Conditional Love
Do you love yourself unconditionally? This has been the question that I tried to answer in my last therapy session, so I wanted to ask you to think about it.
Do you love yourself only when you are productive?
Do you love yourself only when you work so hard?
Do you love yourself only when you eat healthy?
Do you love yourself only when you exercise regularly?
Do you love yourself only when you feel fit?
These are some of the questions that you might ask yourself to realize whether you love yourself conditionally or unconditionally.
Or, you might ask the following questions:
Do you beat yourself up when you eat something unhealthy?
Do you beat yourself up when you watch YouTube videos all weekend?
Do you beat yourself up when you gain some weight?
Although these are not ideal behaviors for most of us, it is OKAY to eat something unhealthy, watch YouTube videos all weekend, or gain some weight. We are all human; we can make mistakes. We can sometimes behave unaligned with our goals or purposes. But this is normal. We don’t need to be perfect; indeed, nobody is perfect.
Being okay with something does not mean that we approve of it. For example, I know that eating chips is not good for my health, and I should avoid it. But it is okay to eat chips from time to time if I feel like it. I should not feel guilty for doing something that is not ideal for me.
Although I have high expectations of myself, luckily, I come to the conclusion that I love myself unconditionally. So, my response to the first set of questions above is “YES!” and my response to the second is “NO!”. I hope this is the case for you as well. If not, it is also okay. Realizing this is the first step to figuring out how to love yourself unconditionally.
I love myself unconditionally, but unfortunately, I realized that I love most people in my life conditionally, which makes sustaining some of my relationships very difficult for me. So, I am working on it.
What made me learn loving conditionally? How can I unlearn conditional love? Is there really something like pure unconditional love for someone else? These are some of the questions that I am trying to answer.
Join me in figuring out how to love unconditionally.
In this process, let’s keep remembering:
Nobody is perfect.
I am not perfect.
You are not perfect.
And that’s okay.
Cheers,
Sidika
Loving a person unconditionally doesn't always mean you should tolerate someone fully in your life. You can love someone unconditionally on a distance and wish them well? Or love someone unconditionally and just share only what feels ok for you. önce can sonra canan ;)
Thats really a good take again and also huge topic to discuss on. I guess pure love is always the unconditional one that you expect nothing from the other, like the love of your son, mother or your dog. I also think that our traditional reward - penalty style of child growing culture had some role on adding conditions to everything. Even we forgot to love or accept ourselves unconditionally and thats also a part of a perfectionism problem. Accepting the things as it is and knowing that nothing and nothing is perfect is the key imo. Thank you.