Q&A Tuesday is here! Yay!
Victor had the following question for me: My question’s going to hit your privacy a bit, if you don’t mind it… Are you able to love unconditionally? Are we, human beings, able to love others unconditionally? Not in theory, but really, really unconditionally?
Watch the video to find out.
Video Highlights:
- Do I think that people can love unconditionally? Yes, I do.
- Do I love unconditionally? Yes I do. 🙂
- Unconditional love means that my feeling of love isn’t dependent on anything anyone does.
- If I love you unconditionally, I don’t need you to love me back. I’ll still love you.
- You don’t need to say it. I still love you.
- I love because I choose to love. It’s a choice.
- If I have an argument with my honey, I make myself feel better, on my own. Not because he apologized, but because I choose to feel better. His actions don’t affect how I feel.
- I can love someone, even if we’re incompatible as a couple. I love people that have gravitated out of my life. We are no longer a vibrational match, but I feel nothing but love for them.
- Do I love unconditionally 100% of the time? No. And I wouldn’t want to.
- Just like at a buffet, you don’t just eat the one dish you already know that you love, you want to have different experiences in life. You don’t spend 100% of your time in one vibration.
- So, I may love someone and then have a negative thought about them. When I do, I find out why I had that negative thought, release the cause and boop! I go right back up to love.
- You don’t have to wait until you stumble into love, because you met someone that makes it easy for you to feel that way. You can CHOOSE to love.
Have you ever experienced unconditional love? What do you think about loving unconditionally? Share in the comments?
Omg, you are so adorable, Melody. I have a major girl crush on you. Girl crush = platonic non sexual romance and I admire and adore you. Sorry! Stop being so cute!
Thanks Melody – you must be a very peaceful person to be in a relationship with 🙂 I have actually never been cheated on, but can imagine that would be a very confronting thing. My ex husband bought lots of really bad behaviour into our marriage and it really annoys me that I do still love him. So maybe this is what it is… Unconditional Love! I do choose not to live with him or be in a relationship with him, but yes – I do love him. Thanks again for your sharing – I find your insights refreshing.
🙂 Have a magical day!
Hi Melody
That was really a very beautiful clip on unconditional love. I have actually never believed in it myself and have placed conditions on relationships such as ‘must not cheat’ or else… I wont love you anymore… What are your thoughts on unconditional love and cheating? Would you still love them?
Hey Miranda,
Well, I’m a bit of a weird one, but yes, I would still love them. Would I stay? I don’t know. It would depend on what exactly was being mirrored back to me and how it all felt. The cheating might’ve been a catalyst to let me know that the relationship was way past its expiration date, or it could’ve been a way for me to remove an obstacle that would ultimately bring us closer together.
The big piece is that loving someone doesn’t mean that you have to be in the same room with them. In fact, sometimes it’s a hell of a lot easier to love someone from afar… 🙂
Huge hugs,
Melody
Ah, my last post for today.
http://arlynnpresser.com/2012/04/08/on-love-change-and-that-pesky-habit-of-falling-in-love-with-someone-and-then-wanting-to-change-them/#comments
This was the article about unconditional love.
So this girls boyfriend loved her but with the secret goal to change her.
Unconditional would be accepting they may NEVER get better, but somehow they are lovable anyway.
Did I get it right? Am I learning yet?
Hey Alice,
Unconditional love means not needing them to change in order to love them. Seeing only the best in them and not focusing on the bits you’d want to change. Accepting them as they are. You can know that your boyfriend is a total slob, for example and not really care. In the beginning of a relationship, we often don’t. Later, we make a big deal out of it. The love just turned conditional…
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
You write: You know, I’ve never thought of this, but being far away from many of the people I love may well have played a major part in me gaining an understanding of unconditional love.
Do you see how this makes clear what the meaning and purpose of duality is? In a world of duality you can take your distance and look at something from there and by doing that get a much better understanding of what it is you are looking at.
