The pursuit of unconditional love

“See me as I am.”

The things we will endure to make these five words come true.

When I ask people about ‘love’, they often use words like sacrifice, surrender, giving, acceptance, and appreciation. However, nothing is more common than the word, ‘unconditional’.

They refer to unconditional love as a state in which there are no considerations, rules, requirements, or constraint. It sounds beautiful; freeing, safe, and with room to be flawed, to make mistakes, and be still wanted.

I always take a moment to bask in those words with them, and to imagine a world of unconditional love together. There’s always a lot of smiles.

I then ask if they would still love me if I called them an insulting name, or stole from them, or lied, or was unreliable, changed my mind, or didn’t give them what I know they wanted (or mattered to them).

Smiles suddenly become awkward. People start to fidget, scratch themselves, and begin to ‘umm and errr’. Their eyes stray, and they sit back in defense. Their energy changes noticeably as they preface that it would hard to love me if they felt disrespected, betrayed, or let down.

“So love is conditional?” I’d reply. They often struggle to respond.

Love vs Loving

People collapse the state of being loving, with the act of doing love. One is a state of doing, the other a state of being. Acts of love have rules, standards, ideals, beliefs, and expectations. It has boundaries, and limits. It’s given and taken away; used as a weapon, a token, and a gift. It’s negotiated, and structured with metrics and ROI.

The pursuit of unconditional love is thus under-developed and fragile; easily challenged by the smallest of ideals, opinions, values, and beliefs. A big idea, built on a flimsy foundation, rapidly shifting from an inspired idea, to a farcical concept. All that changed, was who is on the receiving end.

It seems that we want unconditional love from others, but feel challenged to love others unconditionally. Perhaps it’s because we view love as a series of actions and tasks to be exchanged, rather than an embodied state of being.

It’s taken me a lifetime to discover how to be unconditionally loving, and I still struggle because it’s in our nature to judge.

In the state of being loving, I discovered there is nothing to add, nothing to remove, nothing to change, fix, do, or improve. Just deep appreciation and gratitude for all of whatever and whoever it is — and perhaps even more importantly, for all that it isn’t.

We are all moving targets. We grow, we change, and we die. We are never stagnant, nor are we fixed, despite how much we might dig our heels in. We may have built a façade around us that promises absolute certainty, guarantees, warranties, and assurances, but all we can truly guarantee, is change itself.

In order to love ourselves—and others—in a way that doesn’t weaken ourselves and those around us, we must be able to love without an agenda. To love without condition, and not just be loving in order to get something for ourselves. Remembering that needing love to give love, is an agenda.

It doesn’t mean we can’t stand for something we believe in. We most definitely can have a commitment—an end in mind—and maintain our integrity to fulfilling that. There’s always action to take towards our commitments, but it’s important not to collapse our commitment, with our ability and willingness to be love.

Being ok with the way things are

Not everyone will help you, or want to be helped by you, despite your ideas and best intentions. Most will not become who you think they could, should, or will be. Those for whom you fight for, may never realise their potential, or ‘get’ whatever it is you think they need to ‘get.’

The question is, can you be ok with that?

Love is being ok with people and the way things are, whether they change, or whether they don’t. It’s being inspired for them if they choose powerfully for themselves, while not making them wrong or denied love, if they don’t.

In the presence of love, we are dancing with the fear of hate. The tension of shame, injury, insecurity, inability, insult, and failure. These human qualities represent our fear of being able to feel like we are ‘enough’ and worthy of love, in the face of rejection. They are simply artifacts of conditional love.

Too often, fear is presented as love, and yet while we can rationalise one’s actions as loving (their doing), we may not experience love (whom they’re being while doing).

Instead, we experience their actions built on top of a context of fear, and presented as love.

At the end of my conversations about unconditional love, I like to ask people what they see could be possible when we choose to experience people for who they are, and not who we want, need, or expect them to be; when we experience ourselves for who we are, and not who we project, need, or want ourselves to be.

It’s a question not designed to be answered immediately, but rather considered and ‘tried on’. To create a long enough pause in the incessant chatter of our minds, in order to appreciate what’s there without making it wrong, invalid, bad, or broken.

To see me as I am, means to accept me for all that I am, and all that I’m not. To not view me as incomplete or helpless, but simply continually growing and evolving on the path.

To love me means to be at peace with where I’m at, especially if I never change, but remain a tireless advocate for all that is possible, in the event that I might.

What if love was not something to do, say, or give, but all that’s left when there’s no more judgement?

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Pauly is the Chief Cultural Officer & Co-Founder of Bold&Resolute, a movement dedicated to helping people be BOLD to tell the whole truth about who they are and what they want from life, and RESOLUTE to see it through despite the circumstances.

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