Extending unconditional love to ourselves
Love life and live love. Norman Vincent Peale, Treasury of Courage and Confidence)
We owe it to ourselves (in fact we have a positive responsibility) to extend the attitude of unconditional love to ourselves as well as to other people. Many people do not realise that we must first have an attitude of love towards ourselves and, if we do, eventually we will experience feelings of positive self-love. Our attitude of self-love must include making a commitment to work on our own behalf and for our own welfare. This requires a positive attitude and goodwill. In addition, we must want the best for ourselves, care for and about ourselves, endeavour to reach our potential, like, accept and respect ourselves and be aware of our worth and value as human beings. In other words, we must extend to ourselves unconditional love, because all this is really a breakdown of unconditional love. Sometimes it seems much easier to extend unconditional love to other people - partner, friend, children, parents, relations, people we know and like - but it is of paramount importance that we care enough to pay ourselves this courtesy. If we fail to do so, we will not grow. Conditional love will sustain life but not build it, and we cannot grow through it. In order to grow and move towards reaching our potential as human beings, we require 'first-grade' love; it is the only way. With unconditional love we love ourselves and others for who we are and what we are, not for how we perform. It is the strongest force there is for our own and other people's growth. It is also the strongest motivating force in any relationship.
The need for trust
Unconditional love is also the greatest act of trust. To accept another `warts and all' is really to love them. As we extend trust to people we also engender in ourselves a greater capacity to trust; this has a cyclic effect. Not only do we then trust other people more (always with wisdom) but are also able to trust ourselves on a deeper level. We come to know (through self-trust) that when we have nothing and nobody to fall back on, we can rely on ourselves to do what is necessary for our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual survival. We come to know that because we can trust ourselves, we are going to act in a logical and positive way as far as possible, and to act on our own behalf when we are in challenging and difficult circumstances. The more we can trust ourselves the more we will be inwardly secure, and thus increasingly able to give both to ourselves and other people. Only then are we coming from a true foundation - one that cannot easily be shaken. At this point, it is encouraging to
know that though we may experience stress and react to it, we will not be destroyed by it.
An example of true unconditional love
I think perhaps one of the best examples of unconditional love would be that of a mother who extends this form of love to a naughty child. She really loves the child who perhaps is very difficult, at times playing up and trying her patience to the utmost. Nevertheless, her love remains undiminished.
Regardless of whether she always FEELS the emotion of love, her attitude towards it is one of love, caring and concern. She wants the best for it, and will do her very best to see that the child reaches its potential; she has total goodwill towards it (though it might drive her to the point of desperation at times). So she has the intention of acting in its best interests and on its behalf, even though she may not always experience the emotion of love for this child. She loves it regardless, and she loves it unconditionally.
This is pure agape love (which translated is unconditional love) and this is the sort of love that we should have for ourselves and for other people. The mother who does condone the child's naughty behaviour and allows him or her to get away with it is not doing the best for her child. This is not unconditional love, it is weakness. It is sometimes much easier to turn a blind eye to what other people are doing that is destructive to themselves and detrimental to others; so often we give in to this behaviour for the sake of peace. But if we really have the attitude of unconditional love towards them, then we will lovingly and honestly confront them, because this behaviour is not only unacceptable, it also stunts their growth. It is harmful to us and other people as well, and nobody benefits from the way they are acting. Mother love (often thought of as being the purest form of love) is usually the best example of unconditional love. This is the type of love we deserve (and should give), regardless of our human fallibility.
There is one very interesting point about conditional and unconditional love, and it is this: The person who is only loved conditionally never feels they are loved, even if they are told they are. Because they have to earn that love through performance and through conforming to another person's expectation of them ... they never really FEEL loved. Therefore, it is difficult for them to be inwardly secure. Conversely, the person who is loved unconditionally usually FEELS that they are loved, and can accept that they are loved. From this they have a solid basis from which to perform well and grow.