Understanding Relationships: Unconditional Love and Acceptance
The term unconditional love is common place in our world, but what does it really mean? Simply, without condition. To love without condition means giving yourself, and the significant others in your life, the freedom to be who and how they want to be. This is one of the biggest challenges in understanding relationships, but really living unconditional love and acceptance will deliver the greatest joys possible.
I often say to people that the purpose of relationship is not to find another who will complete you, but rather to find another with whom you can share your completeness. If you feel complete within yourself, you can then share yourself fully and love unconditionally in the relationship.
If you are complete within yourself, then you don’t need another to be happy. You can be happy in or out of relationship and from this place, you are truly able to love. Unconditional love is when you can love another for who they are choosing to be, knowing you don’t need anything from them to be happy.
If you are complete within yourself, then you don’t expect another to be any other way than the way they are choosing to be. Unconditional love is accepting another for exactly who they are, not forcing the person to change to meet your expectations of how they should be. It is about giving this person the freedom to be exactly who they want to be by allowing, supporting and enabling them in everyway you can.
If you are complete within yourself, then you are not jealous of what another may have or be doing. You will understand that whatever is occurring for them is their stuff, and what is showing up for you is perfect for you at this moment in time. Unconditional love knows that jealousy (besides not being a pretty look) is a pointless emotion. If you know you don’t need anything outside of yourself to be truly happy, being jealous is simply avoiding looking within to find the love that lies within yourself.
To be able to unconditionally love another, you must first unconditionally love yourself. This means to be true to yourself – to know, understand and love who you truly are. The next step is to allow, support and enable your partner to be true to himself or herself – for them to know, understand and love who they truly are. This is both the beauty and challenge of relationship. A powerful tool to keep handy in learning how to love unconditionally is to ask the question “What would love do now?” “How would love respond to this situation?” “What would love say now?”
It is when we are complete within ourselves, and we love from this place, that the true beauty and joy of relationship is revealed. Try it this week and see how it goes. You may just find that you are more apt to understand the dynamics between you and your significant other.