I also did not realise at all that I was loved unconditionally and what that meant. I knew subconsciously of course but I was not aware of it before I became aware of everything that is ‘wrong’ and loveless in this world. That is why I completely turned away from the idea that this world is just a punishment or something like that for whatever we did wrong or that our vibration got lower because of it. I now believe that it is a means to experience and figure out things and as such a thing of choice. And ‘bad’ things do make you appreciate the ‘good’ things so much more than before that finally you realize that they were not bad things at all but in fact were good too, which brings you back to unity with a deeper awareness and which was why we descended into this 3D world in the first place.
I also turned back more or less from the idea that this world is just an illusion. It is an illusion seen from the viewpoint of a higher dimension but as we live in this world right now it is as real as it can get. That is why sometimes messages from Spirit as channeled by John Cali or things you say from your higher consciousness are a bit confusing when you look at them from a 3D point of view. That is why I have returned to the idea that cause and effect are real, karma and reincarnation are real, because right now we live in this world and deal with the realities and concepts of this world. When we start talking LOA and all these ideas we have been playing around with, we are already on the territory of a higher dimension and that is how it is meant to be but maybe we should keep clear what is what in order to not loose the thread of what is real and what is Real or things can become very confusing when people start looking at 5D or higher concepts with a 3D outlook.
Oh boy, I seem to have gotten away from the subject somewhat.
Love,
Anny
Hey Anny,
I totally agree on the duality bit. The contrast serves us, but of course, we cannot see that until we have released it (trying to see the true purpose of contrast while we’re “suffering” from it is kind of futile and frustrating). But it is all there for a reason and it is all beneficial.
I don’t think this is an illusion. It’s energy that we are perceiving, and so nothing is as solid as we think it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not “real” and very, very important. I don’t believe in karma, personally, and reincarnation only to the degree that we can live again and again (or simultaneously), but not in terms of lessons from one life to another or a previous life having any influence on this one. But what we are doing here is helping the expansion of the entire Universe. It’s ALL important. This took me a long time to grasp. Whenever I touched upon this subject during meditation, I got completely overwhelmed by what came through. I couldn’t grasp the bigness of it, the importance of it. My mind couldn’t believe that we really are that important. Little old us. But we are. Through us (the physical, not just humans…), the entire Universe gets to experience itself from every angle, and come to ever new conclusions and desires, creating ever more experiences and angles, going further than anything and anyone ever has.
I don’t really think in terms of 3D or 5D, but more in terms of frequencies, beliefs and filters. And if you are not in the vibrational vicinity of a thought, you won’t “get” it. So, even channeled information will not resonate with everyone. Or you may hear different things when you re-listen to a channeled message again, because your vibration has shifted. Everyone can self-select what to listen to by simply choosing what resonates with them and leaving the rest. If we do that, the whole picture starts to emerge much faster. 🙂
Yeah… I go off on tangents too. LOL.
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
I know what you mean and I really agree with you, only we are used to using different words for the same thing. When I say 3D and 5D I just use terms I have learned in another playingfield so to speak to define different vibrations.
And I know that you do not like the terms karma and reincarnation very much but it is a fact that many people do and use them to get along on their path. For many in the West it is already a step forward from the dogma’s of the church. I used them too to be able to define things and I found it a good tool. That is just it: a tool. To me it is reality but not Reality, if you understand what I mean.
Karma and reincarnation can be interpreted in lots of ways and that is just what people are doing. I believe that most will move from a ‘negative’ interpretation to a ‘positive’ one pretty quickly and when they have made everything clear to themselves they will be ready to release the concept.
That is why I like using certain terms in Capital characters and in lower case characters in order to distinguish between them. But by calling certain terms reality again, i acknowledge the right of people to look at things that way because in their experience it is real. Like the dogma’s of the church are real to people who live in that world. They only become an illusion, or a deep sleep as the bible calls it, when you are waking up and on your way back to unity consciousness.
Love,
Anny
Hi Melody,
I just reread your comment and suddenly noticed this:
The contrast serves us, but of course, we cannot see that until we have released it (trying to see the true purpose of contrast while we’re “suffering” from it is kind of futile and frustrating).
