Unconditional love can so often seem like an impossible feat in our modern society. We seek to be loved rather than to love. So why is it that we have unconsciously placed the condition of being loved, within the construct of the love itself that we give to others?
To understand this, think of how you would feel if you told someone you loved them for the first time. Only to have the one you have chosen to love, say thank you in return. How this potentially makes you feel is a clear indication of the conditions you have subconsciously learned to place on the love you have given away.
In society, we seem to have exploded the act of love into a constant and yet unfulfilling act of seeking. Maybe it is time to ask why?
What if I told you that behind the very act of giving unconditional love lies the wisdom you need to gain to understand yourself fully?
I would suggest you read that last sentence again because this is big! By uncovering this beautiful lesson, love grows for the self from within you. How cool is that? So in effect, we are simply seeking from others the love we seek from ourselves.
Many people in your past have loved you, just as they have in my life. Equally, many will continue to love us all in the future. Yet until we all learn to recognise the love within ourselves, the immense well of love remains untapped. If we continue this way the love brought to us by others will always be misunderstood, unseen and denied because so many of us subconsciously feel unworthy of the love that they bring.
Unworthy you say? That’s right unworthy! To understand this dilemma in my own life, a beautifully kind person said something very simple and yet immensely profound to me.
“If you wish for anything in life, first you must give it away for free.”
At first, I didn’t connect this concept with love at all. Even though I readily and quickly associated it with qualities like generosity, kindness, joy, compassion, respect and many more things in life. The idea of giving love away for free was most definitely not on my radar at all. As I imagine it is likely not on the radar of most people.
Then one day, the penny dropped. It certainly was not the kind of aha moment you would probably think it was. I had fallen deeply in love with someone who didn’t return my love, and it felt as though my heart had quite literally been smashed with a hammer, into what seemed like a million pieces. Now I am most certainly not the only person in life to feel the immense despair of unrequited love.
After much pain, I finally surrendered to my despair and began to do the work to feel into what the pain of unrequited love was trying to teach me. A beautiful thing that I did not see coming happened amid my very own unravelling. I began to realise that I had somehow forgotten to love myself. The journey to find where I had lost my love of self, brought the most beautiful revelation to light. It was held under lock and key in a painful feeling of unworthiness. Hard to imagine isn’t it, that I thought I was unworthy of love. Is my story starting to sound familiar?
Not only had I decided I was somehow unworthy, but I had also sabotaged every attempt that came to me in life to be loved. All because my father never told me that he loved me. As a child and young adult, I did everything possible in an attempt to earn it, to no avail. Then for the remaining forty years beyond adolescence, I decided instead to hate my father and broke all ties with him. Fast forward to my father’s death, as an adult now and through a greater understanding, I now understood that my father did indeed love me in his own way, even though he never spoke the words.
This painful and yet beautiful experience was my ultimate lesson of unconditional love. I can hardly describe in words how grateful I am to this very day for this life-changing lesson. Today I love myself without condition, and I experience the joy of love in every part of my life. I now see the love, I feel it, and I live my life joyously from a place of love. I love myself first, and I love everyone else second.
I have since given my love away freely, openly, quickly and even on occasions with complete reckless abandon. Some have suggested that I have put my love in undeserving or unsafe places. I lovingly respond to this with the cheeky laugh I have become well known for. Why? Because I now understand the lesson of unconditional love. Love belongs everywhere, shining its beautiful light into every crack and crevice, to beautifully shed light into every darkened space. In doing this we can illuminate the love in the hearts of every one of us, so that we may all learn the most magical lesson of all, to love ourselves without condition.
There are so many beautiful examples of unconditional love in our history from the volunteers of the 1919 Spanish flu where 15,000 Australians died, to the current pandemic of COVID19 gripping the world right now. Human evolution requires us to learn the act of unconditional love, first and foremost through the act of self-love. Then and only then are we able to find our way to feel into the infinite potential of the love available within and beyond us all.
The ultimate wisdom is unconditional love! Now that is in itself quite spectacular no matter how you choose to view the world. We all know we need more love in the world. So what are you waiting for? Discover self-love within, and shine it out into the world like the sun with absolute reckless abandon!
Join me and lead with love without condition. Maybe your beautiful pet has been trying to lead you there all along?
#jeanettepeterson_authenticity
