Ep. 8 The truth about love today...

Navigating Love: Breakups, New Beginnings, and Unconditional Love

In this episode of the Wild Grace Podcast, host Malika Ford explores the depths of love amid her own experiences with a recent breakup and a new romantic connection. Malika discusses the concept of conditional versus unconditional love, sharing insights from her personal journey and lessons learned. The episode delves into the complexities and juxtapositions of relationships, expectations, and the importance of loving oneself and others without attachment to outcomes. Join Malika for a raw, authentic discussion on mastering the art of love and the ongoing quest for true, unconditional connection.

00:00 Introduction to the Wild Grace Podcast
00:24 Personal Journey Through Love and Breakup
01:49 Understanding Conditional vs. Unconditional Love
03:29 Challenges and Expectations in Relationships
06:26 The Danger of Falling in Love with Potential
13:56 The Reality of Romanticized Love
16:12 Embracing Unconditional Love
25:33 Grieving the Future and Finding Security in the Present
29:02 Final Thoughts and Takeaways
30:30 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Wild Grace Podcast, where authenticity isn't a choice. It is your calling. Real raw, untamed. This is your initiation into the wild.



 Hello and welcome to the Wild Grace Podcast. I am your host Malika Ford, and today we are talking about love, sweet love. And the reason why we're talking about love is because I'm going through a breakup right now.

And at the same time as this breakup, I'm also rising in love with someone else, and the way that I'm breaking up and the way that I'm rising in love just has all of these insane juxtapositioning and beautiful insights on what the fuck love is. A few years ago, I said to myself, I want to master the art of loving.

And there's one thing that is pretty hilarious. When you ask to master something, what generally happens is the universe provides you ways so that you can integrate, so that you can learn what you've asked for. And so the last three years I have been. Tested time and time again to lean in to challenges to lean into love, to keep choosing love over everything else.

However, the love that I have been choosing has been somewhat conditional and. The thing about conditional love is it can never be fulfilled, ever. There's always this tit for tat going on. If you give me this, I'll give you that, and I feel like the world generally lives in a conditional love. Unless of course you are a parent and you've had the privilege of really discovering what unconditional love is, it's loving without any expectation, it's loving, without any attachment to outcome.

It's loving, wanting absolutely nothing back from that person. And the first time I experienced unconditional love truly. Truly was,  📍 when my daughter was born, she was only a few days old. And I was looking at her, just looking at her. We were, we were lying by the fireplace and she was just looking up at me.

And in that moment, I fully understood what unconditional love was, and I had not experienced it up until that moment. I hadn't. Nothing had even come close to what I experienced in that moment with my daughter. And so I, I wondered how you can have unconditional love with a partner. How is that possible?

Because  there is this certain level of expectation that comes with in a partnership, and I don't even know how to turn it off. Now that I am becoming more aware of it, I can notice the subconscious conditioning that's going on with the sudden expectation, unspoken, by the way, unspoken expectation of what happens in inside of me, inside of my brain when.

I get deeper committed into a partnership with someone and it'll be the subtle shifts, the subtle shifts of going from lovers to partner or lovers to boyfriend and girlfriend. and it's almost like this thing turns on in my brain of like, well, now that we are partners, I expect this, this, and this from you.

It is a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure because when, when you're just in a lover ship with someone or a situation ship, there is no expectations. There is no attachment to outcome. You just kind of live two parallel lives and you dip in and out with intimacy or whatever, but there really is, there's no expectation. , you're free from all expectation and then suddenly you move in together, or you get married or you get engaged or whatever it might be. But then suddenly with that engagement, with that commitment comes all of these expectations.

Suddenly that dynamic changes and subconsciously you bring in all of your social or family conditioning. Into the relationship. And what I wanna know is that if we are meant to be loving our partners with unconditional love, if we are truly meant to be loving our friends, family, and partners with unconditional love, then where the fuck do all of these conditions fit into those?

