Unconditional Love

Over the past year of concentrated work to rewire my brain, I have experienced many areas of explicit transformation – areas where I knew I wanted to change my approach or my automatic thoughts and behaviors – and where I have subsequently seen significant shifts. One of the surprises of this project, however, has been those areas of change that have occurred as a side effect of other aspects of my transformation. For example, as I have continued to strengthen my ability to connect with people and my capacity for emotional intimacy, I have seen significant transformations in the areas of love and romance. This would not be particularly remarkable, as emotional connection is so directly related to love and romance, however the extent of this shift has been unimaginable. I have experienced a full paradigm shift in how I understand and approach love and romantic relationships. As I have worked to uncover my shadows, and as I endeavor to love them in the same was that I love my bright shiny parts, I have become more comfortable with revealing these shadows to others. This blog is one aspect of my practice of openly sharing my shadows. This process of revelation has led to much deeper interpersonal connections than those I had previously experienced, and has transformed my understanding of love. Previously I saw love as something that happens when people see all the good parts about you and appreciate and enjoy them. Now I have a more holistic understanding of love as a connection that encompasses all the messy parts, all the broken parts, all the parts I’d like to be different or am in the process of changing, as well as all the “good” parts about me. This is what unconditional love is – something I was never able to fully conceptualize until I had the blessing of receiving it. And I am only able to receive it because I have opened myself up to revealing all of me, making all of myself available to be loved. This takes a lot of trust and requires another person capable of safety, patience, generosity, and kindness. It is a slow and scary process, but so worth it!

This concept of unconditional love is so mind expanding it’s hard to believe that it’s real. And yet, as I remember my life in great detail, I am bearing witness to the process of loss that occurred, the hundreds of instances that caused me to hide away different aspects of myself from this cruel and dangerous world. As I continue to integrate the 30 years of my life thus far, I can see more and more personal experiences and moments I witnessed happen to others, relationships and interactions, societal messages and inherited traumas that caused me to hide my true self away and present a false face to the world. But without revealing one’s true self, True Love is impossible. Even when I did experience love, it was love for a false self I was presenting, love for a mask, rather than love for my true self. I have a long way to go in dropping the mask and fully revealing myself - shadows and all - but I can say that as much as I am able to reveal is as much love as I am able to receive. Let this be a motivation that keeps me on the difficult path toward self-actualization, self-love, self-acceptance, self-witnessing, self-compassion, and self-healing. Accepting where I am is difficult, and grieving the painful places I’ve been even harder, but where I’m going is so beautiful it’s worth the wait, worth the process, worth the sadness and fear in-between here and there.