I attend a weekly spiritual gathering where a quote is picked by the facilitator and we discuss how we think, feel, look at the quote. Last week the quote had to do with unconditional love. It was interesting to hear people’s perspectives as we went around the zoom room. We found that many of us share similar beliefs, ideas, emotions.

Unconditional love isn’t something I was aware of as a child. I came from a broken home and never really knew the stability unconditional love provides until I was married. Through our years of marriage we dropped the conditions, the judgments and came together in that beautiful space of unconditional love. From there I have been able to branch out into unconditional love for friends and back around to family. One of the big things that has helped me is knowing that everyone is doing the best they can.

Along the path of my spiritual journeys, I have learned the importance of loving myself. In working through my childhood abandonment issues I heard and believed you have to love yourself first before you can love anyone else. My husband sometimes felt I was “selfish” with my self love. I felt it was because he had trouble loving himself. I wish he could have seen himself as I saw him, it would not have a been an issue. After he took his life, I quit loving myself for several years. Of course it was my fault that he killed himself in the heat of an argument, or so I thought. Once I was able to accept that it was his choice, his time, and part of the soul contract we had, I was able to start loving myself again.

After a couple of years of loving myself again, I was shown it was time for unconditional self love. I didn’t really understand how that could be because of the shadows and the hidden aspects of myself. How could I love myself unconditionally when I had done X ,Y, and or Z? It was through truly working through those issues, embracing the ALL of me, forgiving myself for my part in all the things I kept hidden, that healing began. Don’t get me wrong, I still have things to work on. To take those things that come up as triggers, giving me the next item I need to work on. As I examine them, feel them, explore them, allow them and forgive them with love, knowing that nothing happens by mistake. Lessons to be learned. Gratitude to be given. Love to be shared with myself, unconditionally.

In the discussion about unconditional love with my spiritual group, several people stated that it was through having children that they truly understood unconditional love. It’s a trigger for me. I didn’t have kids because having come from a broken home (times three before I even got out of high school) I saw that as an example of something I never wanted to do. My take on parenthood is a topic for another blog. Let me just say I never felt the “Mommy gene”, the one that makes a woman want to have a baby.

During the same discussion, several people stated that they understand unconditional love because of their dog(s). Well, I can understand that. During a house/pet sitting gig, I had the opportunity to learn about the unconditional love a dog will have for their person, the leader of their pack, the member of their tribe. I have been a cat lover my whole lifetime, cats are not like that. They don’t exhibit unconditional love the way a dog does.

Unconditional love is something I could talk, write, explore, for hours. I plugged it into the search engine on my internet browser. What a delightful list of enjoyable reading!! I didn’t have the time that day for the pleasure, but it’s a topic for one of those lazy afternoons. Unconditional love is about allowing what is to just be. Unconditional love has no judgment. Remove judgment and what is left is love, pure and simple. In a recent energy work training, we focused on unconditional love as we used visualization to bring in the light. Pretty amazing feeling as a conduit for that energy transfer. Unconditional Love and Light, may we carry that in our hearts and reflect it out to all we come in contact with. Unconditional love can heal all wounds, physical and emotional, of this I feel I am proof, thank you to my friends and family. Unconditional Love, what the world needs now and it must start with ourselves. When our hearts are overflowing, we share with others. Let’s start a wave of unconditional love.

The quote that started the discussion

“Unconditional love is not so much about how we receive and endure each other, as it is about the deep vow to never, under any condition, stop bringing the flawed truth of who we are to each other.” ~ Mark Nepp