanity has erroneously labeled "evil" on this planet, helping people finally see the very real, negative, interdimensional influence that exists behind historic and current global events and our social decline.

The book outlines how to break free of this Force's ancient controlling agenda and how people can stand up in the power of their true spiritual nature, ready to create the New Heaven and the New Earth that have so long been prophesied.

About Cate Montana

I’m a professional journalist specializing in alternative medicine and health, and the author of several books, including Unearthing Venus: My Search for the Woman Within [Watkins 2013], The E Word, Ego Enlightenment & Other Essentials [Atria 2017], and a spiritual novel titled Apollo & Me. After Cracking the Matrix: 14 Keys to Individual & Global Freedom, my latest book is Gender, Patriarchy & Sexual Mind Control: Breaking Free. I have a master’s degree in psychology, and am extremely blessed to have been called to Maui to live. I’m grateful every day I awaken here!

For more information you can reach me at www.catemontana.com and info@catemontana.com