There Is No Such Thing as Unconditional Love…

I think it is very hard to grasp what unconditional love is like because it seems like conditionality is baked into every aspect of our love for others.

It doesn’t even matter whether you try to limit unconditional love to God, your parent/child, or your dog. I mean, you do not have to look so far to see that these relationships also seem to be conditional in nature.

Religions teach us that God will love us unconditionally but will punish us for our misdeeds. And the divine punishments sure as hell feel like we’re no longer loved by God.

You will love your family because, well, they are your family. If you are a parent, you will love your child because it is your responsibility. The whole family love thing is filled with conditionality.

Then there is your dog. I mean, what choice does it have? It’s not like you are going to let multiple people feed it. Because if you did, you will soon notice that what you think was unconditional love for you is also the same love it has for those other people. You may be forced to share that newfound reality and accept that the dog just has unconditional love for everybody… Well until it barks at a stranger, only then do you realize that it loves you on condition, a condition of which is probably the food and care you give it.

And Romance? With all its objectification and expectations we project onto other people, it never even feels like there is a slight chance to consider the possibility of loving these people unconditionally.

Therefore what is unconditional love? Does it exist? and what does it look like?

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“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” — The Kybalion.

I have already written about this in my discussion about unconditional love in romantic relationships but by the end of this article, hopefully, you will have a more clear understanding of what unconditional love is.

The principle of polarity in the Kybalion tells us about the dual nature of everything. It is through this principle that we can explore the idea of unconditional love and hopefully come up with a useful understanding of the idea.

Consider love as a feeling that is only in degree. For instance, you can love someone more than you love another. You love them both but the degree to which you love each of them varies. This is what I mean by love existing in degrees.

Now imagine another pair of people. You love them equally so much that if you were told to choose between them, you cannot let any of them go. But these people do not behave the same way. One is a “good” person and another is a “bad” person.

Person G is a model citizen while person B is always defined by piss poor decisions. But you love them still. Perhaps they are your children, or they are strangers. It doesn’t matter. You love them a lot.

The reason you love person G is that the fact that they are good makes them “likable” and by extension, easy to love.

When it comes to person B, you know that they aren’t likable. You know that loving them is not something anyone would easily do. But you still go out of your way to love them. Sometimes you just can’t even explain it. If you are superstitious, you might even think that they cast a spell on you. In any case, you love them still. The reason that is so is that you have a higher level of unwavering love for them.

With person G, you do not have to put so much unwavering love into that relationship whereas for person B, you do have to do that even though it may appear effortless to you.

You expect so much from person G, and they too know that so they keep meeting your expectations and you reward them with love. You expect so little from person B and they know that so they do not bother putting your hopes up, but you still reward them with love for the little effort they put in.

Even though you might love these people the same, what goes into keeping that love alive is not at all the same.

In reality, you have more conditional love for the good person, G, and less conditional love for the bad person, B. Conversely, you have less unconditional love for the good person, G, and more unconditional love for the bad person, B. These variables must exist to keep the love you have for both of them equally alive.

This is why in this article I wrote a while back, I said that there is a place for unconditional love and that love belongs to strangers while the place for conditional love belongs to those you consider family.

It is easier to unconditionally love strangers than it is to unconditionally love those people you already know and like. Why? Because unconditional love depends on the absence of expectations. The less you expect from someone, the more you can love them unconditionally.

To love conditionally or unconditionally?

I think we get caught up in thinking that one is better than the other. In fact, for most of us, if we are told that we are loved conditionally, it’s just the same as telling us that we are not loved.

We all want to be loved unconditionally because we have been sold the idea that unconditional love is more real, and purer. Well, that is BS.

Look at your family… If they were not part of your family, how many of those people do you think you would have had an unwavering love for if they were not connected to you by blood?

Conditional love is just as important as unconditional love in helping us foster meaningful connections with each other. But they all serve different purposes.

Where unconditional love will take a chance on someone, conditional love will require that person to live up to the chance they are given and not abuse it. This is essential in life’s unfoldment.

Can you imagine if unconditional love was easily accessible given how horrible some people can be? People would get hurt much more. Conditional love is built into relationships that we have with people we are familiar with because it stops people from misbehaving and misusing the love bond and it is this bond that critically contributes to the survival of the human species.

Therefore, no. Stop believing that unconditional love does not exist. Stop believing that it is better than conditional love. It plays an important role that conditional love cannot play and conditional love also plays an important role that unconditional love cannot play.

Also, these love variables are important in aiding us through different phases of our relationships.

At the start of relationships, we must limit the extent of conditionality we bring to the relationship as we learn about the person we are getting involved with, this helps us know and learn how to relate to this person, a knowledge which creates expectations. As we navigate the relationship, these expectations create conditionality in the relationship that helps us assess the health of the relationship among other things. When the relationship is ending, unconditional love aids us in dissolving the attachments we created without hurting ourselves or the other person involved.

We can bake some degree of unconditionality into our relationships to further strengthen the health of the relationships we have with people as we limit the expectations we place on them.

But the two variables must work together, phasing into each other, and sometimes, each taking on the wheel to address different issues within our relationships.

How do you know when to use what?

Issues of the heart must be resolved in the heart. But most of us are clouded by biases and sentiments that aren’t suitable for this kind of work.

The solution is to be more in tune with yourself.

Practices such as mindfulness meditation will re-align your being on a path of self-worth, gratitude, empathy, and compassion among other benefits. When this happens, you will naturally find yourself deploying the right approach to your relationships.

I don’t think you will ever get it right all the time. I don’t. But you will know when you do. And when that happens, treat yourself because it’s a job well done.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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