WTF is Unconditional Love? | 1

Part 1: So WTF is it?

We hear the words unconditional love all the time... but what does unconditional love look like in real life? No but seriously...

In Part 1 of this series, Suzanne breaks down what a living version of unconditional love might be and draws from psychology, spiritual teachings, and her own experience, as she looks at the gap between the ideal of unconditional love and the reality of trying to live it.

This isn't about becoming a doormat. It isn't about pretending you don't have boundaries. And it definitely isn't about forcing yourself to like everyone.

It's a conversation about what unconditional love might actually be—and what it isn't.

If you've ever found yourself wondering why loving people can feel so difficult, this series is for you.

Thank you for listening! Learn more at suzannsole.com

Check out Suzanne's spiritual and sassy t-shirts at personallyspiritual.com

Transcript

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To give and then take away love from the people in our lives. Well, if they don't give us what we need, if I need you to pay attention to me and you're not doing it, well, fuck you, I don't love you anymore. You're listening to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast with Suzanne Sol, episode 91. Hello all you gorgeous creatures, and welcome to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast, where we get into the long and winding road the healing and spiritual awakening journey can be. I'm your host, Suzanne Sol, comedian, lifelong spiritual student, and I'm sharing some of the randomly curated crap I've learned along my journey that has helped me, and that I hope helps you too. What the fuck is unconditional love? Give me your unconditional love what truly does it mean in our everyday regular ass world to be unconditionally loving? Well, it's not as, you know, clear cut as you'd think. It's actually, like I always say about everything else too, a daily practice, not a concrete thing. So anyway, we're gonna talk about it, of course, in a series, okay? That's how we roll here and the Spiritual Shit Joe Podcast. Anyway, I love you so much, so let's get started. Unconditional love. We love to write about it, we love to sing about it, we love it, and we love to make poems about it. But what is it really? And can you really do it? Is it really doable? Let's find out in this motherfucking series about unconditional love. Okay, here's an awesome quote by educator Jean Isley Clark, who said I love you no matter what you do. But do you have to do so much of it? You get it? Author and spiritual teacher Ram Das said something I very much enjoy about unconditional love. Here it is. We talk a lot about unconditional love, but let me tell you, very rarely have you ever experienced it. Because to unconditionally love another person means without condition. Most of us say, Oh, I love you without condition. Well, then do you mind if I cut your throat? Oh, well I'd rather you wouldn't. Hahaha. I knew you'd put up boundaries soon. I knew you really didn't love me. So obviously that's a very silly version, but I wanted to look up like the general version of unconditional love in a more realistic and human way, rather than this idea that sometimes seems like it floats above all of our capabilities. And it's like I said, it's an actual day-by-day practice. It's an actual path that you can use to grow and evolve and become free in yourself as you live in this delicious slash crazy world. So the definition that I found, of course, on the interwebs was I thought pretty uh comprehensive. So let's check it out, shall we? Unconditional love is love that is not dependent on another person's behavior, achievements, approval, or ability to meet our expectations. It is often described as a love that remains present even when circumstances change, disagreements arise, or someone falls short. Throughout history, it has been explored in psychology, philosophy, and many spiritual traditions, each offering a different understanding of what it looks like in practice. Some describe unconditional love as a way of seeing another person's inherent worth, which I think is a very beautiful idea. Others describe it as a state of being, a practice or a choice. However it's defined, unconditional love raises enduring questions about the nature of love, the limits of acceptance, and what it means to care about someone without attaching that care to conditions. Right? So what are some conditions that we might have that, you know, we might be attached to or holding on to that cause us to take away, to give and then take away love from the people in our lives? Well, if they don't give us what we need, if I need you to pay attention to me and you're not doing it, well, fuck you, I don't love you anymore. I mean, obviously that's exaggerated, but you know, I mean, on a day when you're hangry and your blood sugar's low and maybe you didn't sleep last night very well, that could happen. Now, I'm not saying we can't be human, right? We're we're so messy. Listen, when