The Hidden Truth Behind Unconditional Love.

I’ve received countless emails about my healing process. “What did you do to heal? ” is always the question. I never know how to answer this question. For me, I don’t think I’m completely healed. I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% healed. I will forever walk with these scars.  I know it’s not the answer most of you that are looking for that ‘quick fix’ you want to hear. Trust me when I say, I woke up each morning praying that today might be that day God was going to heal my broken heart.  It was that slow burn that was fuckin’ killing me daily. So, I can’t really say I am “Healed”. My version of healing may not be your version. That pain is still there. I’m not that heartless. I will never be sorry for loving the way I do. That’s the beauty of it all. What I can say is, the pain gets easier and you do start to feel that sunshine again. 

Your love for yourself doesn’t need to be the strongest, but it needs to be first.

When I dug deep to answer my reader it came down to loving myself unconditionally.  Sounds cliche, right? Let me tell you why.

Everyone always talks about loving unconditionally. What does that really mean? It means keeping your expectations away from others. When you place expectations on other people, and they are not met, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

Unconditional love starts in the mirror. You have to learn to love yourself first. This is the catalyst where all other forms of love can grow. Your love for yourself doesn’t need to be the strongest, but it does need to be first. I know a lot of people might disagree with the love for yourself not being the strongest, but anyone with children knows that it’s possible to love someone much more than you love yourself.

However, if you don’t have love for yourself, then you will never truly be able to love anyone else unconditionally. You have to be the most reliable person you know. There are going to be times in life, quite a few to be honest, where it’s just you against the world. Can you count on yourself? Do you trust yourself enough with your own life?

Groucho Marx said he would never want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. Even though this statement is satire, it’s still very profound. Do you like yourself? Do you love yourself? Hopefully, you don’t see yourself as some consolation prize. The last pick in life’s game of good vs. evil. You have to be able to pick yourself first. You should want that strong person you see in the mirror on your side. You are your greatest ally.

Being the women I am today I can honestly answer all these question’s with a “YES!” actually with a “FUCK YA!”.  However, there have been times I have let myself down along with others. I am not proud of those moment’s but I take full accountability for them.  You will learn that taking accountability for anything in life will be your secret weapon . During this article you will see why.   

See, loving unconditionally means you love the people in your life in the way you would expect of others to love you. If you think society is full of liars and cheaters, then make sure that your integrity is intact and don’t lie or cheat yourself. I have failed at this at times. 

If you say you’re going to be somewhere, show up. Be accountable, reliable, and trustworthy. If that’s the energy you are putting out in the world, that’s what you will attract. I know all this now from all the pain I’ve wrote about.

Don’t settle for anything less and if you do please make sure you’re strong enough to do all the heavy lifting and guard your heart.  I too, am guilty of this. I have learned if you want people in your life who are strong, loyal, and loving, then you need to exhibit all these same qualities. This isn’t always easy. Trust me. Truth is , you’re not perfect, and that’s ok. You’re going to stumble. I have and I own it! You’re going to fall, crash and burn at times. 

We always hear that cliche about picking yourself up again. Just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t true nor is it going to be easy, 

Unconditional love is compassionate. I’ve realized this is what most people lack. Not a lot of people have the same compassionate heart as I do. I take pride in loving the people that I have loved and continue to love. I take pride in how I’ve learned that people’s hearts don’t beat at the same rhythm as mine. This was a challenge for me to understand because I set that expectation for that person long ago.  

You  have to realize that people are going to make mistakes. After all, I’ve made plenty. You will too. I’ve been that person that let others down before. I haven’t lived up to someone else’s expectations. I’ve been known to be a failure. You know what? That’s ok. Everyone fails. Every successful person fails .  I accept my past and I will never be proud of hurting those I loved. The problem was, I didn’t love myself or even understand how to truly love anyone, because I was never shown pure unconditional love as a child or in my marriage.

At some point you have to forgive yourself for all these things. That’s unconditional love at it’s finest and in the purest form. Remember this the next time you want to judge someone else’s failures.

You need to accept that people’s actions are their own. You are not responsible for how someone else acts, so stop trying to control that. You can’t. You are not as important as you want to believe you are.

You have to learn to be good with that. For me that was the toughest. Once, I mastered these key elements I was able to love myself again.

So set yourself free from the expectation that you have to be perfect for other people, or that their negative actions are somehow your fault. Let it all go and learn to love. I have learned it is possible to love again after experiencing such pain. The kind of pain that was so rich  that I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to come out of it alive. I thought I was going to die of a broken heart. I am  happy to announce I am happy and thriving. 

 

The pain of having to grieve a daughters of mine like she has passed away has been the toughest out of my grieving process. 

With all that I have experienced, unconditional love means that you accept that some things, and people, do not operate within the realm of your control. The more expectations we put on others, the more we eventually let ourselves down in the long run and get hurt.

This, for me, was a tough pill to swallow. The pain of having to grieve a daughter of mine like she has passed away has been the toughest out of my grieving process. It’s painful to love a child as if you birthed them yourself, love them as your own, protect them and have to grieve them as if she died because of her lack of unconditional love. Watching my child I have raised to honor, love and respect her parents, to only love when the conditions were right for her was nothing short of heart shattering.  A picture, a song, the mention of her name are all triggers for me.  My heart breaks every time. As I write these words, tears are rollin down my cheeks.  The pain is simple. I don’t get to see my baby girl that Ive loved since she was a toddler live out the rest of her life because she chose not to love me unconditionally. This will forever be painful.Truth is , I expected her to love me unconditionally after all my mistakes. She was my child in my eyes. I loved her as my own. To this day I still say I have 4 children when asked how many children I have. What sits in the pit of my stomach is the  painful truth. I don’t think she ever did love me the way she said she did. I don’t think she ever saw me as her mother. I’m still working on my healing my broken heart with this one .  