I think the key-word here is suffering. Because suffering never brings anybody anything. As soon as you stop focussing on your pain however and start looking for another perspective the suffering stops and simultaneously you discover the contrast and move on to appreciation for all the good things. The first step is that you start appreciating that which you (temporarily) do not have anymore and always took for granted and from there you move on to other things. At least that is my experience, but of course that is also covered by the term you use: release.
I think it is good to know that often we mean the same things even when we use different words.
Love,
Anny
Absolutely Anny. I agree with everything you said here. I actually love it when I see people expressing this stuff in different ways. The core of it is showing up everywhere – in medicine and psychology and mathematics and religion. Everywhere. Yay!
Huge happy shiny puppy hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
I love it too when people from different traditions are starting to say the same thing. For me it is kind of an internal proof that we are on the right track when that happens. And as we all say it a little differently, it gives you the opportunity to look at it from all sides.
It is also showing up in nature (ask wicca’s), in the seasons, in the cycle of life, in the stars I think (they were not staring up at the sky for nothing in ancient times) and in language as well. I know that for a fact about Hebrew but I think it is true for Arabic and Sanskrit as well (and here I talk about alphabets too) and maybe for many other languages.
I myself read some books by a Jewish scholar about the numerical values of Hebrew words and other codes in the bible. I found it fascinating and started trying it out for myself as I had a Hebrew bible and lots of different translations as well. It turned out to be fascinating stuff and because of my concentration I got into sort of a trance state as well that showed me all kinds of truths that are also surfacing elsewhere now. I hardly scratched the surface, if at all, but it has taught me so much.
A very important truth is that the Truth is all there in the bible, in hidden layers, waiting for people to be ready to see it. It is hidden in the language, in the words and names, and in numerical values as characters are also numbers. Which linked love and unity for instance, both being thirteen. Do you see how important this is? As long as the words are there, no matter what story you tell with them, the Truth is there. I think the same is true for the koran, as I have heard a discussion of muslim women who were studying the koran more or less in the same way as I did with the bible. There also are hidden layers of interpretation there.
I reread the whole string of comments and now my eye fell on what you wrote about the awesomeness of creation. How overwhelming it all is. I agree totally. Yet it all boils down to the One manifesting and experiencing as the many. That is us, humans, together with the animals, plants and minerals, not to mention the rest of the universe. We are it and as such created it and decided to totally enter into it in order to experience it. And we made kind of a game of it and decided to forget everything we know and rediscover it for ourselves in the contrast environment of duality. The Group (channeled by Steve Rother, do you know them?) says we put a blindfold on. The bible tells us we became blind. Descending into matter = entering a physical body, incarnating (here you also see it in the language because incarnating means going into flesh: in carne; our Dutch word lichaam for body means something like coat of flesh). So you see that in the past they still knew.
In the bible the word that is used for physical body (the animal skin that God put on Adam and Eve) is ‘or’. This has two hidden meanings. In the first place it sounds exactly like the word ‘or’ that means light, except that it is written slightly different. As light it is written 1-6-200 and as skin it is written as 70-6-200. 1 stands for oneness of course and 70 for the many, multiple, diverse. So man no longer lived in his lightbody but in a material body and that meant that his eyes became closed to unity and were opened to diversity. It also meant that man became blind because this word 70-6-200 can also be read as ‘iwer’, which means blind. This is possible because the Hebrew alphabet does not really know vowels, so you only have the consonants and can form many different words with them. This of course gives endless possibilities to play with.
I know this sounds difficult but when you get the hang of it, it is fascinating when something starts to unravel. When you have to work at it very hard, you know that there is probably nothing there in that approach.
For a couple of years I have been occupied with this quite extensively and I enjoyed it very much to discover many truths. Many truths I knew to be true but I had not really lived these truths yet. I started writing a few books which were judged to be very good but too personal and too technical for most readers so they were never published.
Then my daughter’s health went increasingly down the hill some six, seven years ago and pulled me down with her when she came into a very dark place. She could not really see light anywhere and I could not help her. Then I had to start living the truths that I had found and very slowly we climbed up again. Now she is almost ready to take to her wings and I, well, right now I know that those truths I found actually are true.
