Cultivate an understanding of unconditional love

Love isn’t something we should do in halves. If you’re going to give someone your love, do it unconditionally.

by: E.B. Johnson

When it comes to love, there’s no greater ideal than that of the unconditional romance. We chase it our entire lives, looking for that one person who will see for what we are and accept us — warts and all. But is that all that there is to unconditional love? Being seen by another person? Or, is it about much, much more than that? Could it, perhaps, have something to do with our own love for self?

Unconditional love is limitless, but it’s also something that is generated from within. We can only learn how to truly love others (and be loved in return) when we come to clearly define that love within ourselves. To understand the conditional love of a partner, we have to understand how we extend those same conditions ourselves and break free of the patterns that keep us stuck in relationships that don’t suit us. If you’re looking for an affection that transcends the superficial, stop looking without and start looking within.

What unconditional love means and what it doesn’t.

We all want to be loved unconditionally, but we don’t always know what unconditional love means or what it looks like. To some, it looks like the ever-present partner. But to others, unconditional love is simply finding someone who commits to never walking away. The truth about unconditional love, however, is that it’s so much more than that…and we have to unlock that truth within ourselves in order to be truly happy in a partnership.

To love someone unconditionally means to give them your compassion, understanding and effort — even when things get tough, and even when they make a mistake that hurts you. It means being there for them, and it means not expecting them to change or pay you back for your affection. More than that — it’s something that we have to learn to extend to ourselves in order to extend it to other people.

This does not mean, however, that unconditional love means putting yourself in the way of abuse, harm or belittlement. Committing to love someone — no matter what — does not also mean that you allow them to mistreat you or take advantage of that love. You can love someone with all your heart, want the best for them and hope for their success…and still not be in their physical presence. Before you commit to loving someone unconditionally, know that this does not mean hard choices will still not have to be made.

How we behave when we love someone unconditionally.

Being loved unconditionally is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that brings with it a number of clear signs. When someone loves you unconditionally for who you are, it inspires you to be better and it inspires you to stride toward your dreams. Failing to be loved for who we are authentically, however, can be a challenge that is hard for us to overcome.

Supporting the dream

When someone truly loves us, it means they want us to have the things that make us happy, and they want to see us thrive. Supporting our dreams — no matter how crazy they might be — is one of the most common ways someone shows their unconditional love for us. Provided either physically, emotionally or even mentally, supporting someone as they strive to secure the things that bring them fulfillment is key in showing that you truly care for their happiness and wellbeing.

Care about needs

Caring for someone unconditionally doesn’t just mean saying, “I love you.” It also means caring about what happens to them, and it means caring about what they want and what they need to be happy. The needs of the people we care about are important, and they’re especially important because (more often than not) those needs are tied into their relationships and the bonds they share with their partners, spouses and families. If you don’t care about what your partner needs from you and their environment — you don’t really care about them unconditionally.

Uninterrupted respect

Unconditional love means respect, and it means respect no matter what the circumstances. Relationships aren’t easy and, even on the best of days, require us to stay committed to the cause. The person who loves their partner unconditionally is someone who respects them, even when they’ve been a disappointment, and even when they’ve made a mistake. They don’t lower to insults, and they don’t seek revenge or a sense of justice. They understand that things go wrong, and they respect their partners as human beings even when the going gets tough.

Radical acceptance

Radical acceptance is a core part of becoming who we were meant to be, but it’s also a cornerstone of building a relationship that is based on unconditional love. Acceptance means seeing, understanding and embracing the flaws of the people we love, as well as their strengths and their quirks. This acceptance is communicated openly and honestly and makes a secure space for the other person to be vulnerable and present, no matter where they’re at mentally or emotionally in life.

No returns necessary

Unconditional love isn’t just about flaws and accepting someone for who they are. Rather than just focusing on acceptance, truly unconditional love is also a love that requires no returns. That means that there are no expectations when you perform an act of love, and no keeping tabs on who does what and how regularly. We have no need to “get even” when we love someone, because we give only to see their wellbeing soar.

Endless forgiveness

Love allows us to unlock a deep compassion within ourselves which can have transformative results for our lives and our wellbeing. When we tap into this compassion, we often find a new and lasting kind of forgiveness that allows us to see things as they are, or better understand things from our partner’s perspectives. When we truly love someone, we can forgive them for their mistakes, and understand that they’re only human…just like us. A partner in love can forgive anything — but this does not mean that they also allow themselves to be taken advantage of.

What happens when we limit our love.

Limited love is not really love, but rather a set of terms and conditions to do social business. When your love is limited or conditional, it’s not actually love — it’s a means of control. Whether that control is exerted through impossible expectations or just the pressure to change, it’s toxic and defeating to the kind of partnerships we’re trying to build.

Impossibly unrealistic expectations

We all have expectations, and those extend to our partners, our relationships and even the future we plan for ourselves. Expectations are important, and they can form important parts of our boundary lines. When those expectations become impossible to meet, however, or they are used to control, manipulate or otherwise demean and abuse someone — they cross a line. Impossibly unrealistic expectations aren’t just unhealthy. They’re destructive.

