Unconditional Love

Hello friends and welcome to another post of me sharing my opinion on stuff nobody asked for. Just to be clear, this is my OPINION. I’m not some uber-qualified specialist or anything, just a person with feelings and shtuff to say. With that out of the way, let’s dive into it.

Today I thought I’d talk about looooove. Not just any kind of love, unconditional love. I think the concept of this is super interesting to think about. Most people believe that our only source of unconditional love is our parents. Which, to an extent, may be true. Parents will often love us regardless of our choices and decisions and we’ll often love them back in the same way. There is an unequivocal bond in these relationships that is rarely broken.

Our love often seems to feel more conditional when it comes to romantic and platonic relationships. We’re rational creatures and feel the need to give meaning to the feelings we have. Our constantly thinking minds don’t always allow us to simply love others for the sake of love. We often end up in situations where we’re left to weigh out the pros and cons of what a person can do for us, and what we can do for them, almost viewing the relationships we hold with others in a transactional realm.

What if we didn’t divide life and its contents into positive or negative, good, or bad? Would things simply collapse? I don’t think so. I think it’s easier to compartmentalize different concepts and beliefs. It makes them easier to digest and understand. We can decide whom we choose to be around, the activities we choose to partake in, and the environments we allow ourselves to be a part of based on these beliefs. But what if there was no good or bad? What if there just was?

Thoughts and Judgement

It's so easy to look at others and judge their way of life and the decisions they choose to make. The judgment sets them apart from us. We are at a higher level, and they are inferior to us based on their life choices or the things that make them who they are. This may make us feel good momentarily, but is it really what’s best? There are always two sides to every story with multiple perspectives involved.  

 It’s not our environment or the people around us that make us upset or angry but our relations to it. We may create a negative interpretation of our reality rather than simply acknowledging it for what it is. Our thoughts control our perception of reality. While we cannot change reality, we can reprogram our minds so that our thoughts reflect the reality we choose to perceive.

“Thoughts create. Thinking Destroys.”

– Joseph Nguyen Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Unconditional Self-Love

I don’t say any of this to rationalize poor treatment or behavior. Boundaries are incredibly important in all relationships, which leads me to what I believe to be the most important form of unconditional love: the love for oneself. To love oneself is to see and acknowledge all the love and value that one brings, along with what we may choose to see as negative traits, and accept them fully, without conditions.

When I first began my whole self-love journey, I would always list the reasons why I loved myself. My most prominent reasons ran along the lines of “I love that I help other people,” “I love my sense of humor,” “I love that I am dedicated to my goals,” etc. While all these things are great, the fact that they are the reasons why I love myself implies that if these qualities were to one day fade, so would my love. My thoughts attempt to rationalize why I am worthy of love when in reality, I am worthy of love regardless.

Boundaries

Boundaries and unconditional self-love come hand in hand. I could write a whole blog post on boundaries (and probably will in the future) but figure they’re worth mentioning briefly in this post. In loving ourselves, we must have our best interests in mind. While we may enter situations or relationships with good intentions, we can’t always predict or determine the intentions of those around us. Entering a situation with a full heart and no boundaries gives others who may have malicious intent the opportunity to take advantage. Trust me, been there and done that.

I moved to New York three years ago with full trust in every person I ran into and, well, most of y’all know how that turned out (ya girl got burned more times than I can count). This doesn’t mean we have to live in fear, it just means we must be selective of whom we wish to give that energy. The deeper I get to know someone, the clearer their intentions become. If someone is consistently trying to break down your boundaries or has broken boundaries and has rationalized this behavior, it’s important to recognize and possibly restructure the terms of your relationship with that person. Knowing my boundaries is important and enforcing them is imperative to receiving the respect and treatment I believe I deserve.

Unconditional Love – An Example

Let’s talk about Oats. If you don’t know, Oats is my cat. She is my baby. Love of my life. I love this baby from the depths of my soul. Why? I don’t know. I just do. This kid doesn’t do anything for me. I must clean her poop, she bites my leg when she wants food, and she only snuggles on her own terms. Why do I put up with this treatment? Because I love her unconditionally. I don’t love her because she’s cute or because she has the softest fir known to cat-kind. I love her because I can’t help it.

 This is what I mean when I talk about unconditional love. The feeling that you love someone fully, completely, every part, every imperfection, every cute little thing they do, simply because of who they are. This, I believe, is why even when we receive abuse or mistreatment from our parents or others in our life, it may seem almost impossible to stop loving them. Loving someone unconditionally is not a bad thing. There is love in everyone and it’s a great thing to recognize that. There is, however, a problem with accepting abuse for the sake of love. Just because we love someone unconditionally doesn’t mean we should sacrifice our own concept of self-worth. The treatment we receive from others is not a reflection of what we deserve. While we may believe it is what we deserve because our thoughts have been programmed to believe such lies, they are ultimately lies.

When we can learn to love ourselves unconditionally, we can begin to live in truth. The truth is that each and every one of us is filled with and deserving of love. We don’t have to believe that we deserve the treatment we have received. It doesn’t matter where we’re from, what we look like, or what value we bring to others, at the end of the day, we all have this light within us.

Lighting Your Own Fire

I like to think of us like candles. Yeah, you’re a candle. We all have this wick of love inside of us just waiting to be lit. When it’s lit, we’re fragrant, we shine, we’re warm. But sometimes, people blow on us, maybe someone even tries to put the cover on top until that love is just a withering flame and eventually dies down. Maybe someone wants some of your fire but accidentally takes too much, tips the wax, and burns you out.

The thing is, we can’t rely on other people to keep our flame bright. We’ve gotta figure out how to light our own wick and feel that loving glow within ourselves. When our candle is lit and the flame burns strong, that flame can spread to other people’s candles. This, I think, is why we feel so good when we’re around other people who have that bright and shiny love just glimmering all around them.

When we can learn to love ourselves unconditionally, we won’t need to dim that bright light of love for anyone. We can surround ourselves with other shiny, bright people who help our flames grow even bigger. In acknowledging the love in all people around us, we can also share this flame with others who may struggle to light themselves. What’s important is that we always make our own flame our number one priority. Others cannot create that light within us and without our own light, we can’t help others shine.

Conclusion  

I hope that this post could shed some light (haha get it) on the importance of self-love. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much love you give to other people if you’re not giving that same love to yourself. Love shouldn’t be given from a place of lack with the expectation of receiving the same in return. This idea will only lead to further feelings of lack and unmet expectations. If we love ourselves and have clear boundaries to protect our own energy, we won’t need to seek love out of desperation. Our love will be rooted in an authentic source from within and the love we share with others will only serve to brighten that flame.

Thanks for reading, love y’all <3