Here we are together.

You with your defenses up and me desperately trying to emulate Moses and part the Red Sea.

Nothing about why you walked away from what we had, chose her over me and then stubbornly shut me out makes sense.

All I’ve wanted is love.

All I’ve wanted its love.

All I’ve wanted is love.

Is this story familiar? Has it echoed inside the caverns of your heart when you think about being hurt by the one you love?

I’ve been there and I’ve got a message for you: Your friends will tell you to move on. Your best friend will do his best do distract you. Your female friend will say, “He’s hurt you enough.”

And while creating firm boundaries for yourself that reflect self-respect is absolutely needed, setting limits on love isn’t.

In fact, unconditional love has nothing to do with conditions. It has more to do with how obsessed you are with outcomes. In simple terms, all too often we make happiness and fulfillment contingent on a desired outcome.

Listen when I say this: Love cannot be achieved.

Love is not a goal. And when we try to make it something to strive for, we stunt our evolution. When you love someone and for whatever reason they choose to take their life in a different direction, they may leave, but love does not have to.

Love is not the same as attachment.

When we attach to someone, especially in a romantic relationship, we tend to dump our hopes, dreams, fears and wishes on him. I think there is a secret wish for our partners to be the best version of ourselves, and when they act like an actual human it is a real let down.

What I’m saying is that our souls are on this earth to evolve, expand and heal. We grow or die. It is just that simple. So, placing conditions on love is a sort of death.

Conversely, if someone hurts you and you “turn the other cheek,” it is not an act of weakness. It is the acceptance that when you love someone, when you open your heart to the sorrow, the joy, the fear of the world, it will hurt.

And that is to be expected (not a shocker).

Loving unconditionally means embracing these three concepts:

1. Nothing lasts forever and everything lasts forever.
2. Love is not an outcome; it is a part of the human condition.
3. And you can choose to love someone no matter what especially once you trust yourself enough to weather the storms.

Unconditional love is not to be confused with permission to be abused or agreeing to being treated badly. Those agreements are impediments to allowing the life-force that is love to flow through you, with you and in you.

Unconditional love means embracing yourself as a part of the whole and as a distinct counterpart. There is room for infinity in unconditional love. It is everything.

And so, when someone wrongs you, you can say, “I’ve done that too.” We’ve all been assholes. When someone makes love to you, you recognizes parts of yourself in that lovemaking.

See, the thing of it is that the life we live is what we say it is. Every thought we have that is backed by an emotion is a point of creation. So, when you are hurt you can choose to cut yourself off from love and, in doing so, feel isolated and like you are the only one in the world to ever be hurt.

Or you can stand in your power, amplify what love feels like to you and just keep on loving.

Or you can be an asshole, seek revenge, justify your means, post it on facebook, repeat the cycle and remain clueless as to why you feel shitty all the time.

Or choose to be ripped apart by unconditional love and be limitless.

We are all in it together.

Relephant Read: 

 The Most Beautiful Example of Unconditional Love 

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Author: Rebekah McClaskey

Editor: Emily Bartran

Image: matheuslotero/Flickr