Well, another digression, and now you know some new things about me although I do not know if there are seven!
Love,
Anny
Hey Anny,
I love this! I firmly believe that mathematics will actually prove how the Universe works. You can measure energy with numbers and so numbers are the key to unraveling the mysteries of the Universe.
I totally agree that the truth is hidden in the bible, the Koran, the Torah, and all other spiritual scriptures. Sure, they have been changed and translated and agendas have been added, but the underlying energy of the message stays intact. And those who are ready to hear it, will hear it, no matter what has been done to the words. That mathematical structure will always be present.
Thank you for sharing more of yourself!
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
I think I have always known what unconditional love is. First of all I experienced it from my parents, and most of all my mother. As a kid I thought everyone’s parents were that way. That is also where my concept of God as unconditional love comes from I think and as such my totally different view on religion. It never dawned on me that there could ever be anything wrong with it until I was almost grown up. And this feeling of love also gave me a feeling of total freedom to believe what I wanted to believe and to search for the truth wherever I wanted because I felt loved anyway. And when I did find out about all the things that had gone wrong I did not turn to hatred or blame God but I started to look for reasons why things had gone wrong. I just could keep on loving. Of course this did not necessarily mean that I did everything right and experienced no bad periods, but this awareness of unconditional love somehow always helped me to find a higher perspective to look at things and to grow out of the difficulties eventually.
And first of all, to me unconditional love had nothing (especially) to do with romantic love. Romantic love has to do with mutual attraction and when that attraction disappears, the romantic love has also gone. Which of course does not mean that you cannot unconditionally love your partner but that is a whole different side. When you unconditionally love your partner, you will also be able to keep the romantic love continuing.
Love is a Force, an Energy. I think Source Energy. People say God is Love and I feel that literally to be true and Love is God when your love is unconditional. It is like the sun that shines. It shines on everyone, no matter what.
Love has to do with unity and cannot exist with an attitude of separation. In Hebrew the numerical value of the word love is 13 and so is the numerical value of the word one. It is not for nothing that you hear the number 13 popping up as a holy number nowadays in different traditions.
Love is unconditional when it frees people. Love is unconditional when you let your children move to the other side of the world without playing on their conscience. When you want to hold on to them, to keep them near you, that is not love but possessiveness. My parents had to deal with that when I moved to Israel in a period when there was war and terrorism and we ourselves also have to deal with it, with one son already living at the other side of the world and two other children also planning to leave some time in the future.
Love,
Anny
Hey Anny,
That was so beautifully stated. I didn’t grow up with an unconditionally loving God, but I always disagreed with the conditional love that I was taught God had. It just never made any sense to me.
Unconditional love is our natural state but boy do we get trained out of it quickly. I think it’s awesome that you had such powerful role models. Looking back, I had people that loved me unconditionally, but I wasn’t always aware of it.
True, unconditional love is such a powerful force. It’s healing and uplifting and clarifying and simplifying. It boils everything down to what’s truly important: that pure feeling of love. Nothing else matters as much.
You know, I’ve never thought of this, but being far away from many of the people I love may well have played a major part in me gaining an understanding of unconditional love. It’s harder to try and control others when you’re nowhere near them. It becomes really clear that you either love them as they are or don’t.
Thanks for the awesome insight! 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Loving a baby is probably as easy as loving a puppy or a kitten, but what happens when the baby becomes an adolescent, then a teenager, etc – it is possible to love unconditionally for a time without reciprocation but not for one’s natural life. If I love you unconditionally and we never meet what does it matter to you? Love is personal and should never be made so broad and limitless – even Jesus Christ required something for his unconditional love. It was forgiveness.
Ah, but you’ve put your finger right on it: Love has nothing to do with the person that is loved, and everything to do with the person who is doing the loving. Whether or not you love unconditionally is up to you, not the object of your love.
