This blog is a rambling exploration of unconditional love and its impact on our life. We’ve all heard songs and seen movies about unconditional love, and can read about it in thousands of self-help books. But, one wonders what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, many yearn for it, and some will go to great lengths to achieve it. Many people feel incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of much of our anger and discontent, and perhaps we could say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food. Many days I have asked why my blog has become one of my best friends, why most of my followers, or bleaders as Julie Powell calls them, are there for me unconditionally when some friends or family are not? If we don’t have unconditional love, then we can compulsively try to fill our emptiness with whatever feels good in the moment—money, anger, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, power, and the conditional approval of others. Anything we use as a substitute for unconditional love feels good for the moment, but it doesn’t last and never gives us the feeling of genuine happiness that unconditional love provides. Why is the need for your mother or father to truly be there for you, to give you unconditional support and love, so damned strong? I see this with a few young men that I love deeply. Their souls, hearts, and inner child desperately wants their biological mothers to love them unconditionally, even perhaps to say sorry they were not there for them when they were little boys, to say sorry they left the marriage between their parents, and that it was not their fault, not ever that the relationship broke down. The mothers leaving the relationship with their children’s fathers is not the issue, as many of us get divorced from marriage or defacto relationships (yep, same damn thing, but the split of a defacto relationship does not have the stigma!). But I have seen these young men yearn inside for unconditional love, and when they were younger it coloured their whole world, seeping into their souls and self esteem, eating away at it like a cancer. It might be easy to say, it is a choice, let it go, you must learn to live with the fact that your mother or father loves you, but that this love might always be conditional. It is not easy to live with a parent or partner or friend like this, not easy to let go of the hurt, not easy to let go of the feeling there is something wrong with you. Even at my age, I still want truly unconditional, uncomplicated love and friendship from my family and friends. My husband and children, and a few close friends are not scared to face the future with me; they are willing to openly discuss the awful things that are happening, they are able to laugh and cry about these things, with me, by my side. Perhaps the greatest goal of all is to offer unconditional love. To ask for it from others, you also have to accept those people the way they are, unconditionally, 100%. We don’t all love in the same way, or express our love in the same way. Getting ones head around that simple but sometimes challenging fact can make it easier to believe someone loves you unconditionally as the innate need to be loved in the way you need or want to be loved is tough to let go of. Whatever we want from others, we must also offer to others; the only way to change another person is to change yourself.
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Hi Kate. Unconditional love the “agape”love I learned about only when I became a christian. learning about it through Jesus his cruicifiction and the reason behind His journey to the cross and his death that followed and WHY He did it..
To show us that the God given Unconditonal love..is the only way to love,forgive and accept each other “unconditionally. I dont believe people can truly grasp this type of self sacrifice of themselves “without” undesrstanding that this Love is from God to us, revealed through Jesus life and His death. for us. and to change our destiny’s from Hoplesness to a faith towards “life ahead”. having an eternal purpose.
Our human spirit cannot give out this way. as it is a selfish love, It needs fulfilling by giving and receiving back. and when its not given back as we expect it to be THEN negative attitudes arrise and become distructive.
Without Gods spirit within our hearts, and understanding in a reality of this unique heavenly gift to us, accepting Jesus as being the author of this AGAPE love
Not many can activate that kind of love to others, that dont treat them how we all desire to be treated by each other.
I learned in Bible college a wonderful truth. If were living out this typs of love. THEN we will be able to accept critisism in the same emotion as praise. WHOW that really had an effect on me. As when people from the church criticised me I reacted angrily against them . BUT when they praised me I felt GOOD.
I began to TRY to accept that principle and activate it towards those that rebuked my beliefs against theirs. As that unconditonal love spirit should not take in offence agaisnt the person giving it out. Just as Jesus showed as he hung on that cross. filled with forgivenss as they mocked,and abused His self worth His idnentiy and His cuase. that insight can cahnge our attitiudes..
So without that revelation within us. How can we activiate the same treatment to those that persecute our self worth and our own goals.. even if it is to try to make a better world. Human love has not that gift. x
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Actually thanks for this Kate, its got me thinking in a good way.
I just thought – we can’t do anything about what other people do and think in the end, but we do have ultimate control about what we ourselves do and think – maybe that is why the paradox works? ie better to give love than to ask for love. And why if you say, “well I’ll only love you if you love me back” doesn’t work.
I know I’m continually failing with this, but thanks for reminding me why its worthwhile.
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This is my opinion:
Love (here I mean “Agape, see below), by its very nature, is unconditional. The paradox is – it is better to love, and to give, than to be loved, and to receive. Or rather, it is better to invest effort into loving, and giving, than effort in the pursuit of being love, and receiving. If you manage to achieve the first, the second just happens.
I am not very good at this.
(and btw I am not talking about the love of pop songs and etc, more the concept of “Agape”, the greek word which I have been told expresses all-giving love)
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I think I agree with you on this, but it is a paradox, and I do also think too often the giving (of love) is too conditional… hard to achieve, hard to understand. With love xx
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