Need to change

If your love requires that the other person change, or if it requires that you yourself change — it’s not true love, and it’s not unconditional. Unconditional means “without condition” and that means there are no terms on your love, support and affection. Requiring that someone else change who they are means that you have put limits on your love, and it means that you cannot accept them for who they are. Though change might be best for the other person, it can only come from their authentic, inherent desire to do so.

Refusing to buckle down

Someone who refuses to work things out isn’t someone who is in love. When we truly love for someone (unconditionally) there’s no problem we aren’t willing to talk about, no mountain we’re not willing to climb (short of abuse). Shutting down, or refusing to confront issues head on can be a sign of self-centeredness. Or, it can signal that you’re dealing with someone who isn’t clear yet on what true and unconditional love really means.

Time suck

There are many among us who were raised on skewed ideas of relationships, even more broken and skewed idea of what love looks like. Among these skewed ideas can be the idea that love = time spent together. While physical presence is definitely an important part of a relationship — spending all your time together is neither healthy nor productive. In order to create truly happy and loving relationships, we have to remember to be individuals and pursue our own interests outside of our romantic partnerships.

Self-centered point of view

When the other person in a relationship only shows concern for their own interests and needs, it’s a sign that they’re not really in love (with anyone else but themselves). Signs of this self-centered point of view include ignoring you when you open up, or dismissing you when you reach out to them. They don’t care about your issues and have no interest in helping you work through them. As a matter of fact, when your issues bubble over or are brought to the surface — the other person might view it as an inconvenience on their time and emotions!

How to cultivate unconditional love for others in yourself.

Even if you aren’t experiencing unconditional love now, or it’s not something you were raised to understand, you can teach it to yourself just like any other skill. By consciously committing to become a more understanding and compassionate person, you can unlock the limitless love you carry within. And you can do it by falling in love with you and building a more positive existence.

1. Fall in love with you

When learn how to love ourselves, we empower ourselves to make better decisions and bolster our understanding of romantic love. Acting with self-love allows us to look past our shortcomings at the beauty that’s sleeping within us, and allows us to extend a new compassion to others. It’s an expression of passion, purpose and value, and an expression of respect for our inner, authentic selves. Learning how to love ourselves is one of the most beautiful things we can do, and it has some truly amazing benefits.

Mastering the art of self-love takes time and hard work, but it brings with it truly incredible lessons that can turn our lives around for the better. When we learn how to love who we are, we learn how to love our bodies, our minds and our hearts. With this kind of radical self-acceptance, we can weather any adversity and create a life and a world around us that we can be proud of.

If you’re struggling to love yourself, chances are you are also struggling to accept who you are and where you’re at in life. When we can’t accept ourselves, we can’t see the good in ourselves and we even struggle to see it in others. Radical self-acceptance is the key by which you can unlock the love and compassion that will transform your life. Use daily mindful practices to tap into this compassion, and start to unknot the painful situations of your past that leave you detached and struggling to love who you are. You are a beautiful and strong person capable of limitless love. Discover that through meditation, mindful journaling and spending time with you.

2. Create positive surroundings

The environments we exist in are important, and they contribute to the way we see ourselves and the way we function in relation to the world around us. Leading more positive, love-filled lives requires us to surround ourselves with those things. That can mean cutting out negative people or experiences and pastimes that bring negative consequences into our lives. A process that isn’t always easy, but always worthwhile.

If you’re struggling with your ideas of love, or you feel as though you aren’t being loved as you should be, take a step back and get some time alone to gain perspective. Consider who you surround yourself with, and how they make you feel. Do you feel loved, supported, and wanted no matter what you say, or what honest mistakes you might make?

Failing to get these things from our environment will lead to a failure to cultivate those things within yourself. Think of it a little bit like a garden. If you want certain things to grow, you have to plant them in the right environment and feed them the correct nutrients. Without the right soil, without the right food, flowers can’t rise — and neither can we. If you’re looking to love truly (or if you’re looking to be loved truly) you have to give yourself the right environment to it in. Cut out the people who don’t love you and release the negative experiences that don’t contribute to your growth.

3. Be more present

Life moves fast, and it’s easy to get caught up in all the pressures it exerts on us. When we become too focused on the future, however, it can cause us to lose touch with the right here and now. Failing to be present, we fail to see the authentic beauty that is all around us, and we fail to love either ourselves or others in any real or meaningful way.

In order to cultivate a deeper and more honest understanding of unconditional love, you have to start being more present in life and in your relationships. This takes conscious effort, and it takes committing to the moment every single day. Only by focusing on the present can we let go of our expectations and learn how to love someone for who they really are.

Stop frantically obsessing over the direction you’re moving in the future, and let go of the mistakes your partner made in the past. Instead, make time each week to spend time together and focus only on the moment — no talk about the future and no dwelling on the past. Just be together, and enjoy the company of one another without all the stress and manic expectations that keep us frantic and frazzled with one another. It is in these moments that we find the beautiful soul that is both easy and willing to forgive.