Where does all these expectations fit into those? Because the way that I see it. The way that I'm becoming aware of it is these expectations only disappoint me and they build tension into the relationship. Now, I'm not saying that to you should lower your standards. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that there is a way to keep your standards high and your expectations low.

So if you are in a partnership and your standards are high and your expectations are low, you wanna hope that that person will meet you there. But if they don't, there's no disappointment and you get to love them unconditionally where they are in that moment. I know so many women, and I have been guilty of this myself, of falling in love or rising in love with someone's potential.

Their potential. They do not see them for where  📍 they are right now. They see them for where they could be in the future somewhere in the future. If they did X, Y, and Z, they would be the perfect partner. And the thing about falling in love with someone's potential is you never know when or if they will ever get there.

It is a blessing and a curse because I walk around and I can see everyone's highest potential. You've got the potential to be this. You've got the potential to be that If you just opened your heart a little bit more, if you just did this or whatever it could be. It's a dangerous game that you are playing with your own heart, and I know because I continuously play it with myself, I fail to meet people where they are because I am so in love with where they're going, that I completely dismiss who they are right now.

Completely dismiss it. I create this delusion that eventually in some timeline, they will meet me where I wanna be met. And the truth is, you might be waiting around for a really fucking long time and then you're putting all this pressure on them to be a certain way or rise into their potential and. It could be too much pressure for them that eventually they just fucking bail.

If they don't rise to meet you, they will bail. And then all of this patience that you've put in to support their growth and their journey, all of that time and energy spent on loving them so fucking hard that they rise to meet you. Or they don't. And I do have some beautiful stories of couples that grow together and they grow at exactly the same pace and they're just on this beautiful parallel journey.

And it pays off though. I still look at those couples and they're still growing and there are still a shit ton of challenges because they are like growth junkies. Both of them. And then I look at couples that are like completely doing their own thing and just love each other for exactly who they are without trying to change anything about the other person.

And sometimes I look at these couples and I'm like, wow. It's almost like, you know, she's so good to him. She's so good to him and, it almost looks like he's taking her for granted from the outside anyway. And I wonder about these dynamics of like, does she feel hard done by, or is she just loving so purely unconditional that it just doesn't phase her wherever her partner is in his evolution?

They just get to be themselves exactly where they are growing. 'cause growing is inevitable. We just have to breathe to grow really. And they seem pretty happy though. I look at these dynamics and I'm like, Hmm, there's like gotta be a little bit denial going on here. You know, rose colored glasses, like, ah, it's okay.

And it really makes me wonder. And I definitely  have not mastered love yet, but one thing that I have become aware of is that the more conditional lovers, the more likely it is to crumble, and the less conditions the better. I have recently met someone who has.

Absolutely nothing. Nothing but their knowing of self. They know themself, they know themselves. They know how to emotionally be present. They've got really strong boundaries around processing. They're ambitious and they  📍 have little to nothing externally, but they have a shit ton of wealth.

Just by knowing themselves, and this is where love can get sticky, right, because. There's so many women out there that I know that are looking for the full package. He's gotta be integrated with money. He's gotta be integrated emotionally. He's gotta be integrated physically, like health, wealth, all of it.

They just want, they want everything. They want everything.

And I'm like, the more emotionally intelligent a man is.

Is it like. The less money he has and the more I, I don't know if this is any correlation, but the richer the guy is, the less emotionally intelligent they are. I've also noticed a correlation with, no, that's probably not a correlation. I was gonna mention like money and dick size. I'm still yet to find a rich guy out there with a massive dick. If you know of one, gimme a call. Anyway, where was I? Yeah, so I feel like we are always looking for someone that is completely integrated, holistically, has everything.

We're always in flux, right? Depending on where we are in our lives, we're always in flux. Like we might be mastering one thing at one time, but then, you know, maybe we've let this, this go a little bit over here. We might be excelling in our business, but then we're lacking in our family life or we're, we're really in our family life, but we've now not so good at being social with our friends.

