Unconditional Love

Love can be an emotion you choose, rather than a reward someone has to earn.

By Brooke Hicks · The Life Coach School

Think about someone you find difficult to love. What would they have to do differently before you let yourself feel loving toward them?

Your mind may produce a detailed list.

Now consider a different question: what if you could feel love without requiring them to complete that list?

Unconditional love is the idea that your loving feeling does not have to depend on another person meeting your conditions. It begins with recognizing love as an emotion you experience.

You are the one who feels your love

We sometimes think withholding love punishes another person. But when you think resentful thoughts about someone, you are the one experiencing the resentment.

Likewise, when you think loving thoughts, you are the one who feels love.

The emotion does not transfer into the other person. Their emotional experience comes from their thinking. Yours comes from yours.

This is why I ask how you want to feel about someone, rather than beginning with how you want them to change.

Look at the conditions you have set

You might believe you can love someone only when they agree with you, appreciate you, or behave the way you prefer.

Write down those conditions. Notice how often your ability to feel loving has become dependent on instructions you have for another person.

For example, someone forgets a household task. You think, “If they cared about me, they would have done it.” You feel resentful and become distant.

Thoughts create feelings, which drive actions and results. Seeing the thought helps you understand why the task has become more than a task in your mind.

You can address the practical issue while examining whether you want to keep using it as a condition for love.

Love and relationship decisions are different

Feeling love toward someone does not require you to live with them, remain married to them, or agree with their choices.

You can care about a person and decide a relationship is not one you want to continue. Your decision about contact or commitment is separate from the emotion you practice toward them.

That distinction matters. Unconditional love is not an instruction to approve every action. It is an exploration of how you want to feel.

You can make a request or take care of yourself without requiring resentment as the reason.

Explore love without forcing yourself

If you are not feeling loving, do not use this teaching as another way to criticize yourself.

Be curious. What are you believing about the person? What would it mean to feel love? Are you assuming that loving them would excuse their behavior or erase your choices?

Look for something you can honestly appreciate or understand. You do not have to announce your feelings to the person. This can be private work in your own mind.

The purpose is to consider an option you may have ruled out, not to perform affection you do not feel.

Bring the practice back to yourself

After examining the conditions you place on loving others, look at the conditions you place on loving yourself.

Do you need to achieve a goal first? Stop making mistakes? Receive approval? Become a different version of yourself?

Notice the emotional cost of those requirements. What would it be like to care for yourself while you are still learning and changing?

Choose one condition to examine this week. Ask whether it is truly necessary before you can experience love.

You may discover that the feeling you have been waiting for is something you can begin practicing now.