By James Gitau
We all know of love in many forms, including romantic love. We have heard songs about it, seen it in the movies, heard it talked about by relationship experts, and read about it in self-help books.
But what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasise about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it.
The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food.
Ignorance
It is especially unfortunate, then, that most of us have no idea what unconditional love really is, and we prove our ignorance with our high divorce rate, the incidence of alcohol and drug addiction, the violence in our society and our overflowing jails.
Our misconceptions of unconditional love began in early childhood, where we observed that when we did all the right things when we were clean, quiet, obedient and otherwise good, people loved us. They smiled at us and spoke in gentle tones. But we also saw that when we were bad , all those signs of love instantly vanished.
In short, we were taught by consistent experience that love was conditional; that we had to buy love from the people around us with our words and behaviour.
If we do not have enough real love in our lives, the resulting emptiness is unbearable. We compulsively try to fill our emptiness with whatever feels good at the moment money, anger, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, gossip, bad mouthing others, power and the conditional approval of others.
Anything we use as a substitute for real love becomes a form of imitation love, and although imitation love feels good for a moment, it never lasts and never gives us the feeling of genuine happiness that real love provides.
Most people spend their entire lives trying to fill their emptiness with imitation love, but all they achieve is an ever-deepening frustration, punctuated by brief moments of superficial satisfaction. Lack of real love and the frustration we experience as we desperately and hopelessly try to create happiness from a flawed foundation of imitation love results in unhappiness.
The beauty of real love or unconditional love is that it always eliminates our anger, confusion, and pain.
Expectations
Real love is simply love without conditions. It means loving without any expectations. Love is the essential reality and our real reason for being in this world. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and in others, is the meaning of life.
To feel this love that we are born with, we must learn to forgive ourselves for being human and, therefore, imperfect. The only place we can find real love and be able to give the same is within us. As Whitney Houston sang, I found the greatest love of all inside of me.
Therefore, find that love that lies within yourself and you will experience abundance in your life. Do not go looking for love outside yourself as you will not find it, no matter how long you keep looking.
Remember, as Marian Williamson says, ?we are not held back by the love we did not receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.
We must learn to give ourselves and others total love without conditions. Our love must be like that of a parent for their child; no matter an exam score, a life changing decision,