Just because most people don’t love unconditionally (and they don’t), doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I think it’s something worth striving for. You are so right. As babies grow up, we place a lot more expectation on them. Our love becomes conditional. We withhold love when the child does something to disappoint us and give love when they do something that pleases us. We ask them to change so that it’s easier for us to love them. But… it doesn’t have to be this way. We can choose to love unconditionally, but it does take focus and yes, it’s a process that involves letting go of beliefs as well as forgiveness. Jesus was demonstrating the process of how to love unconditionally. He was all about teaching people that they could do what he was doing. Again, this is just my point of view. No one HAS TO love unconditionally, but I personally think it’s an awesome feeling – when how you feel about someone does not depend on anything they do. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
It is impossible to love unconditionally because you will demand something from them because of that love and in this case it is to have people watch your videos. This is your quid pro quo with the public therefore in a personal relationship the emotional investment will nearly require a response from your significant person. Human beings do not love unconditionally like dogs.
Hi Gia,
Welcome to Deliberate Receiving!
For most people – this is true. They have never loved or been loved unconditionally. We grow up being taught that this is the way to love. But my point was that we can surpass that and it is possible to love unconditionally. This is why I like to use the example of a baby – we usually can see how we’d love a baby unconditionally. We don’t expect anything in return from the baby, at least not short term and yet, we still love them. We can achieve this feeling for anyone. We just have to realize it. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Great video Melody! This topic is actually one I’ve been working on allot lately! It was a huge learning curve for me. I “knew” I was responsible for my
emotions not others, yet it was so hard to really fully make that shift to the point where I really believed it and lived that way. It also freed me from feeling
responsible, guilty, or just plain awful when others reacted emotionally to me such as anger, hurt or another strong emotion when I never meant to upset them.
I’m all for admitting my own wrongs, apologizing, etc. but it’s an amazing and freeing place to be when you know each person alone is responsible for their own feelings!
This realization and shift put me in a place where I could start truly experiencing and understand unconditional love for others in a deeper way.
As you said, unconditional love is a choice. I love this! Choices make things so much simpler! I learned that recently with my choice to feel “contentment”, content with my life, with myself, etc. I made it a choice and therefore I am content. I didn’t have to work on it or aim for it, I just made a choice and followed through, so much simpler. 🙂
So awesome video! 🙂
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne!
Isn’t it empowering when you realize that you, and you alone are in charge of how you feel? And this is true for everyone else, as well? You can’t control how others feel, so feeling guilty or responsible for everyone else’s emotions is insane. Of course, many people take that to an extreme and think that this means I’m condoning going around and hurting others. But when we take full responsibility for how we feel, we know how to feel better without lashing out and hurting others isn’t a thought we even have access to.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Thank you for your awesome contribution!
Super hugs,
Melody
Personally, I think the closest thing you will find to unconditional love is from a dog. I believe you will have periods of unconditional love but nowhere near as consistently as a dog. A dog has the unique ability to just live for the moment, which I wish I could get that in-tune with at times.
The next closest thing is the love you have for your kids and even a step further, a mother’s love for her kids.
True unconditional love is deep indeed; and that means regardless of what happens, or what someone does to you, you will love them unconditionally. That’s a pretty hard place to get to in my opinion. But that’s not to say you can’t love someone deeply and certainly unconditionally at times; but all the time regardless…..I don’t know……
Great vid BTW; I think I was loving you unconditionally while I was watching it………:)
Hey Bill,
You bring up a great point: Loving someone unconditionally does NOT mean that we have to allow them to treat us any way they want. You can love someone, and still realize that you have to get away from them, for your own good. YOUR love has nothing to do with them. You can choose to love from afar, where it’s safer. I have deep love for someone who is no longer in my life. This person hurt me deeply, but I released that pain and now I love him. But I’m not about to call him. That feeling of love serves me. It has nothing to do with him. That’s true unconditional love.
Dogs are awesome. There’s a reason that I like to say Happy Shiny Puppy Hugs. Puppies and dogs not only love unconditionally, but they demonstrate that love so openly. They come from a place of such connection. I adore dogs (and most other animals, but especially dogs…)
Ooh! Thank you! I did feel great making that video. It must have been your love. 😉
Happy Shiny Puppy Hugs!
