We all seek it, desire it, and crave it. The sad truth is it eludes many of us and some never get to experience it in all of their days.
Genuine unconditional love.
In seeking this love, we often get caught up in the lust that permeates new relationships. That thrill and exhilaration of infatuation is hard to beat. Fuck I love that feeling. I get it. It’s yummy and there is by far nothing like it. However, there is a problem with solely seeking these fleeting chemical manifestations of our attractions.
They end. Always.
What we all crave at a soul level is true intimacy. Someone who just gets us. Someone who would choose us over anything else in this world.
How do we create deep authentic connections with those who matter most?
Do we really have to work so hard to make LOVE work? Shouldn’t love just flow and happen naturally? Well it does and would if everyone was in the right frame of mind.
Unconditional love requires something so simple, yet difficult to apply; letting go of making others and ourselves wrong. When you place blame and label someone as being wrong — you hold the belief that you somehow need to:
Correct
Control
Change
Convince
This never fairs well, and most definitely doesn’t lead to that unconditional love we seek.
Why do we do this? Because we hold unrealistic expectations of how the world works. Other humans just aren’t conforming to your conditioned ideas of how things ‘should’ be occurring.
Judgment, blaming, and complaining all become acceptable. When we see ourselves and others as objects, or problems that need to be fixed, there is no room for authentic love. No one has the power to make you happy; happiness is found within our own constructs of our minds.
Our belief systems, values, standards and expectations — are all interlaced to form how you express and receive love. Until you live in compassion and understanding, the love you give will be conditional.
Love is saying; ‘I feel differently’ instead of ‘you're wrong’.
Love is not exploding anytime someone disagrees.
Love is understanding that a belief isn’t an entire human.
Love is accepting that we can detach our emotions from others postulations.
Love is respect for others autonomy.
The issue with conditional love is that individuals place higher value on something other than the relationship. They make the relationship transactional in nature. They are implying it’s not really you that I care for, it’s that car that you drive; or it’s your amazing rack that she has; or that job with financial security that he holds.
The thing I first fell in love with in regards to New York City is people are generally very forward with the fact that their love is contingent on what they are getting. Every where else I have been love is definitely conditional — but people like to manipulate the facts, so they don’t seem like a selfish asshole. I prefer honesty in this regard. If you’re going to use me to meet your needs, be honest and I will also use you to get my needs met. There are no hurt feels this way.
To be frank, no matter how you want to sugar coat that shit, when you engage in a conditional relationship — you’re essentially saying I don’t really care about you, but instead care more about the things you do to make me feel pleasure.
When you care more about the validation you get from another human; you are not having a relationship with that person, but rather the service of affirmations they are providing you.
When you care about your husbands financial security that he is providing you; you are not having a relationship with him, but rather the financial security he is providing you.
When you care about the success of your child’s career to the extent that you get upset when they miss the mark; you aren’t having a relationship with your child, but rather a relationship with their success.
We create an attachment to a depthless object and idea that meets our needs, which inevitably leads to no real connection. This is a vicious cycle because it is happiness that we seek — yet we run to the exact things that cannot provide it, through arbitrary conditions that will invariably disintegrate as we change .
If we want true love we need to see others as something other than the benefits they provide.
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