When we talk about love it’s almost always about romantic love.
But now, I want to talk about a different type of love: Unconditional love.
For many years I heard the words ‘love yourself’ but I had no clue how to do it.
I hear many times “you can’t love others until you love yourself”.
But contrary to what I expected, I learned to love myself by first loving everything else that wasn’t myself.
- My conclusion is that: You can love yourself when you have learned how to love everything else.
And anyone can to learn it thanks to unconditional love.
So, what’s it exactly unconditional love?
Unconditional love is a type of love that has no limits, it includes everyone, everything, and it isn’t subject to any condition.
It’s like mother’s love.
It means love to all human beings, all living beings, the ocean, sun, rocks, planets, universe, everything.
For some eastern religions like Buddhism unconditional love is the spiritual energy.
When we hear about energy it usually sounds very mystic.
And other times it sounds very simple.
Like when we believe that all of our energy comes from the food we eat.
But what happens when suddenly you’re very excited about something? Do you suddenly feel you have more energy or less?
And when something that bad happens to you, how do you feel? Do you suddenly have less energy or more?
In those situations, no matter how much food you eat you won’t get your energy back until this experience has passed.
Therefore, it looks clear that our energy doesn’t come only from food, but also from the main emotion we’re feeling.
Some people live in fear and anger mainly because of the news.
Others live with guilt or shame because of bad past experiences.
These negative emotions are draining us and taking away our energy.
In fact, you may feel bad just standing close to some people. You may feel that they are draining your energy.
This is because negative emotions take out energy from the outside, meaning from other people.
On the other hand, emotions create the energy from within, and they radiate out.
That’s why when you stand next to some people who have positive emotions you feel good close to them.
So, how do we replace negative emotions for positive ones?
The answer is with unconditional love.
If you fall in love with life, the planet, the universe, everything, you’ll tap into an unlimited amount of positive high energy.
Achieving this emotional state, or ‘level of consciousness’ (as some religions call it), is one of the main goals of spiritual work.
As David Hawkins said: “Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually, it is a state of awareness, a way of being in the world, a way of seeing oneself and others.”
Right now, you may love things because they happen to you. You can’t control when you feel love. That’s because your source of love is external.
When you train it, your source of love becomes internal.
You love something because you choose it, instead of something that happens to you.
So, are you wondering how to do that?
I found out two practices to help achieve that state.
- The first is through compassion.
Compassion to understand and feel that everybody in this universe is trying to do things the best they can.
And if they don’t do it better it’s because they don’t know how to.
We’re all very complex creatures, with different past experiences, education, environments, cultures, beliefs, parents, friends… that have shaped how we are.
We can’t never judge a person because we don’t know what has happened to them, and we don’t know how we would act if we were in their shoes.
And when we can feel compassion, we can forgive.
And by forgiving, we can see everything as lovable.
At some point, forgiveness may seem irrelevant since there’s nothing to forgive when we’re all doing our best.
(I guess you must think that there are exceptions. When I publish the book I’ll talk in more detail about it.)
Having said that, I don’t think we need to be with people who we don’t feel good with.
And that people is still responsible for their behavior. I believe they must be responsible and accountable for it.
It’s just that everyone is lovable despite their behavior.
- The second practice to achieve this state is with visual meditations.
I recommend doing two things here.
First, start to meditate and think about a pet that you have or you had that makes you feel love, and play with it.
Learn to generate the emotion. And pay attention to how this emotion feels in your body.
You can do that for five to ten minutes.
After doing it, you can do another type of visualization.
Then, visualize that you’re on a beach in the sand. And with a stick write down the word Love.
Write it slowly. Feel the stick in the sand, the sounds, everything.
When you’re done, just contemplate the word in the sand for one minute while you repeat it quietly and warmly inside of you.
Try to connect with the meaning of the word and feel it.
Then repeat all this process again a few times. From writing on the sand, to contemplating the word.
I recommend doing this daily for two or three weeks.
Then, you can go out and try to love things.
Yes, I know it sounds weird, but we all can do it (dogs do it all the time!).
Try to love everything you possess. Everything you see. Every person you encounter.
In the beginning it’s hard. You’ll need a lot of time, and a lot of patience until you see some good results. But if you keep trying it, sooner or later you’ll get there.
The more you do it the easier it becomes.
Achieving that state can change your life by teaching you how to truly love yourself.
It will give you positive energy, positive emotions, peace, calm, and free yourself from the negative emotions.
And because love feels good, it will give you access to lasting happiness.
It’s also the key to heal your past ––if you have to.
It’ll change the way you look and feel about your past. Your negative emotions attached to your memories will start to be replaced by compassion, forgiveness and love.
Also your view about the world will change.
You’ll see how everything is unfolding perfectly as it is. You’ll want to help people and the world, but you won’t judge it, you’ll want to help from a positive emotion.
In the book I will talk more in detail about this.
Otherwise this post would be as long as the Bible.
If you’d like to read something more about it, I recommend the book The Power Of Love by Fran Grace.
It’s a very long book, about 600 pages with small font size, so it will take you a while to read it.
Despite that, it’s absolutely worth it, it’s one of my favourite books.
I’ve just found this at the right time! Very practical and easy to read
Thanks Adrian! It’s also inspired with the book of Michael Singer that you and Ermo recommended, thank you!
This is another awesome post! This really makes a lot of sense. Thank you for all the positivity and tips. Now I understand how my pet taught me unconditional love. ❤️ Can’t wait for you book then.
I’m very happy to hear that you liked it!
I let you know when the book is ready 🙂