 

 

Set boundaries. Because if you don’t then you invite all the disrespect and the actions that come with it. 

What I did do is I took that experience and learned that all you can do is love those who deserve your love, and learn to let them go when they no longer do. You can’t keep people in your life who aren’t committed to being there 100%. This goes back to you being the example of what you want in your life. If you are completely committed, then expect nothing less in return. Learn to walk away, or fight, when the situation deems itself appropriate.

Set boundaries

…because if you don’t then you invite all the disrespect and the actions that come with it. That would mean you value that other person more than you value yourself. Now, I can honestly say I have always set boundaries. I’m firm with what I won’t tolerate.

However, I fell short a couple times. I know now that the times that I have I have fallen victim (from the ones that were suppose to love and protect me the most) was because they abused my love for them.  After they crossed those boundaries, my respect and unconditional love was no longer there for me. I lost my own integrity along with those two main elements.  I became the person I didn’t want to be. I became as cold as they were.

Accept that you can’t force anyone to stay.  And if you do, I caution you. Who really wants that anyway? Do you want someone in your life who you have to force or guilt to remain? I didn’t. I begged for the divorce papers. I knew he didn’t see my worth after fighting his battles for him or his lack of compassion while I worked to support him and our family. 

After all I was putting in MY blood, sweat, and tears, so why wouldn’t he want to do the same?

Takes me back to our last “knock out – drag out” fight we had. I new I wanted two things or else I’d walk.  One, respect. Two loyalty.  We had a beautiful family. I thought that beautiful family would be worth it to him to put in the work and salvage our family unit. After all, I was putting in MY blood, sweat, and tears, so why wouldn’t he want to do the same?

If someone can’t disrespect the mother that gave his children life, then I was willing to happily sign on that dotted line with a happy face enclosed. 

See, I fought to change the person I was from my past mistakes for my family . Why couldn’t he?  I knew we already established a pattern at an early age with disrespecting one another. He was never going to change and if someone can disrespect the mother that gave his children life, then I was willing to happily sign on that dotted line with a happy face enclosed. It was nothing but devastating to say the least  to watch a man (so I thought he was) walk away and not take any accountability for his own actions. He had a beautiful family,  beautiful children and still dropped the ball. Truth is, he didn’t see our worth. He didn’t want to put in the work.

 

…he will never see the true worth in any women if he chose to walk away from his own beautiful family (that he had).

Two years laters (since the day I left him), he’s still living with his Mom, the car he owns now is blood money from his lawsuit against my parents and no personal growth.

I sit back and watch him chastise my character to my children over and over again. It has become frustrating to have my children do simple tasks around the house without yelling or what my ex call s as ” ALWAYS BITCHING” at them without my children calling me  “Crazy”.  That label has been established in my children.  Showing my passion for anything is now misconstrued as “Crazy”.

“Yelling”  or “Bitching”  at my own children has turned into “Filling out” or “Psycho” as my children and my ex husband protest. Now mothers, do you agree? To me asking my children anymore than 3x in a nice tone to do their homework, to get in the shower or  get their chores done is a clear sign Mom is not being heard, right?  To me this is  simple structure with a touch of firmness. Any mother of multiple children knows this frustration.

I could never see myself with a man like him again. The day I left him was beyond the hardest thing I have ever done. I was so in love. I was willing to starve with that man over and over again. Walk through that fire with him and stay true to my vows. “Through sickness and health. Until death do us part”. He wasn’t.

He will never have that true family dynamic again. I promise you that. Divorce does that to people when you divorce at a late age in life with young children from a long term marriage such as ours.  I realized too, he will never see the true worth in any woman if he chose to walk away from his beautiful family (that he had) and a women that was of value. To watch his own children break down to him, expressing they’re own pain, with no pure empathy or validation was heart breaking. He would only give in return to his kids a courtesy hug followed by a redirect, “Don’t think about that stuff . Just focus on school”. That’s not giving emotional support or loving a child that is pure and hurting. Children are affected by both their parents during an after a divorce.

I don’t want to make the rest of this article about my ex husband. However, the point I am trying to make is I let someone go because I knew he didn’t value me or his own children at that. We weren’t worth it for him to put in the work to save his own family. I knew my children and I deserved better.   

See, you have to love yourself unconditionally first to be able to cut out the toxicity from your life. It might be a friend, husband, parent, or just an acquaintance. If they aren’t putting out what you are, then you need to love yourself enough to go after what you deserve. Loving yourself unconditionally allows you to set high expectations for yourself and chase your dreams.

The core of these expectations is your need for love, acceptance, validation, just a strong desire to feel wanted, worthy, and necessary. If you are constantly looking to others for some sort of acceptance or to validate your self-worth, then you’re not loving yourself unconditionally. 

Once you learn to live up to your own expectations, then you’ll see this need for the acceptance of others begin to vanish. It will be replaced by a love and belief in yourself that is far more rewarding than anything someone or something else can give you. Only then, will you be able to truly give yourself to others. You’ll no longer feel like you need to be so accommodating, and those people who don’t truly deserve your love will no longer hold any power or value in your life. Love yourself first and the choices of who to love and how to love them will become easier than you ever imagined.