What is true love? Do you know for sure?
Love is one of those four-letter words that can turn our insides out and our minds upside down. Either way, I have witnessed over the years that love, as it is defined for us by the mass collective, has been mostly over-rated, under-rated, misinterpreted and used as a formidable disguise for people to get away with a lot of physical and emotional drama.
I am not down on love! Nor am I down on being loving or loved.
I’m all for love in its’ purest form. As a life and relationship coach I share with my clients about a particular kind of love. The kind of love I teach and guide my clients to aspire to, is a love that is unconditional. You see there is only unconditional love. It took me over half a century to realize this. I don’t want it to take that long for you.
The truth is we are brainwashed to believe in a sanitized, romanticized, and conditional form of love. At a very early age we are led to believe that we are not lovable. As children, we are very impressionable. Until we are teenagers we live in a hypnotic state and are unable to think logically or objectively at all. Most of us did not receive the love we craved as children. The love we needed was unconditional. We also needed to feel safe. We needed a love that had attention with presence given to us with heavy doses of paternal affection and most of all acceptance of who we were as individuals. By the time we are teens we begin to buy in to the notion that love is, on the one hand, romantic and beautiful and at the same time painful and loaded with disappointment. This resulted in most of us entering adulthood in a catch-22 state. What we wanted the most we also feared the most because we believed that love was conditional and we didn’t meet the standards that were required to give and receive it.
Herein lies the paradox of love that has been created through the generations.
We have romanticized it. We have heard, read, and talked about the illicit and forbidden aspects of it. We dream about experiencing it, feeling it, getting emotionally high from it. We even avoid it. Yet, when all is said and done, we have been totally misdirected to where to find it and how to harness its’ true power.
There are few of us who were taught or told where the true source of love can be found. I, for one, can never recall one instant in my early life where it was indicated to me where I could find true love. It always felt so evasive, elusive, and unattainable. And yet on a deep, soul level I knew it was hanging out somewhere nearby. It was not until I began a personal, transformational journey that I discovered love of the unconditional variety. This is the only true state of love there is.
At this point if you are feeling confused and dismayed, I certainly understand! Unconditional love is soul love. It is the only type of love that includes everyone and everything and that includes you and me. This also includes the ex-husband who you would love to strangle for ditching you for another woman. And, yes, it also includes the father who left your mother, you, and your siblings and forgot to leave a forwarding address. And this also includes your so-called best friend who ended up ‘stealing’ the love of your life. Let’s also add to this list your mother who hasn’t said a kind word to you since music was recorded on 8 tracks. And let’s not forget that ungrateful child of yours who hasn’t called you in months. Finally, let’s throw in that nasty boss or co-worker at the office who by just quitting or getting fired would restore your faith in divine justice!
Contemplate this for a few moments or even a few days or weeks: we are convinced we need love in our life.
Consider this, too: How can you need anything when you already have it? The power of unconditional love lives, breathes, and flows in each of us. And how do I know this for sure? Because you and I possess the same consciousness. We may look totally different. We may have different likes and dislikes. You may have gifts and talents that I do not possess and vice-versa, yet one thing is for sure: at the deepest level within each of us lives a soul and that soul only knows one kind of love and it is unconditional.
We have all experienced unconditional love. The most obvious examples are when we are around babies and pets. They only know unconditional love, and they touch our souls, so in return we give them the same. That is until the baby grows into a little person who wants to demonstrate his or her independence or the dog eats the toes off your favorite pair of shoes.
Love relationships, as we see illustrated on the big screen, the TV, and in romance novels, is primarily revolved around a good ‘roll in the hay’ followed by a commitment to ‘living happily ever after.’ Prince Charming, Cinderella, and the whole crew on a journey of ever-lasting bliss. The truth is however, that we never get to check back in with Prince Charming and Cinderella (now Princess Charming) to see how they are doing after the honeymoon is over. If we were flies on the wall, we would be quickly heading for the nearest exit because Prince Charming has already dropped his end of the bargain. Unprintable words are flying from the mouths of the Royal Couple. And why? Because love that has conditions is like a business contract. Once a condition is broken, the contract is breached and the agreement collapses. Unconditional love, on the other hand, having no conditions, can never be breached.
Over the last two plus decades, Chris and I have shared with clients the myth that exists about compromise in relationships:
Most of us have been led to believe that love requires compromise. It’s a 50/50 split. ‘I will meet you half-way and you agree to do the same.’ What this literally means is we never truly allow ourselves to be totally invested in any relationship be it personal or professional. All true relationship, which can only be rooted in unconditional love, is about extending one hundred percent of yourself to your significant other, your friendships, your business associates, the world, and most significantly, to you!
To emotionally and spiritually move into a position that is totally grounded in unconditional love, is a process of personal transformation. It is not an easy process because it requires us to look at all the barriers we have put up that keep us from loving everyone and ourselves unconditionally. It may surprise you to know that this one single metamorphosis or change is the basis for all self-improvement, self-help, and self-empowerment. It is also the one and only remedy for truly feeling happy and successful in all areas of our life.
At this point I will add the caveat that it is still great to have a romantic relationship that includes a roll in the hay. The key here is to not confuse it with unconditional love. The hope is that the love you experience deepens beyond all the conditions that you have set for yourself and other people and that you find yourself loving people unconditionally because they are perfect, whole, and complete just like you! Going forward, put it all in real perspective. The next time love seems to hurt, be open to asking yourself, ‘How can I be unconditionally loving in this situation?’ This one simple question can literally transform your life!
Are you ready to improve all your relationships including the one you have with yourself? Contact us for a complimentary, no obligation coaching session.
Written by Jon Satin
Jon Satin and Chris Pattay – The Possibility Coaches™
© The Possibility Coaches, LLC
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