If you are searching for love, what are you searching for? Possession? Affirmation? Reassurance? Refuge? A hope for another life than the one you have? A hope for the divine intervention, someone who will make you happy so you don’t need to do anything?
Many times during the sessions with clients, we circle around the concept and the misconception of the notion of unconditional love. We all want to have someone who can accept us with our flaws and foibles. But does that mean that we stop taking responsibilities for those flaws and foibles, and just become like infants who shout, cry, sleep and laugh whenever they feel like, and accept that as unconditional love? I think that sometimes we all have that kind of fantasy, that life stops demanding any effort of us, the miracle complex, and that one day you meet someone and everything will be perfect.
The danger of this belief, that once we meet the one everything will fall in place and be perfect, is illustrated in the case that they fail to meet certain in-the-moment desires based on our wants, needs, preferences, and moods. Our ability to maintain caring for them might be affected and we may feel that they are unworthy our love – that can hardly be characterized as “unconditional”. On the other hand, we expect them to give us that love and caring despite our own incapacity of meeting their needs and desires. This the dilemma of unconditional love.
Consider your partner’s embarrassing, wrongheaded, naive opinions or behaviors that seem hard for you to agree on: Why do you think that he might not agree with you on everything? People who have created a misconception of unconditional love seem to focus mostly on getting without the giving part.
You’re bound to feel a certain disappointment with them and in fact, it’s also possible that their differing viewpoint may make you feel less loved by them only because they can’t agree with you. Some people think that because they face these issues, it means this is not the ”right” love. The danger here is they impose their own insecurities on a -love projection- of being loved despite anything and everything, we could call this the “infant complex” for now.
Psychologist Harville Hendrix explains, that one common purpose of adult relationships is to heal old childhood wounds. A common wound is not feeling seen and accepted as we are. Love relationships can help heal childhood deficits by allowing us to feel welcomed, wanted, and embraced just as we are. To find this balance between an accepting love and a paralyzing love is very important.
To be able to feel acceptance we must start with ourselves. No matter how much affirmation a person can give us, if we can’t accept ourselves then we can’t accept love.
Acceptance means being fully aware of our weaknesses and limitations, working with them instead of against them. More than anything else, undertaking such deeply personal work involves developing greater self-compassion. Self-compassion is the only cure of self-criticism and self-sabotaging. We need to recognize our defenses, blind spots and insecurities, and how they all make us vulnerable. This vulnerability can be the window into being compassionate towards our needs, that we must take responsibility for, by simply expressing these needs and asking for help. This can be more than enough. The shadow of self-acceptance is that self-sabotaging wishful thinking, that we sit and wait for someone to read our deepest desires and ally without us even expressing them.
But we also need to understand, that there is a limit to what others can accept about us. Clinging to a demand that we should be unconditionally loved in all states, take us back to this infant state and might give us license to be self-centered or destructive. If we are emotionally abusive, can we expect our partner to keep tolerating such damaging behavior? Additionally, we need to be realistic and stop evaluating ourselves according to standards that don’t really fit who you are, or who you want to be, and the same goes for those who you have a relationship with – friends, family or partners.
To be able to receive the unconditional love you have to be able to give that kind of love, and this capacity comes from strength; you can’t lean towards the soft growing branch, you have to gain strength by yourself.
A strong person that know themselves, trust their inner resources, and have seen the storm coming and passing in their own lives, are those who can offer you that kind of love. That love which is weaved with confidence and strength alone, has the power to heal all wounds, bind people together and create relationships quite beyond our present capacity to imagine. In some philosophies, they call it the spiritual love, true love, soul love.
Gibran Khalil spoke about love in his book: “The Prophet”.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning…
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
But if you love and must need have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude.
Finally I believe that love is the very nature of who we are but when it comes to relationship to another person then love is a choice,you have to know who you are letting in and find the balance between your own dignity and his or her. You need to learn to express yourself but also to listen deeply. Unconditional love is a practice of trust and willingness to be a better human being. This comes through the journey of learning about ourselves and the other by letting go of our projections and creating a nurishing space of playful communication and responsible attitude towards creating our happiness together.
#love #unconditional #relationships #possession