And I just feel like we're in this constant flux and to have it all. Full all at once. I was like, does anyone have that energy? 'cause I certainly do not. I mean, maybe if you're a a generator, you have enough energy for all of that, but only if it's lighting you up. Otherwise, eventually it will drain you.

And so this, this love that we've grown up to. Believe in this romanticized Disney generation love where the woman is out there just waiting for the man to find her, and then they live happily ever after. And that is a fucking lie. It's a lie. It's a lie that we are all on some level. If you were born anywhere from the seventies up until the nineties.

Maybe even beyond. There is this like Hollywood love that we have been programmed to believe in and it fucking infuriates me because I have been a victim of that. Delusional, delusional. And I wish it was true. I really wish it was true, but it's not. It's really not like we are humans living. Experience where souls living experience as a human, however you wanna put it, and humans are messy.

We're emotional creatures, or maybe we're not even in tune with our emotions and we're completely emotionless either way. We all have our challenges, we all have our ups and downs. If you are just solid fucking all the time, like you must be a robot. I'm like, would I rather a robot than someone that's up and down all the time?

Like it really also depends on your, on your human design authority as well, which is hilarious in itself. I realized that the most stable people seem to be the ones that have splenic authority and, all of your emotional authorities out there, including me, we have ups and downs and it's a lot.

It's a lot to be on the wave of the emotional rollercoaster of life.

So love for me moving forward must be unconditional. It must be unconditional, and I wanna be met with that love as well. I wanna be loved. No matter how I'm showing up, what do, what I look like, what I'm wearing. I wanna be loved when I am out of control, and I wanna be loved. When I'm my best self. I wanna be loved just in every single form.

'cause when love is conditional, I don't feel. Fully accepted for who I am. I feel like only parts of me are lovable and the rest is not welcome.

And when you're in a relationship like that where your partner. Doesn't want to be around you in all of your forms, in all of your emotions.

It feels like you just have to do one thing wrong and it's all over. Or you are avoiding parts of yourself because you know that they're not accepted in the relationship. And then that part over time. It builds up and it builds up, and it builds up, and eventually it implodes because you can't hide yourself from your intimate partner, even if you're trying to hide parts of yourself.

The longer it goes on, eventually it's gonna come out. It's going to come out. And if you've been hiding these parts of yourself. From your intimate partner, and then suddenly you start to show your full colors. Well, unfortunately, the joke's on you because

chances are they'll be shocked that you've changed and they won't know how to accept you in that, so you must. As hard as it may be from all of your past trauma where you haven't been accepted for who you are in all of your colors, you must from the very beginning, be yourself. Be yourself. I have got a terrible habit of showing up as my best self with my new partners.

Consistently showing up in my best, best self. And I gotta tell you, it doesn't last forever.

And it's hard because when you are rising in love with someone, like it's hard not to be your best self. You've got all of those yummy chemicals running through your body. Ugh. I love, love so much. I love, love. I'm addicted to love. I am addicted to love, addicted to love. And I, I just, yeah, I love, I love the love drugs.

The love drugs are good. And when you go deeper into love and those first initial hormones start to wear off. And parts of yourself that they haven't seen before come to the surface and it's like a test. It's like, oh yeah, hey, this is me too. It can be shit. Sometimes it can be really shit sometimes. And it's like, do they love you there?

Can they love you there? And you wanna think, yes, they can love you there? 'cause if they can't love you there. It really sucks. It really sucks and it's also a new as well for hiding parts of yourself for that amount of time. I just know now that when someone really sees you for you. Like sees past your physical form into your soul, like actually sees, you actually can acknowledge you for who you are and respect you  it's almost like they're seeing into your soul that is a different kind of love that feels more unconditional than anything else. Because it's like it doesn't matter what they do. It doesn't matter where they are in the world. It doesn't matter how much money they make. There is like this

beyond surface connection. Soul Connection where there is no conditions. And those kind of connections are so special. They're so special. And what pisses me off is those beautiful connections. Ah, how long can they last? How long can they actually last if, if no one in the relationship is making money?