I am stressed or frustrated, I need a timeout. I need to give myself a timeout. And sometimes I don't. So sometimes I do and say stuff that I look back on later and go, wow, I really wish I wouldn't have said that. Um make decisions uh about stuff in our lives or regarding relationships that we look back again on and say, oh, geez. You know, if I wouldn't have been being so stubborn or holding on to the idea of what someone was supposed to give to me, you know, we would have had a really fun time at that event that I just decided I didn't want to go to because I was pissed at the way they were behaving. And this also kind of refers back to my previous series, The Illusion of Control, because it includes the same idea, right? We are believing we need to control someone else's uh what they give us and what they don't give us, right? So if they're like withholding, well, we're gonna do what we can to get them not to withhold from us, right? But you know what? Say whatever you want. There is avoidance in this world who are limited to be able to give us the kind of love we may want sometimes. Like I always say, you can't get milk from the hardware steward. You know what I mean, hon? But wait, there's more in this unconditional love definition than I found on the internet. Across psychology, philosophy, and spiritual traditions, there is no single agreed upon definition of unconditional love. I mean you wanna make it even harder? It's like where's Waldo. Some describe it as unwavering care for another person's inherent worth. Others describe it as a spiritual state, a practice, a way of seeing or an ideal to move toward rather than a constant emotional experience. Now, those are really great reasons to practice unconditional love. One, to be that open heart and that in the name of connection, in the name of symbiosis, in the name of being a good friend, to have a good friend, being a good partner to have a good partner. When I say good, you know, what I mean is like an open and loving what you would want, how you would want someone to treat you, right? Doing to others. Ugh, those frickin' cliche sayings always end up being actual truth. And I'm sick of that. Any hoodles. So, uh, and then the other one is obviously something I really like because it's based on a choice of who you want to be. Mm-hmm. And uh the way you want to operate in the world. And we'll get into that, of course, obvs. But uh I love those two agendas, if you will, for why someone would be wanting to practice unconditional love or be an unconditionally loving person. Which command, you know, it's super duper. Okay, anyway. So uh to finish up this definition that seems to be like ten episodes long. For all these reasons, unconditional love is less a simple concept than an ongoing question, one that people have been exploring for centuries. I mean, is there anything more interesting and engaging and captivating than talking about love? I don't think there is. I think it's probably voted number one throughout all time and space. Talking about love, stories about love, songs about love. We're not running out of them anytime soon, and we still want more. So, I mean it just goes to show ya. Love is a big deal. Love is a big deal to us people. Love is a big deal to us sentient beings. You know, because I can't exclude animals because I mean unconditional love, let's talk about dogs. Holy Toledo, they're like the unconditional love poster child, except for some of them are crazy. But anyway, that's an aside. And I wanted to add, okay. Hold on to your hat. Okay. Unconditional love also means that you do not put conditions on what loving them looks like for you. Mmm even if they do. Mmm. Do you know what I mean? So anyway, I know it's a lot, so just take a breath. Get some uh your favorite lavender oil or something, and you know, put it in, you know, light your favorite incense, light your favorite candle, put on some of your favorite Vivaldi or Baroque music. So one element that I've mentioned about unconditional love is wanting to be that place and space where someone doesn't feel like they need to be perfect or meet all your needs in order for you to love them unconditional. Right? It's conditional means that I put conditions on whether I'm going to love you today or not. And loving is a verb, you know, not to be super 70s about it, but not to be after school ABZ special about it, but love is a verb, right? Because you can say, okay, as an aside, those frickin' Hallmark cards that say, I know I never show it, but deep down I love you. And I'm like, save the card and just show me. You know what I'm saying? So love is a verb, right? And so we're either open, our hearts are open to someone, or we're closing it to that person because they have not met our conditions for us to open our heart to them. Mm-hmm. We do do that. Mm-hmm. And I'm going to get into the way we can free ourselves from that, but we're first we're gonna get the lay of the land. Okay, so whether it be a romantic partner, a family member, a friend, even the cash register gal at the local