Melody
Melody, you’ve got some great responses here. I think my own two cents would be that I really didn’t know “unconditional love” until I had kids. Not that people without kids can’t understand or give unconditional love, but for me, it just didn’t click. One day I was thinking about it and I just thought, even if my daughters disappointed me or hurt me deeply (and we all do it), I could NEVER think of ANYTHING that would cause me not to love them. And that’s when it made sense for me. Good thoughts!
Hey Bryan,
That’s a great example! I think a lot of people with kids only need to realize that they can generate that feeling for anyone (or even without anyone). People don’t realize it’s a choice to feel that way, but it totally is.
Thanks for stopping by and adding some pocket change. LOL.
Hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
So glad to see your bubbling personality on video. Just as I suspected, you are just as entertaining and informative on tape as you are on paper.
You’ll have to let me know how your videos are doing, I have a sinking feeling that I should be stepping up to the plate as well with more videos as well.
Thanks,
Bryce
Hey Bryce,
Thank you so much! I loved making this video. It was a little bit different talking about myself, instead of just answering a question, but it kind of made it more fun. Hmmmm.
I don’t have a lot of videos yet, but I’ve gotten over 5.000 views in total so far, so that’s not too bad… Not all of those people will click through to the site, but some of them will. I see it is opening another channel for the Universe to bring me those who resonate with me. 🙂 Plus, it’s a great way to connect with readers. Now, if only I could get y’all to send some videos back… 😀
Hugs!
Melody
“Jesus could love Hitler… can you?” 😉
Interesting question, Jason.
To me, Hitler is an extreme example of divorcing the actions from the soul. Can I love the soul of Hitler? Yeah. Would I have stopped his actions if I could? Absolutely.
Looking at such an outrageous example allows me to love my own soul, even though I sometimes don’t like my actions. Self-loathing comes when we place more importance on our actions, which will always be flawed, rather than on our innate worth. I try to do the right thing, but when I don’t, I try not to beat myself up as much as I used to.
Grace for myself = grace for everyone else. I can’t let go of the wrong things I do unless I let go of the wrong things others do. This doesn’t mean laisse-faire. Stopping someone’s wrong action can in itself be a right action. To me, forgiveness holds a certain arrogance. Who am I to forgive anyone? Instead, I think of letting go. Release the hurt, release the anger, love the soul, love my own soul.
And to think all this came from a question about Hitler! Thank you so much for provoking my thoughts.
Sending Wednesday morning hugs to all,
Mary Carol
Exactly, Mary 🙂 And thank you for this!
I adore powerful, sensually-engaging communication, so I aim for clear examples 😀
Hitler didn’t just provide the foundation for this eye-opening Q&A, and in-depth blog-thread, he got most of the world to unite, and declare a strong focus on peacekeeping, etc.
Hey Jason,
I love. Unconditionally. That has nothing to do with who I’m looking at. I can be in the feeling of love and think of Hitler. If that takes me out of the feeling of love, I have two choices: find a perspective on Hitler that keeps me in love, or think of something else. That’s it. So the real question is, can I find a perspective on Hitler that doesn’t take me out of the feeling of love?
Honestly, I’ve made peace with the whole Hitler thing. Pushing against that energy only perpetuates it…
People that take the actions that Hitler and his friends took are mired in a dark, dark place of fear. No one makes those kinds of decisions from a place of light. It wouldn’t even occur to them. But when you’re terrified, you will do terrible things in order to alleviate that terror. And it will cause anger, rage, and lashing out. I don’t condone it, but from an energetic view, I understand it.
If we focus on moving towards light energy (instead of focusing on what we don’t want to have happen again), we can evolve into humans that will never be in danger of repeating those kinds of actions. That’s what I think of when people bring up Hitler. I go from understanding the mechanics of how humans could act that way, to visualizing the spectacular evolution of human kind. Awesome. 🙂
Hugs!
Melody
lol, quite the response, thanks Melody 🙂
I’m glad my concise remark could stir up and evolve some thoughts 😀
For me the question was rhetorical 😉
Great comment thread!
