Unconditional Love is something that sounds good but many people don’t really know what that means. On a whole you understand loving your partner, parents, kids, friends and family members. And, with each person, including yourself, love is experienced differently. There may be extreme passion with one person, loving understanding with another, an open type of love with another, a compassionate love for someone else and so on. But when fully examining Unconditional Love, it’s recognized as the type of love that has no stipulations, no exceptions, and no expectations. It is simply an emotion of love from the heart which exists no matter what the behavior, circumstance, or situation is. How many times have you heard or even said to yourself, things like: “If I get what I want then I can really love him!” Or, “I can’t love her unless she stops smothering me.”
When you think about it, there are often many conditions, consciously and unconsciously, placed on another person or yourself to be a certain way; making unconditional love seemingly impossible. The mind isn’t able to fathom unconditional love and your feelings become confused by it. To love unconditionally is an innate trait from birth that is steadfast. Remember when you were a child – no matter how your mama talked to you and your daddy treated you, you still loved them? But as you grew older and began to learn more of the “rights and wrongs” of love, you began to learn how love is supposed to look, or feel, or treat you. What you learned was how to love conditionally but, in reality, that’s not love at all. Nevertheless, conditional love is considered to be love because of the strong feelings of luv…as blood pumps feverishly through the heart and a few other unmentionable places too :-). Loving someone and yourself is honestly done with so many conditions you might as well have a contract where everyone is clear about…, as long as you do x,y,z and I do a,b,c then we’ll keep loving each other; otherwise forget about it. Oh, wait… I think you do get a contract when you get married. Hummmm……that’s love? Well, it’s the government’s concept of love. Proof yet again that we are taught what love is supposed to be and look like, not to mention how partnered love must be set up.
Now, I know you’ve heard, in order to love another person you must first love yourself. This is true! And often the way you love yourself is how you love someone else. There’s no way you can give love and know how to open your heart unconditionally with love until you’ve mastered it for yourself first. And, in so doing, unlearn what you’ve been taught on how to love. So, in honor of February as the month of Amor (that’s love for those of you who don’t know French), here are 3 ways to nurture unconditional love:
- Unconditionally loving yourself is a very personal thing but ultimately it means no judging, criticizing or beating yourself up with mental calisthenics. Nurture being in a consciousness of self-forgiveness by fully accepting who you are.
- Unconditionally loving you also means being honest with yourself and living from the highest integrity of who you are. Nurture the connection with that wonderful person inside who acknowledges the value of self-worth as simply being pure light, pure joy and pure love. Examine what values you express intrinsically that consistently demonstrates being true to yourself? Meditation is a great way to connect with the real you.
- Unconditionally loving yourself means holding your tongue before saying something negative about yourself. Nurture speaking affirmatively about who you are, without boasting or bragging, so spirited inspiration can flow freely into your heart. This is about nurturing every whispered prayer that is for you, in the highest way. It unlocks your heart opening the flood gates for self-love.
Practice these ways of providing unconditional love for yourself and you will love others unconditionally too. You will experience the freedom of non-resistance and the openness to express who you are, allowing others to be as they are too. There is no greater uplifting experience than that! Which is why, nurturing unconditional love is singularly the most important thing you can do.
Lynne Herod-DeVerges, founder of Center of Light Miracles http://ask-lynne.org/lynnesmiracles/