store, right? There's a a a human, a agape love that we walk around, we can walk around with, where um, obviously we're not gonna kiss strangers on the mouth, but our heart is open to them. And if they're having uh like it's it's their first day and they're dropping the coins all over, we're not gonna be like, catch up coins in the drawer, I gotta get out of here. We're going to be like, you know, I'm gonna show my human love toward this person and my compassion and understanding, and be like, everybody's had a first day, and they're really hard. Anywho, so there's that. And then there is uh the other uh element that they mentioned, which is being uh a loving space for others, because that is what you are choosing to do with your life. So unconditional love in this framing is a choice that we make, whether it be as a spiritual practice, as a philosophical practice, as a choice of how we want to navigate this world, of a choice of how we want to move through the world for ourselves. Any reason is great because it's a beautiful thing to do. But I want to say that a lot of times we may be like, I do want to be unconditionally loving, like that would be my ultimate goal. Except for everybody is such a dick, and I totally get it because there are a lot of dick people. But this is super groovy, okay? So hold on, darling. Let me lay this on you. There's this really groovy spiritual teacher, and she goes by the name Ganga G. That is her spiritual name. Listen, she's super groovy, and she's got a lot of wonderful insights, and this is one of them. And I think it really, really, really speaks to that argument that we might have that says, even if I want to walk through the world and by choice and be unconditionally loving, I can't because it's too hard because of all these people. Not saying it's not hard, but just let me tell you why it could be possible. She has a practice called self-inquiry. And within this practice, she asks these questions of her students, and that is, who are you really? Are you some image that appears in your mind? Or are you some sensation that appears in your body? Or are you some emotion that passes through your mind and body? Or are you something that someone else has said you are? Or are you the rebellion against something that someone else has said you are? These are some of the many avenues of misidentification. So that is when we go to that place where we're saying, I want to be loving, but they're not loving. Listen, I'm not saying it's easy, and when someone's hurting your feelings or being an asshole or not reciprocating their heart open to you when you're opening your heart to them, fucking hurts, right? Totally, totally true. Totally true. And it's not going to happen overnight, but you just could put that little seed in your mind, like, you know, if I decided that I wanted to start walking a path toward freedom in myself, in my mind, and in my heart, I could get to that point eventually where I would be acting and being and moving through the world out of my own choice. Not always perfect. You fuck up and you go back and you go, I fucked up. But, you know, it's just you work with it more and more masterfully as you go along. Never gonna be perfect. Don't even worry about it. It's not gonna happen anyway. But daily, uh on a day-to-day basis, you can keep showing up to that. The other uh experience around unconditional love that we can be mindful about is when someone is putting conditions on us the way they want us to love them. And I'm not saying not to try to show up for people and meet them where they're at and give them what you want to give them and notice if you're withholding, am I withholding? You know, like I talked about in the series The Illusion of Control, am I withholding from this person because of, you know, uh a condition I have on them? And the other thing is that you might be challenged to be open about the way you express love. Now, I feel like intentions are everything. And if you're like trying to become more open about the way you love, or if this is like, this is it, this is all I got, and I love you, and this is how I'm able to love you, you can respect that in yourself and say, I am loving them without condition, as best I possibly can. You can say, even if they are saying I don't love them because of the way I love them, that is not necessarily reality. So I can unconditionally love the way I'm loving them. That's what I'm trying to get to. It's obviously unconditionally loving ourselves, okay? That's probably what I'm trying to get to. Unconditionally loving ourselves. Wow, that's a biggie, right? What does that look like? Well, that is also a really long journey and slow journey and everyday step-by-step journey, and nothing else is I mean, the path to unconditionally loving yourself and others, there's nothing better. And there's nothing that is more freeing. So when you start to learn to unconditionally love yourself, it's like, A, check out what your standards and expectations are of yourself. Right? That's the uh path toward unconditional self-love. Uh