Love means many different things depending on the time, place, and context. People love hot rods, hot dogs, puppy dogs, friends, parents, gods, and romantic interests. All these variations can be distilled down to one core tenet, unconditional love. Let’s discuss “…the only kind of love, as I understand it, that there really is.”
You Owe Me Nothing In Return
“This is the only kind of love, as I understand it, that there really is.”
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette wrote and performs a fantastic song about unconditional love. Check out “You Owe Me Nothing in Return” from the under rug swept album below.
“I bet you’re wondering when my conditional police will force you to cough up.”
Unconditional love
Everybody intuitively knows what unconditional love means. Duh, it’s love without condition. But what does that actually mean? Moreover, how do we achieve it?
The song starts to trace out some of the logical consequences of loving unconditionally. The fourth verse digs into unconditionally supporting even a journey that results in love lost.
You can express your deepest of truths, even if it means I’ll lose you, and I’ll hear it.
You can fall into the abyss on your way to your bliss, I’ll empathize with.
You can say that you have to skip town to chase your passion and I’ll hear it.
You can even hit rock bottom, have a mid-life crisis, and I’ll hold it.
(And there are no strings attached)
So already it’s pretty clear that unconditional love and insecurities are incompatible from the outset. In fact, it seems like many of the conditions that define and later plague most relationships are attempting to pacify our various insecurities. We install guardrails and expectations. Read the standard marriage vow for proof of that.
Who is the target
Just who is the target of this unconditional love? If its hair color changed overnight, would that override the unconditional affection? If you found out they lead a secret life during their frequent business trips, would conditions kick in then?
How about amnesia followed by an entirely different personality? Would conditions appear in this case?
Thinking back to all those 1980s body-swapping movies, what if the target of your affection body-swapped with a criminal? Which half would you continue to love? The personality or the body? The other half would be excluded from your unconditional umbrella. That sounds a little bit like a condition.
Maybe it’s the source
We’re starting to come around to the fact that the target of unconditional love will remain the target of unconditional love no matter what. It matters not what the target does, is, looks like, says, doesn’t say, reciprocates, or eventually becomes. Does any of the unconditional love actually depend on the target?
No, apparently not.
Once you express honest unconditional love in any direction, you quickly find the boundary around the target simply does not exist. The existence of such a boundary is always a condition. Therefore, unconditional love is always about the giver and not so much about the receiver.
Hang in there! We know the last sentence seems wholly incorrect; we’re going somewhere with this.
What exactly is unconditional love?
Unconditional love is an utter appreciation of whatever you’re beholding. No contradictions. No complaints. No expectations. No conditions. It’s pure basking in the appreciation of nothing but the target’s greatest qualities.
Abraham often says the vibration of unconditional love and the vibration of appreciation are the same.
Unconditional love is a category of thoughts and thought processes associated with the vibration of appreciation. In terms of vibrations offered by humans, this one is a rare and fleeting vibrational offering, but it’s pretty much the highest we’ll experience in physical form.
Where to find unconditional love
Children. Pets. New relationships. Most of us find it easiest to experience unconditional love with things that are new to us.
New relationships, especially those that take off, present only the best before we get a chance to see the rest. We eventually ruin the unconditional aspects by defining roles, installing expectations, and committing to guardrails. Conditions all around.
Children begin life by spending a larger percentage of their time in appreciation. We train it out of them often by the time they can speak. We demand compliance. Circumstances must conform to our wishes. We teach, mostly through example, a very conditional love.
Pets are probably the most common source of unconditional love, both giving and receiving, that most of us experience on a regular basis. Who else could crap on the floor and still be met with a smile?
Unconditional love is amazing when we stumble upon it. Much of the time, it only lasts for a little while because we arrived there accidentally. With awareness and practice, we can find appreciation more regularly for longer periods of time.
Perhaps the easiest place to find unconditional love is from a distance. If you’re appreciating a child playing off in a distance, you don’t want him or her to come sit next to you forevermore. When you’re appreciating some wild animal in your yard, you want it to keep doing whatever cute thing it’s doing. When people rarely experience something this wonderful, they try to lock it in and keep it forever. Instead, let the object of your affection continue freely and uninterrupted so that it lasts longer and occurs more frequently.
The greatest gift and the only kind of love
Practice makes perfect. The more often we can find even brief periods of unconditional love for anything around us, the easier it gets. Focusing on only the best aspects of your object of attention is all that’s needed. (Sometimes this is too big of a jump at first, but it won’t matter when you learn the actual rules.)
The object of your attention obviously benefits but often not in any way you can observe. They might not even be consciously aware. In fact, it’s often easier to appreciate from a distance because it’s so often one-sided. Unconditional love doesn’t need, or even want, reciprocation which is quite fortunate if you’re trying to experience it more often.
Maybe the greatest surprise will become the most familiar over time. When you become practiced at shining unconditional love outward on a more regular basis, you can’t help but turn it inward out of habit. Everyone gives lip service to loving themselves. The more you practice appreciating the best of those around you, the more you’ll love yourself in the way that matters most.
