Integritus Prime

Recently I did a series on my show, Mornings with Marilyn, about boundaries. In that series I did a segment on unconditional love. What does it take to love unconditionally? The answer will change your whole life. Here’s how – there are five steps to unconditionally loving someone, and making unconditional love a way of being. Let’s see what the steps are:

1. Drop expectations: When we carry expectations, we are using love to mask our own needs. Expectations also form a definite path to disappointment, when others don’t do what we want. Having expectations is also a form of being controlling, which comes from fear of the uncertain and unknown. Unconditional love means we do not seek anything or want to control anything, we only give love. However, this does not mean we become a doormat:
2. Uphold boundaries: Loving someone unconditionally doesn’t mean we forget our boundaries. In contrast, it means we honor and love ourselves enough to ensure our boundaries are met. Self-love, then, forms the foundation for unconditional love. When we love ourselves enough to demonstrate how to honor our boundaries, our loved ones know that they cannot use and abuse us, but they could potentially be grateful to receive our love because we choose to give it. Unconditional love is a conscious choice. We cannot make this conscious choice if trauma patterns are running our life.
3. Unhook from trauma patterns: It takes a lot of inner work, and facing our trauma and demons, to liberate ourselves from our trauma. Once we are free, our choices and reactions are no longer conditioned by trauma, but our responses and decisions are freely and consciously chosen. This allows us to love freely, because nothing is lacking. 
4. Manage emotions: As we unhook from trauma, we begin to notice our emotions instead of becoming controlled by them. Anger, fear, frustration, insecurity, all become messengers, telling us what we need to be with and heal. It becomes easier to manage our emotions. Now we can choose love, because its opposite, fear, has been silenced.
5. Surrender outcomes: As we practice this path of unconditional love, and it is a process that includes mistakes, failures, and lots of learning, we begin to learn that we are not in charge. We are in service to a higher cause, that seeks to create harmony for all life. As we come into this self- and planetary realization, we surrender outcomes. We work from a heart filled with purpose, and love all.

Living and loving like this, we become liberated fully. True success is freedom and unconditional love in action, in motion, and in practice. Next week, take a look at 3 examples of true self and what that looks like in terms of career transitions, culminating in service to our planet, from this place of beautiful, limitless, unconditional love. The way dogs love us pesky humans, and the way we should love all of life, in all its gorgeous diversity.

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Five steps to loving unconditionally. Here’s a hint: it takes a life change. Photo Credit: Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.