Unconditional Love

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I guess I just have these dynamics tagged differently. When someone can let go its lack of neediness, what you'd call self-assurance on the part of the person letting go; I have a hard time figuring whether love has any definite roll in that.

I wonder why people in this thread keep floundering around in this morass of an undefined and probably undefinable word called love. It's like asking what a vertebrate is; does it fly, does it swim, does it live in holes in the ground, does it swing through trees?

Somewhat like gwenevyn, I was in love with someone but now, while I don't wish she was dead, I can say without hesitation I no longer love her. She is entirely out of my life and I have no wish to change that. I once loved her to the point that I would have died for her without hesitation, I wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, etc; it was not simply a crush. I think the only love that is ever unconditional - and that by no means always - is the parent-child type. At least, I can vouch for romantic love not being unconditional.

It's interesting, the floundering, but not that surprising, so long as people believe that "love" is is a feeling, rather than a label conveying value on any feelings it is applied to.

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What would you say about siblings? I am an only child so would need input on it.

I wouldn't know, I'm an only child as well.

I wonder why you would post without giving your opinion of unconditional love since I noticed today you were an active poster in the other love thread. I agree with you that love could be undefinable, but think the old mental image you once gave me of a foggy, snowy, mind funk was not only a better example than vertebrate but also one I could draw an association.

I cannot see how love is any more of a label for a feeling than any other words to express emotion. Is joy an emotion or just a label for something else? I am just as unable to define joy...or hatred, or sorrow, or any other emotion...

I'm glad you added the 'by no means always', pbcoll. My mother's 'love' for me was totally conditional. Because mother-love is so widely believed to be the purest and most 'giving' kind, it's actually very hard for me and others to talk about our childhood experiences. You always get stuff like 'She meant well' or 'She loved you really, she just showed it in a different way' when in any other circumstance, inflicting that degree of emotional pain and rejection on a person would not be recognized as love in any form.

I agree, the terminology for love is confusing, and there are so many types - romantic, sexual, parental, friendship, philanthropic - that it's hard to see what they all have in common. I think maybe it boils down to something like what ouinon is saying about total acceptance. To totally accept another person's being, to honor their right to be all that they are, to approach them without preconceptions, to want nothing but their wellbeing. (And to recognize, aside from any agenda you may have, what their wellbeing actually is - which is extremely tricky, and is, I'm pretty sure, one reason why, in Buddhism, compassion and wisdom are two sides of the same coin.)

As such, I think that kind of love is very, very rare among humans. I don't think many of us enter into any relationship without getting something out of it. I'm not totally cynical, and I do believe that perhaps it's possible...just very, very difficult. That's probably why it's the ideal of so many religions, and they seem to be singularly bad at living up to it. (Notice how every religion, even if they define God's love as infinite and unconditional, seems to simultaneously think God wants or needs something from humans, in terms of conduct or belief, in order to be able to love and/or accept them. Interesting - and very human. Even when we believe unconditional love is possible, we don't want to really believe in it because it seems so radical.)

The question is, do you love yourself unconditionally? I thought we discussed the conditions that we place on love. Love may mean different things to different people. I guess everything means different things to different people. Let's not get too caught up in semantics though. We don't need to define love so that everyone has the same feeling about it. Rather, I would like to know if your feeling of love for yourself has conditions.

For example, if you lost your job, your arm, your financial security, social status, looks, etc. Would you still love yourself as much? Loving yourself means being forgiving and accepting of who you are. My guess is that if a person didn't experience this sort of nurturing as a child, he/she will be unable to love/accept himself and have a very hard time experiencing it with others.

@tech
Letting go is not about self assurance for me. It's more like acceptance of reality. I think facing this sort of thing causes a lot of pain and suffering to the point where you just can't handle it and you have to so you just grow out of it. ounion expressed it as being spiritual. I think that is the best way to describe it too. Non-attachment love. We can do this more easily when we don't expect anything in return.

I didn't expect this to get so deep. I really just wanted to know if it's possible to love yourself unconditionally. I'm always hard on myself and trying to be better. I want to figure out how to master self love. I think going back to childhood and looking at yourself as your own parent may be a good exercise.

The same would happen if you brought up a topic on truth, justice or beauty. Love is a concept, lots of subjective angles and interpretations to be had.



It would be made more difficult but after some adjustment - yes, unless I was pretty serious about fitting myself with cement overshoes I'd really have no choice. Being on spectrum I guess its to where if those things happened, I'm already used to swallowing my share of traumas or worst nightmares becoming reality - from that I'd just lower my expectations of life some more.



I guess I can't figure out how what your mentioning fits into unconditional love for another person. To try to force them to stay by your side is less a lack of love than just caving in to inner weakness or neediness, just like letting go is really a matter of altruism, knowing what's good for you in the long term regarding your emotional health, the quality of your life - its a long term/vs. short term decision as in would you rather just take the pain now and go on to better days or would you rather run from it by short-term gratification and just making the problem 10x worse in doing so? I guess you could say that it would be love of self compelling you not to put yourself through the later option as well as self-assurance, honor, clarity, many different virtues coming into play. As for your feelings for the other person, yeah, altruism is probably the best word overall.



I wouldn't go back to childhood though, as in I tend to see true adults as a beautiful and rare thing, I would like to be as such for the people around me - if I have it in me. Having that secondary side of yourself internally that hugs you, tells you everything is going to be alright, it takes some building but I've noticed its an important skill as we can only depend on other people so much (and its only fair to up to a point) as they all have their own problems, their own stresses, etc. to contend with.

tech wrote:

I didn't mean to revert to childhood to express something that is lacking. I think we are talking about two different things. I guess what I'm getting at is that if a person didn't experience unconditional love from someone as a child, then that needs to be healed. I just thought that inventing an exercise for this would be helpful. It's probably too corny for some to want to do and I won't even tell you my imaginative idea on that exercise.

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Last edited by claire-333 on 24 May 2009, 7:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I guess I do see your point. My own story though - my parents did give me unconditional love, probably more so than most people may have had. It may be that some people who struggle with loving themselves may indeed never have had anyone love them unconditionally but, while I'd have to err on the side that I do love myself now, having that as a kid really doesn't mean that you won't love yourself without conditions - it may mean that you'll feel obligated to loving your children unconditionally but it seems easier to do that than it is I think to love yourself unconditionally.

I think there is sort of a conditional love in the common sense of unconditional or what I call platonic love. Most people love what they're familiar with...kind of like that maternal love in how they were raised. So I sort of see tech's guess on how a child's emotional development might affect them as they grow up. What that child will tolerate and be open to and the biological development of that child's personality.

Love is still sort of vague in definition. There are even some people who seem to have the ability to love someone who's unlovable to them /: