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What is unconditional love??  Every sage, profit, writer, singer, and muse has attempted to describe unconditional love, but have any come close to identifying it? The Greeks called it agape, Victorian romance writers spoke of unrequited love, and the religious refer to pious love.  As a whole, every answer fits together, and in pieces every answer is incomplete.  An enigma for all ages, unconditional love is considered the hardest love to harness.

The term, unconditional love means at its essence to love someone despite their character qualities or their actions.  “Wow!  Are you kidding?  Impossible!”, some might say.

Yet, often without knowing it, we extend unconditional love every day of our lives.  Surprised?  How many times have the people closest to you been nasty, cruel, impossible…or downright unlovable.  Yet, once we’ve had an emotional connection to this person, whether friend, daughter, sister, or beloved, we find ourselves turning back to the relationship, often again and again.  Think for a moment—when was the last time you automatically forgave a loved one, despite their actions?  Happens more often than you think, doesn’t it?

Unconditional love is often born from a connection we have to divine grace.   A realization and acknowledgment that this other person that is so difficult to love, still deserves love; that love doesn’t have to be earned to be received.  Perhaps it is something within all of us that knows that we too may require the same compassion and understanding when we are less than our best.

Unconditional love is simplistically, loving without assigning our own conditions to that love.   When we’re finding ourselves unable to love unconditionally it’s usually because we have put so many conditions on loving ourselves.

Dr. Asa Don Brown, in  Waiting to Live, said, 

“I have frequently thought to myself, ‘If I can teach my daughter one thing, it will be the love of self unconditionally.’ Unconditional love and peace are obtainable, but they are only obtainable if I can learn to move beyond the conditions that I placed on my life. When conditions are placed on my life and on the lives of others, they ensure that I will never experience the depths of love and happiness.”  

Unconditional love isn’t about allowing people to take advantage of your good will and heart.  Unconditional love is generous with forgiveness and renewal, but it does not mean we live without personal boundaries or allow our loved ones to abandon their accountability for their actions.  You can choose to love someone despite their actions, because people and their behaviors are not one and the same.  Everyone makes choices in their life, based on their own level of conscious awareness.  We all are on our own unique journey, and the only one walking in our shoes.  Our interaction and support of one another is a part of the learning and growing in our journeys.  As the giver of unconditional love, you may find yourself offering your support in a certain situations—and in others, step back and allowing your loved one to experience his or her choices fully; independent of your involvement.

When you engage in a relationship, whether it’s friendship, familial, or intimate, you are utilizing your infinite, creative being.  When you tap into your infinite, unlimited self from a place of love, you begin to celebrate the ability to experience a bigger kind of love, by becoming more tolerant, gentle, forgiving, and kind with the people in your life. Doing so requires you to release your assumptions and righteous positions and honor another’s journey while holding loving boundaries around your own personal growth and journey.

Unconditional love is an act of supreme consciousness.  There is a circular flow to love that is a never-ending cycle of giving and receiving.  To receive you must be willing to give.  To give you must be willing to receive.  When loving seems difficult or you feel totally unlovable, focus on the circle of love…see it as complete and unending…and then just be willing to release what you can to step back into the circle.

Let’s celebrate the potential of love to heal and renew hearts and lives every day of the year!  I hope you’ve had a very Happy Valentines Month, and may you embrace the unconditional love inside!

-Crystal