and that's where it all starts. Sorry. You know, like I always tell you, it always comes back to that motherfucking self-love. Damn. There's no way around it. There is no way around it, girl. It's like there's only one road. I mean, you may be happy, but some people are like, you know, have a really are challenged. And it's because they um uh developed a very um unloving relationship with themselves. And we're you're not alone if that's you. We all have different levels of that experience of creating a lot of distance between ourselves and our needs, ourselves and our vulnerable parts, ourselves and the parts of us, like our shadow parts that are kind of like fucked up or whatever. We're gonna get into the unconditional self-love part, obviously. So, but what I want to ask first, just like around this whole the general idea of unconditional love. Why does unconditional love feel so fucking difficult? I'm gonna tell you. One is we naturally respond to how people treat us, right? It's like in the moment, if someone's yelling at us, we're gonna yell back or we're gonna shut down or whatever. And I'm not saying be like, oh, I know you're treating me like shit or talking to me like I'm a piece of poop, and I love you anyway. We'll get into that too. But um, so that's one thing, okay. That's one thing. The other thing that I think is a really, really, really, really important thing to be mindful of. And I think it affects so many of our relationships, and that is the belief that love is transactional. Which means that we are opening our heart to someone or doing something for someone or being there for someone when they're in need or they need to talk, and we're mentally ticking the score box of I better get this uh at some point soon. And then when we don't, because they're who they are, then we want to shut the door on them. And we want to say, uh, I'm not gonna do that anymore because they're not doing that. And that's your choice. I mean, I'm not saying that's like you didn't do that. It's your choice, it's your choice. But it will absolutely affect your experience of living because to get to the point where you are the one who's choosing how you want to be in relationship with other people for yourself is very freeing, as I've said. And we always know when someone in our lives is transactional, that they're keeping score, that they're shifty-eyed and like, oh, you know, they're asking me for this now, and I'm sure I'm probably not gonna get it back. And it's like that is not the way it works. It's not the way we love. That is a business transaction. That is not a loving relationship, because it does all come around. It just might not be in the same way, or it just might not be right away. If you feel like someone is in your life and they're showing up for you in whatever way they do, based on who they are, because we're meeting people where they're at, aka unconditional love highway. It's the highway to unconditional love, is meeting people where they're at. It's saying, I know this person, I know their limitations, or I don't know, just this whole thing of keeping score, it's like you feel it when someone's doing it to you, right? You feel it when someone has resentment about being there for you, or if you reach out to them. And it's their choice. It's totally the other person's choice. They don't have to show up for you. But if it's you and you're the person who is keeping score, what did this person do for me? What have they ever done for me? What are they doing for me? You're making yourself suffer. Because you're not even getting to enjoy the beautiful things that you have done. You have put your energy out. You have given your time, your money, your love, your advice, your help, whatever it is. And you go you don't even get to enjoy it now. All that stuff you did for someone else, it's you put it in the toilet. You said it's garbage. And then you don't get to enjoy your own beautiful acts of love and service to others. Right? I'm not saying like, you know, stick around, you know, if you're in a relationship and the person like never shows up for you. Well, you know, obviously that's not working. But what I'm saying is, and and and again, it it doesn't mean we don't have boundaries. It doesn't mean we don't have self-respect. And like I said, I'm gonna explain all of how you won't even need to be monitoring that when you are learning to unconditionally love yourself. But when you are doing the tally with someone, and when every moment that you approach them is like, Dukes up, you got your dukes up, because you're like, you better not fucking say no, because I helped you last Thursday. So you owe me, right? You are making your own life harder. That was part one of my Chitty Chat, aka monologue on unconditional love. So join me for part two. I hope you're enjoying it. I mean, I am enjoying talking it. Anyways, as always, this has been the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast. My name is Suzanne Soul. Thanks so motherfucking much for listening, and I'll see you on the next one. Round it gorgeous.