Hi Melody,
Great subject. I love it. I truly believe that true love is always unconditional. It just is. It is an emotional state that you get when your values are both supported and challenged. If your values are only supported, you get bored after some time and you have the idea there is more to life. If your values are only challenged, you get stressed and you have the idea that you are the one who has to do everything. But if your values are both challenged and supported, there is love. And then love just is.
From this point of view love is an emotional state which you can experience. You can feel it. You can do things to bring it to you. And you can manage it, exactly in the way you explain it: you can love unconditionally, it is there and it does not require that somebody says it is there. And you can choose for it. Or not.
Thanks for sharing this inspiring post!
Hey Marc,
That’s beautiful! Thank you so much. I love your take on unconditional love. I’m going to have to think on that. You always have a way of getting me to look at things from a whole new perspective. Thank you so much for that. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
Great Question! I have some experiences on that. When I was younger my view of love was needy. It had to do with mastering my emotions as well. Everytime I loved someone, I expected it to be mutual. When it wasn’t, there would be huge and ugly blow ups. Needless to say, my love was suffocating.
But over the years my love evolved. I came to realize that to really love someone, there is no need for me to possess that person. In the end, it didn’t matter what she said or did, I would still be in her life, watching over her and protecting her. Even if she never returned my love in a romantic way, it no longer bothered me.
It was hard at first, but I learned to put her interests first. Whether it was helping her to find true love or being there when she got married, I stood by her side and will continue to do so. It is a choice that I choose to make. And because there are no demands, she can love and trust me in her own way. This was how my love changed from needy to unconditional.
It was not easy at first due to conflicts of interest. But I changed with time and really listened to what she wanted. Even if the choice was not good for her and after my most streneous efforts to persuade her otherwise, if that was really what she wanted, then I went along with it. Whatever the outcome, whatever the challenges, I stood by her side guiding and watching over her. And today, that has worked out great. She will always be a significant part of my life.
Can I go through this entire process again with someone else? Yes I can, it is hard, but I can and I have. The first time is always the hardest. But to really love someone is to put them before yourself. It is to want to protect them and to make sure that they are happy. The most painful thing in life is to lose someone you love forever through death. Everything else, I can accept.
Just this awareness from this experience is enough for me to apply it to other areas of life. I don’t love unconditionally all the time. I am certainly no saint. But it certainly helps to reduce the demands I have in my relationships. And at the same time, it helps me to love deeply with detachment.
Thank you for sharing this lovely Question and Anwer on Unconditional Love! 🙂
Irving the Vizier
Hi Irving,
Wow.Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us all. I don’t love unconditionally all the time either, but just knowing that feeling and knowing that I CAN, is often enough to help me let go of stuff really quickly. And you’re so right, it totally applies to other areas of life, as well. Once you know that feeling of security, of well being, you don’t care about the small stuff anymore. It’s just not worth coming down from that high for. Ha.
Huge hugs!
Melody
I think one needs to understand and use unconditional love in order to love themselves
that beingness thing…I have such a hard time with
Puppy love and baby love is so amazing to me…yep I got that part down pat.
Absolutely Patricia! Great point!!! We have to learn to love ourselves unconditionally. Then, we can love anyone unconditionally.
Just transfer the feelings of love of your puppy to yourself! It takes a bit of practice, but it really works. 🙂
Hugs,
Melody
Hi Melody,
first, i`m glad to find your site and this post ( video). Wow…. really great!!!!!!!!!
And your answer for patricia is also great and true.
i think, thats the one and only way. We must love ourselves unconditionally before we can love other people love unconditionally.
And now…. i love my friend and my son unconditionally. really!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not everyday, because we are human and unique…
and i hope for my future, that my son learns this from me.
sorry for my English, it is not so good. But i must comment, because i love your post.
On my site, i write about dating, love and realationships.
thanks a lot for sharing and i wish you all the best.
with greetings from good old Germany. Sandy 🙂
Hi Sandy!
Welcome to Deliberate Receiving!
It’s so awesome that you’re teaching your son how to love unconditionally. Most parents will TELL their kids to do this, but very few demonstrate it.
