Purposeful Growth

Life is much, much easier when I love unconditionally. What does unconditional love mean? It means to love fully and without conditions no matter what others do or say. It means to love all beings–including myself–all living things, all animate and inanimate objects. Unconditional love means to love simply because love is the essence of life, the source of life’s joy, and because you choose to love.

Do you struggle with one or more relationships? Since
relationships form a significant part of our lives, a
struggling relationship will contribute to a struggling
life. You can eliminate the struggle from your relationships
with one easy decision–choose to love unconditionally.

Many of us learned that love was something to be earned, something to be bartered. Correct behavior–as defined by someone else–earned their love. Fall short of another’s expected behavior for you and you risked losing their love.

Much to my dismay, I overheard a woman declare to her grandchild, “Stop doing that or Grandma won’t love you.” The child was simply following her exploratory instincts in a strawberry patch, yet this minor infraction put her grandma’s love at risk–how sad. Grandma’s tone made it clear this was an ongoing threat. This young child was learning about conditional love.

Often, when I talk with others about unconditional love,
they seem unable to really comprehend the concept. It’s as
if I’m talking about my next trip to the moon–possible, but
hardly likely and certainly not practical. But conditional
love is the impractical one, for loving conditionally will
surely bring disappointment to a relationship.

Too many of us are keeping score–making sure we get as much as we give in our relationships. Sadly, we aren’t in loving relationships, we’re in needing relationships. If it’s important to me that you behave a certain way for me to feel loved, then our relationship is based on something I
need from you. If I need something from you to feel loved, our relationship is on very fragile ground–for surely you will be unable to fulfill my need at times.

The best role model for unconditional love is a puppy. A puppy will be glad to see you whether your hair is a mess, or just washed and brushed. Your puppy will show love even if you’ve just screamed at it, ignored it, or forgotten its favorite food. So how do you transfer this model of puppy love to your relationship?

Decide to love the other person simply because of who they are. Some behaviors may please you while others may annoy you. But that has nothing to do with love. Behaviors have to do with your social interaction with the other person–compatibility while being in close proximity. Love has to do with your soul’s interaction with the other person–allowing your natural love to express itself without condition of behavior.

Just to be clear–this is often the challenge raised–if another abuses you either physically, verbally, or mentally, loving yourself requires that you either help the other person to change their behavior toward you or you distance yourself from the other person. You can still love someone while remaining distanced from the person.

Unconditional love may not be normal because it isn’t the prevailing display of love, but it is natural. Loving unconditionally is not only natural it is also easy. Keeping score, keeping track of needs fulfilled and unfulfilled is hard work. Judging another requires constant attention and bookkeeping so you don’t miss anything that violates spoken and unspoken conditions.

Being loved conditionally is also very difficult. One must be constantly aware of the other’s conditions–many are unspoken–moderating behavior based on how the other person will receive it. The freedom inherent in unconditional love makes life easy with each person simply being themselves. So take a big step toward an easy life by deciding to love unconditionally. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Related Articles:

Ten Steps to an Easy Life

Purpose is the Foundation of an Easy Life

Believe in an Easy Life

Spending Habits and the Easy Life

Connections Make Life Easier

Sitting in Judgement and the Easy Life

Acceptance and the Easy Life

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 10:44 am and is filed under Love, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.