The Many Benefits of Unconditional Love (and how to get there)

Love. We crave it, we cling to it, we wrestle with it. We are like clowns juggling bowling pins in relation to it. But the only kind of love in which we find ongoing joy and freedom is unconditional love.

Most people are familiar with the experience of unconditional love only in relation to their pets, creatures from which they make no demands and consequently are freed up from all the needs and resentments we often hold for those other sentient beings, humans, that we engage with in the otherwise complicated act of loving.

“Perhaps if he (or she) would just stop talking,” we say to ourselves, “then I could love my partner as much as I love this furry creature that waits adoringly at my feet.” Perhaps, as it is through language that we mediate most of our needs and desires. But there is another, more simple, prescription for loving our lovers, partners, spouses unconditionally than them being suddenly struck dumb. And that prescription is unconditionally loving ourselves.

When we begin the daily practice of loving ourselves, of recognizing the autonomous and divine spark in our own being, of nurturing and expressing tender affection for ourselves, then we do not need to enter our relationships with our partners from a place of needs or demands. We are already complete.

And it is from this place that we are able to—as Mary Oliver invites us to do in her poem Wild Geese—“let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Utterly, unconditionally. And before anyone else, what it loves is you.

Magnificence

Some say that every 7 or 10 years, depending on who is doing the telling, that every cell in our body has been regenerated, replaced.

Others say that every inhalation and exhalation is a complete cycle of birth and death.

Then there is the snake, which regularly molts and sheds, freeing itself of its outgrown skin.

There are many ways we shed our own skin, slither out of our too-tight sheath. We quit a job, leave a relationship, move across the country. When we walk away from people, places and things that restrict our growth, we are engaging in the important practice of molting.

But molting can also cause us to feel more vulnerable. When a snake is molting its vision may be impaired and, as a result, it may act more defensively. When we are sloughing of those things that, in some way, keep our worlds small, we may also be without long range sight. We may not even know what is coming next. 

It is precisely this vulnerability, or the fear of it, that all too often keeps us in unhappy situations. But our vibrancy, the magnificence of our lives, depends a continual process of molting.

The snake begins to shed with the simple act of rubbing its nose against a rough surface to split the old skin. You can begin the process by asking yourself, what in my life is holding me back, weighing me down, preventing my growth and fulfillment? You may notice subtle constraints that result from the way you talk to yourself—the judgments and self-criticism. You may notice larger constrictions that come from the way you let others treat you. Or you may discover that your job or environment is so limiting that you are being suffocated by it.

In many Native American cultures, the snake represents the transmutation of life. Through the shedding of its skin, the snake dies and is reborn over and over again. We too need to continually transform, slipping off our old skin in order to slither into the ever-expanding luminosity of our lives. 

Moving Wondrously, Less Wildly Forward

Things move too fast, they move too slowly, we want more, we want less. Such silly creatures, these human beings, someone somewhere must be saying.

These past few months have  flown by. It was fall, then winter, and now it’s almost spring. And all the while, I have been kicking and screaming about all the movement and change, the incredible speed with which everything has come and the seemingly endless amount of work it takes to keep up with the magnificent life I am creating. Huh. Right. I am creating. I am creating the change and too the hurried, harried pace. 

As Diane Ackerman says, “I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.” Yes. And too, I don’t want to be in a car chase. So my intention now is to move wondrously, but less wildly forward, maintaining, even in motion, some sense of ease.

I liken this intention to running. It is one thing to be running because we feel like we have to or we must, as this creates some recklessness in our bodies. You can even see this recklessness in the grimaces on people’s faces; every step hurts a little, some twisted pressure to the ankle, knee or hip. It is another thing to run with purpose and breath, to let the spine settle lightly on the pelvis and the knees lift gently with each step. To match movement and breath. You can see this connection on people’s faces as well; they are the ones who are smiling, taking pleasure in each stride.

This analogy is offered as an invitation. In this moment between winter and spring, consider how you are moving forward. The motion itself is wonderful, as is the pleasure we can take in our own progress. But there is no need to suffer the discomfort of an overly harried pace. Simply shake your shoulders, lift your spine, align your hips and heels and remember to breathe. Joy does not come from being out of breath. Joy comes from breathing deeply and relaxing into the run. We are traveling a great distance.