4. Nurture your soul

Too often we become so obsessed with our frantic chase for romantic love, that we forget to love ourselves and nurture our own needs. Losing touch with ourselves is one of the most common reasons we fail to connect with others, and it’s one of the biggest reasons we fail to love unconditionally. Nurturing your soul is important, and it’s the means by which you connect with the most beautiful parts of yourself. Without nurturing our own needs, we cannot nurture the needs of others. We cannot love them without loving ourselves. (Notice a theme?)

Rather than constantly chasing other people — and the love you think you’ll receive from them, or the love you think you have to provide them — start chasing your own needs and making an effort to spend time with yourself. Allow yourself to decompress, de-stress and just be with yourself quietly and privately each day. Learn how to revel in your own company, and while you do so touch base with what’s needed to make your soul happy.

Tap back into those pastimes and activities that help you reconnect with yourself and feel fulfilled and connected with life. This might be as simple as having 10 minutes of quiet and private time to meditate, or it might require signing up for a new class or getting back to something that you love like painting, dancing, or ice skating. What you do doesn’t matter. What matters is that you reconnect with that authentic sense of self that defines how you feel about yourself and others. Re-establish the happiness that allows you to fall trustingly int the arms of unconditional love by nourishing your soul and watering your self-confidence.

5. Let go of the negativity

Negativity wrecks our lives, and it can especially wreck our sense of love or the way we come to see love in relation to our partnerships. Negative thoughts and negative experiences cause us to become hyper-focused, and in that way lies an obsession with failure and a cultivation of insecurities and warped perspectives.

In order to develop a truer sense of what unconditional love means, focus on releasing all the negativity that’s built up in your life. Rather than just zeroing in on negative aspects of your environment, start zeroing in on the negative thoughts that keep you stuck, scared or otherwise chasing things that don’t align with your ultimate vision of the future.

Get connected with your emotions, and uncover the reasons you’re obsessed with the idea of failure, or reliant on the idea that all love fails. Part of learning how to love unconditionally means learning how to look past our fears and embrace the unknown aspects of opening up to someone else. Start replacing your negative thoughts with positive ones, and you’ll notice major transformations in the way you love yourself and others.

6. Embrace the discomfort

True love is not easy, nor is it predictable or pleasant at every age and in every phase. Loving someone means committing to them — every day — and it means overlooking the mistakes they make. It also means embracing the discomfort of that journey, and understanding that the honeymoon doesn’t last (and it also doesn’t make for meaningful or productive relationships).

Embrace the discomfort of loving someone with no expectation of return. Know that, if you truly love someone — you will put in all your heart, all your emotion, and it still might not be enough. Circumstances change and people change too. What’s guaranteed today is not guaranteed tomorrow.

Accept that loving someone truly means working hard and being disappointed sometimes. Understand that it means getting angry, fighting, and working ourselves to the point of tears. Know that it means feeling off-centered and stumbling through the blind when no one has the answers that you want to hear. True love (when it comes without limits and boundaries) is unexpecting. Embrace the discomfort and know that, no matter what happens, you will be better and stronger for the journey at the end.

7. Cultivate exceptional forgivenesss

When you’re struggling with deeply buried wounds, it can be hard to conceive of forgiveness and letting go of that pain. It can also prevent us from accessing our natural wellspring of compassion and love. Our pain keeps us balanced, and when we’ve lived lives filled with it — it’s a comfort, because it’s all we’ve ever known. The problem, however, is that holding onto that pain is toxic. If we ever want to find our way back to happiness. We have to learn how to forgive...exceptionally.

True forgiveness is not only an act, it is a state of being — one which allows us to tap back into that authentic sense of self that guides us peacefully toward the future we deserve. It’s how we fix broken things and bring new life to old things, and it’s one of the best and truest ways to heal ourselves.

Forgiveness is for us as much as it is for anyone else. Though it’s important to forgive those who do us wrong,it’s even more important to give ourselves the gift of true forgiveness, so that we can move past all the internalized guilt and shame from our childhoods and find our way back to loving one another purely and without reservation and fear. True love. Unbridled by conditions and expectation. Forgiving unconditionally means that — no matter what — you let go of the thoughts and emotions you had tied to that act. It means detaching completely and starting anew.

Putting it all together…

True and unconditional love is something that many of us seek, but so many of us fail to realize what it really means. To love someone unconditionally requires us to let go of their mistakes and embrace their faults in a way that is both non-judgemental and compassionate. That requires a considerable amount of work, however, and the knowledge that — until we love ourselves from the inside out — we will never be able to give or receive that same limitless love from others.

Fall in love with yourself before you expect to fall in love with other people. Dig deep and be compassionate with yourself and the choices you’ve made. Create more positive surroundings and cut off those who detract from the life you’re trying to build. If we truly want to unlock the power of limitless love, we have to learn to be present in the moment and understanding of the mistakes that each and every one of us makes. Nurture your soul and the things that make you feel joy and ease in this life. Use that positivity to connect with your strengths and build the compassion for self that allows you to be more compassionate with others. Love is hard, but unconditional love is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves and our partners. Stop expecting something in return, and stop using your love as leverage to control. Learn how to love yourself and others for who you are right now and let go of the rest. We only have a little while here. Make the most of it by unlocking the transformative power of unconditional love.