And this is where I feel like the world fails, it fails us because we, we don't always get to decide love just based on that soul connection. We have other things to think about, like how we are gonna support our family. And we do have to think of all of the logistics as well. And that is where the conditions come in. it sucks. It really sucks. Hmm. And this is also where we can come in as whole sovereign beings and just. Learn to stand in our sovereignty. Learn to stand in our love. Learn to stand in our presence. Learn to be an independent and see. See what comes from that space, from that frequency. 'cause while we're looking for someone to complete us.

We're always gonna be finding someone that is powerful. They'll be really good in other some areas, but lacking in others. And I learned to find your one or to find your soulmate. You need to become the list you need to become your list. So if you've got a long list of everything that you want in a partner, you also need to become that list.

And even as I say that, I'm like, yeah, that is true. That is true. However, what happens if. You both are in a building phase and you both haven't had made any money yet, and you meet each other at that frequency and you build together. That's also an option. There's no rules to unconditional love, really, and you're gonna meet someone when the timing is right.

I don't think there's any wrong timing to meet someone. I think where we go wrong is we find someone and then we just pour all of our time and attention into that person and we get in that little love bubble. I feel like sometimes that can

be dangerous, I guess, because while you are intoxicated with this person, you might not be focusing on your own projects. That's when the enmeshment can start. However, you can also meet someone, fall madly in love, become enmeshed, and do great things. So again, there's so many variables to this. It's the awareness that is super key.

And so I wanna ask you. Do you love with condition? Do you love with expectation? Do you love without attachment to outcome? In the recent breakup, I, I have been grieving, not necessarily the relationship itself. But my attachment to the outcome, like all of the visions that I had of us laughing when we're older, like much older, I had just this vision of us being old together.

And it's the attachment of that timeline. It's the attachment of that and outcome. It's the attachment of all of the things that I was visioning for the future., that is what I'm grieving the most. Because it took so much emotional real estate to create those dreams of the future. And we have chosen another path, and I really do feel like that is one of the things that hurt the most is the dreamings, the future dreamings. Because if we were just in the present all the time. We would come to this closure knowing that it was the right decision and there would be nothing else to process.

'cause we'd always be present in the now. Like what feels good now? What feels good now?

And in a way there's no security in that. It's like. I always seek security in a relationship, even though it's a false sense of security, but making future plans for me is a way to find that security. Without those future plans, I'm like, Ooh, ooh, well what's gonna happen with us? And so I am already putting this attachment on the future attachment of, of what we are becoming rather than feeling just safe.

In the now safe right now here, wherever we are, whoever we are in this moment,

because it actually doesn't matter about the future in this moment. All that matters is now. All that matters is how I'm feeling right now.

And if you are seeking for that full sense of security in the future, I ask you what it is about yourself that doesn't feel safe. How can you create more safety in your body right now in yourself? It's like. Ah, actually, I'm so safe. I'm so grounded, I'm so taken care of and it doesn't matter what happens in the future between me and this other person.

All that matters is what's happening right now. And you probably don't wanna hear this because like some of you wanna plan for families and it's, while planning is great, planning can be absolutely awesome. But it's the attachment to the plans that gets us all choked up.

Yeah. So the take homes is how can you have high standards without expectations? How can you create visions without attachment to the outcome? How can you love yourself and your intimate relationships unconditionally? Just fucking love them for who they are right now. Full spectrum human. Can you love them here?

Can you love them here? Because we are all really. Little children. We've all got our inner child in there. And so for me, when I'm looking to love someone unconditionally, I look at their inner child because it's way easier for me in this moment

to just love the inner child unconditionally. Hopefully I will get to the stage where, you know, I'm loving the rest of them too. Their bratty teenage self, their grumpy, grumpy, old man self, whatever it might be.

Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next time.

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