Purposeful Growth

Archive for August, 2006

Unconditional Love and the Easy Life

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006

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.

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

Posted in Love, Personal Development | 1 Comment »

Acceptance and the Easy Life

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006

Life is so much easier when we stop resisting it. Good things that happen are easy to accept: a raise, a new relationship, a big customer contract, and having the bathroom scale display 5 pounds less than you expected. It’s easy to accept these arrivals as things we deserve. But what about the bad stuff that arrives sometimes: a letter from the IRS showing taxes owed, your significant other dumps you, the old car needs $1,000 in repairs, and the boss suddenly stops being friendly to you. Bad stuff that arrives is generally not welcomed; we try to prevent it, deny it, and we get angry about it. Whatever the bad “it” is, we didn’t deserve it and we don’t want it.

To get on the path of the easy life, live your life with intentions, but embrace and honor what shows up. Know that each event, each circumstance, and each person appearing in your life

is a gift to you–receive it graciously. Know that the value of each gift depends on how you choose to accept and utilize it. Of the ten steps toward an easy life (link to article) this may be the most difficult to apply, but the one most likely to bring you a life without struggle.

As humans, we create–that’s what we do. To create a desirable life intentionally is wonderfully satisfying–a joyous and powerful feeling. But our successes can hook us. Each time we succeed, we build more confidence that now we’ve got it–we’ve cracked the secret code of life. Then the unexpected–and often undesirable–event comes along, and we wonder if we really understand after all.

Whether you believe that life’s unexpected events are karma, the result of subconscious creation, or God’s will for us, to enjoy the easy life you must learn to fully accept what shows up. It’s easy to say life is perfect when someone else is encountering misfortune. To still feel the perfection of life when misfortune befalls me is something else altogether. Yet life will always seem a struggle, a battle, and a tough road until we discover the peace resulting from total acceptance.

Total acceptance isn’t grudging acknowledgement and it isn’t token agreement. Total acceptance means to embrace what shows up, loving it because it is you–even if it’s not what you would consciously choose. Once you totally accept what shows up you can change it. But acceptance comes first. You can’t give away what you don’t hold in the first place.

Believing that each person and event showing up in your life is a gift is not just a play on words, not simply an optimist’s view of the world. When you look for a gift you’ll find one–even in the most distressing of situations. Because the gift is always there.

You may doubt this, feeling that there certainly wasn’t a gift in the last undesirable event that came into your life. But if

you weren’t looking for the gift you wouldn’t see it. That’s the way our minds work. We see what we’ve decided will be there. We overlook what we believe will not be present.

Are you ready for an experiment?

To allow yourself the full benefit of this experiment you must be open and curious about what will happen. It’s alright to have doubts, but suspend them for one week and allow for a new experience. If your core belief is that life is difficult, or harsh, a trial, or a struggle–as mine once was–do this for one week:

Decide for this one week that life is easy.
Set your intention for your life to be easy this week.
Each day expect to find new gifts in your life’s events, even the events you would normally call negative ones. When something unexpected and undesirable shows up, intensify your search for the gift until you find it.
Keep a journal with an entry each day describing the gifts you’ve received and how each gift helped to ease your life.