Also, if you had not mentioned that you’re not a native English speaker, I wouldn’t have known. So no worries!
Huge hugs!
Melody
Cool video, Melody.
I kind of got into the idea of unconditional love through the back door. First I worked on unconditional giving. In my background, gifts often came with strings, and I was determined not to repeat that mistake (just plenty of new ones!) with my own children. Learning to give unconditionally was a stepping stone to loving unconditionally.
As a parent, another big step was letting go of the idea that I knew what was right for my child. There’s such a balancing act between guidance and respect. You don’t let a toddler burn himself to find out the stove is hot, but there are many fuzzy zones… it’s a little like Minesweeper!
‘Unconditional’ works so well in every aspect of life. It all ties in to remaining non-judgmental, letting go of expectations, staying in the present,… all the buzz-words which also happen to be true.
Thank you for describing unconditional love as a vibration, with its ups and downs. Whew! for the idea that loving unconditionally doesn’t mean you never get irritated with the person. How comforting to think of aiming to maintain unconditional love, rather than an all-or-nothing win-lose gamble.
Thanks again for a reassuring video. It’s always fun to see and hear you, even virtually!
Mary Carol
Hey Mary Carol,
Yes! Unconditional giving is a such a big stepping stone. That’s awesome. Thanks for pointing that out. Oooh, I think there’s a blog post in there somewhere. Brain…churning… Ha!
Right, maybe you should do a video for your next post! Turnaround is fair play. 😀
Hugs!
Melody
Hmmm… a video… My cousin just gave me an IPod touch… a lovely example of unconditional giving! And maybe it would make a video??
Brain spinning…
An unconditional life – yes! That’s what I want! Whoa – feels like a quantum leap… Whew!
Hugs and unconditional everything to all,
Mary Carol
Hey Melody,
I really enjoyed this explanation! We need to take responsibility for our feelings. 🙂
Lori
Thanks Lori! Exactly! But not in a “it’s all my fault” way. There’s no blame. Making this video made me feel really good. 🙂
Hugs!
Melody
Nice one, Melody! I enjoyed what you shared. One of my blog readers asked me about unconditional love recently, as well. Her question got me to contemplating unconditional love, again.
Also, I’ve had the experience of non-local, non-physical, real-time, always-on connection with someone in a romantic relationship. Understanding 3-D world bonding, Consciousness, unconditional love became pretty important as things can get pretty crazy at that level. One or both partners having not yet tamed the ego/mind is an intense learning experience when you have a direct connection in Consciousness. One thing I learned, how easy it is to confuse attachment, various emotions, and a host of other 3-D and biologically sourced emotions and feelings with Love.
Rumi, mostly, speaks of Love from the level of Consciousness. I capitalize “Love” these days to refer to that level. Lower case “love” I use to refer to 3-D emotional perspectives and experiences. The difference between the two is night and day.
At this point, I come back to All being Consciousness and I am a perspective in that Consciousness. While in the 3-D I have ego, personality, and various 3-D physical human stuff to experience and satisfy while alive, Consciousness is always present holding a perspective in the experience. The unconditional Love is happening at that level. The more I am able to drop whatever is obscuring my experience of my Consciousness perspective the closer I am to experiencing the unconditional love holding everything together.
Enough rambling. Time to get back to work!
Hi Eric!
I like that distinction, Love vs. love. I do a lot of work to get into the feeling of Love and I love the results I’m getting. It’s all about dropping the idea that how I feel has ANYTHING to do with what anyone else does. Even in a romantic relationship, which is, granted, the hardest frontier. But once you master doing this with your family, you can pretty much handle anyone else. Of course, I still have lot of moments when my ego gets triggered, etc. But my triumph is that I NOTICE those moments and immediately know that I’m being triggered. And, because I’ve proven to myself over and over again that I can shift out of that and release the trigger, I don’t freak out (anymore). It’s such a beautiful place to be. No one has the power to make me feel bad, except me. Wahoo. 🙂
Hugs!!
Melody
Great stuff, Melody! Love your insight into this topic.
Thanks Steve! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Hugs!
Melody