The Secret to Unconditional Love

Everyone wants to be loved unconditionally, but so many of us don’t really know exactly what it is.

Unconditional love is showing love, expressing love and being loving, no matter what.

It’s being appreciative, understanding, compassionate, good-natured and encouraging even in the face of disagreement and negativity. Otherwise, it’s simply conditional.

It’s impossible to be that loving without filling yourself up with unconditional love for yourself, first and foremost. In order to give it, you must actually have it already within you to give!

You cannot generate love from an empty vessel. It’s not selfish to focus on yourself with love and compassion. In fact, it’s the only way that you can have the generosity of spirit to love unconditionally. I call it putting yourself first so that you can serve your partner and others generously.

There is no way that you can be that patient and kind in the midst of what are sometimes ridiculous comments, inattentiveness, mistakes, forgetfulness and even straight up nastiness, without having a whole lot of unconditional love built up and radiating through you.

So, what’s the secret to get to this loving place?

By putting yourself first and investing in your own happiness you start to accumulate a love reserve. When you make it a point to enjoy your life, accept yourself and live in a place of non-judgment each and every day, it eventually becomes second nature. Sounds kind of unrealistic doesn’t it?

It’s not, but it does take a real commitment to wanting a balanced, happy and fulfilling life. If you truly desire this and let go of any addictions to complaining, drama, catastrophising, misery and victimhood that you may have, you can definitely achieve this.

When you become hurt, angry, frustrated, disappointed, frightened or confused, it’s always an indication that you aren’t loving yourself enough. Become aware that feeling bad has less to do with what’s going on around you (as unpleasant as it may be) and so much more to do with what is going on inside of you.

When you increase your reserve of unconditional love for yourself by relaxing, being creative, having fun, being grateful and speaking to yourself gently instead of with criticism, you begin to build up and give off a loving energy in everything you do.

These loving choices increase your energy, make you smile, encourage you to connect with others in joyful ways, inspire you to listen more and spur you on to express random acts of kindness.

When you’re in this peaceful state, love flows back to you exponentially. At this point you actually don’t need love from your partner or anyone else. And guess what happens then?

Voila! That’s when you get all the love you deserve. When you don’t need it.

By don’t need it, I mean that you’re no longer coming from a needy place where you perceive that love from outside of yourself will take you from being unhappy to being happy. Love from others is only capable of creating more love once it already exists within you. Only you can build up the foundational reservoir of love within.

Receiving love is similar to getting a bank loan.When you go to the bank to borrow money, they’re only interested in lending you money if you don’t really need it (ie. when you have a home and a car for collateral, you earn good money and already have savings and investments). When you’re really desperate for money, there’s no way the bank will give you a loan. Real, unconditional love operates like this also.

You must have unconditional love within and for yourself in order to draw love toward you consistently from any source outside of yourself. The great news is that you’re in control of this. When you love yourself enough, unconditionally, no matter what you do or what is going on in your life, it will start to add up and change the content of your thoughts and emotions.

When your thoughts and emotions change, so do your behaviors.

If love is what you’re full of, than this is all you will radiate. Your partner and others must mirror this. It’s the law.