The Love

‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’ – Dr. Seuss

Unconditional love…what is it?

Now we all know what ‘love’ is, that lovely beautiful feeling we associate with a partner, child, parents and even our amazing pets…but why is there a difference between that and unconditional love. In the dictionary, ‘Unconditional’ – meaning: having no exceptions or restrictions – (demanded an unconditional surrender, the unconditional love of a child), is inferring that it is a total act of giving, without restriction. So we must be saying then, that to give unconditional love is to give it with no conditions, expectations, ideals, wants, needs or anything else you want to tack onto it. Interesting! Beautiful for the very reason that, if we all gave from that perspective, this would create world peace, harmony and a love all around for everyone right now! But it’s not…why?

We strive for this love, on so many different levels. As a child feeling that love and security from mum and dad, but with the conditions that mum and dad have learned and now place unintentionally on you because that is all they know. The beginning of adulthood and that first blossom of teenage love that really opens the heart for the first time to this incredible feeling that can move mountains…only to have it, sometimes unintentionally, smashed on the ground by the very person you felt would never ever hurt you, in any way. To now realising that this very act has now produced more intense emotions within because of the pain that loss has created. Anger, fear and hurt creating an incredible range of emotions that in reality couldn’t be further from this ‘unconditional love’ if it wanted to be. Or could it? How many times have you looked back at those emotionally intense times, fighting with your partner, and thinking to yourself ‘why did I say that’. You know it is the worst most hateful thing you can say…but you say it anyway. The situation is bad enough, but your partner always knows which button to push, which words to say and more to the point…do it willingly. Now think about this…why?…You know as well as I do, that all this will do, is create anger, hurt, pain and worst of all, do the one thing that you do not want…push them away because of our fear (The Fear) of not wanting to be hurt any more.

So….why no unconditional love! Well I am going to pass on a little, (I say little but this was one of the most profound things that spirit has ever passed on to me), journey that I was blessed to partake in. It was at a time where I was really starting to look within and be open to what was really occurring around me. A time when I began to step back within myself (The Reverse) and actually see more of what was going on around me from a spiritual perspective. I was becoming comfortable with my new direction and accepting of what spirit was bringing through for my understanding. Little did I know of what was about to happen.

My mother, at 80yrs young, had had a couple of heart attacks, not major types where you become quite ill with a long stay in hospital and it changes your day to day living, but enough that it knocks you around and can leave you weak and unable to do some everyday things. I had just left my place of work (redundancy), so was footloose and fancy free (isn’t that a coincidence!), so I went down to her home, she lived 90min away, to stay a while and look after her. After a couple of months I went to the local shops to purchase some things and ran into a young lady that had the most incredible energy I have ever felt. (Remember as a Massage Therapist I have learned to ‘feel’ others energy, but beyond that we all do it but don’t trust what it is we feel). Now this absolutely beautiful creature with this lovely energy rocked me to say the least…but…she looked about 32 at the most and I was a grand young age of 50 at the time so I thought what is this supposed to mean? The overall sensation was that it was going to be one of those ‘Events’ that I have had a few times in my life, a connection for us both to learn something quite intense with the added bonus of a lovely journey as well, and not as a romantic connection.

After getting to know this lovely lady for a while (and this was by going into the place she worked, getting items and just chatting), I started to realise that I needed to step this up a notch or we would just wander on happily chatting away, so after some weeks I thought, what the heck, I’ll ask her for a coffee. I had no idea how this would go down but spirit obviously needed me to step outside my safety zone and I suppose all she could do was say no. Now on the other side (I found out later), was that she had gone through a very traumatic time, divorce and all the emotional upheaval that it brought into her life and after a long struggle within herself she had finally decided that the next person that asked her out, she would say yes.(Isn’t spirit amazing!). So up I came the very weekend that she had decided this and asked her out. She told me later that she was amazed that she had said yes and tried to cancel it a few times afterwards as it wasn’t for another week, but thankfully never did. Our higher selves will always guide us to whatever our highest good is. And what a journey!

Now I will go directly to the actual event at this point otherwise there was a lot of other things that occurred during this time but are not a part of what I am trying to show in this part of The Love. (Mind you, The Love IS everything!).

After we had become much closer after a few weeks we realised that we were becoming very,  very close, even though we had been fighting it the whole time. And by this time I found out she was a very young 39 years old (she looked so much younger), which made me realise that the age thing didn’t really mean anything, so we became even closer. Now spirit is a master at helping us on our journey so at this point spirit asked me one night during my sleep (this is explained in The Dreaming),  ‘Is this what you want to do…do you want to be a part of this relationship?’. And of course I said ‘yes!’. And spirit asked me this again, and I said ‘yes!’. But spirit asked me a third time, and I was feeling that something was happening here and to take this onboard with the seriousness that it was given. So I said ‘yes, I do!’. Now that left me a little aware that something important was going to happen here but within the context of starting to fall in love and really open my heart for the very first time and the feeling of having rose coloured glasses on to boot, hey, I can move mountains now so bring it on. Now I need to insert a very important piece about love here. You can love many,  many people, pets & things in your life. Look at how you love your mum/dad…or your brother/sister…or your pet…or your memories of any of those things…no two are the same. You love them for the unique individual that they are…and…how you have interacted with those people in your life. I can love my mother in law…BUT…it’s with my knowledge that she can be impossible to do things with or she interferes too much or she is a controller etc etc (by the way ‘mum’, you’ve always been beautiful. I was not inferring you actually did the above, it’s just for explanatory purposes!). And those judgements and expectations  that we apply, affect how we feel for everyone and thing in our lives.

So now I’ll go to the next important piece which occurred about eight months later. Our relationship didn’t work out and my heart (and of course hers), took a major hit. To put it bluntly I was devastated. So I started to close up my heart and emotionally pull away to protect myself and tell myself it’s over so it’s time to leave. Now spirit decided it was time for some understanding on my part. So in my sleep spirit came to me and said ‘You wanted to be a part of this relationship?’, to which I replied ‘yes, but it’s over now’. To which spirit said ‘You wanted to be a part of this relationship?’. By now I’m becoming a little frustrated to say the least but said ‘yes, but it’s over now, there’s no longer any point’. And being the very,  very loving and patient and kind spirit that I am/have said ‘You wanted to be a part of this relationship?’. So my heart began to understand that I was coming to something very important here so I said (with sincerity (finally!) and a bit confused), ‘Yes, I do wish to be part of this relationship!’. To which spirit asked ‘Would you like to know what unconditional love is?’. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. It was the last thing I was expecting, but remember, my little pump,  pump thing was all over the shop and not thinking from a spiritual place at all. You can get a little distracted when you’re going through this very trying time. So at this point I was now jumping for joy, singing halleluiah, thinking I’m going to be told the secret of the universe. And practically yelled at spirit ‘YES, PLEASE!’.

Spirit proceeded to explain in very simple layman’s terms just what unconditional love is. Spirit said to me ‘all you have to do is, go through, not over, not under, but through your fears!’. Now being the rational human being that I am, I said ‘speak to the hand…next idea please!’. Spirit then said ‘It’s very simple, you spend your entire life lifting your arms up to your chest when you feel threatened or think you’re going to be hurt to protect yourself. It’s a wall to protect yourself with physically. You do the same thing with your emotions. You put walls up to protect your emotions from all those hurts you get from the world every day. Like…you look terrible in those shoes…you can’t do that…don’t be silly…etc. When you put those walls up you block the one thing that is more important than all the others. That is the love that is everywhere. You project your fears in that one act. People see/feel your wall…and back away…thereby not giving you love because THEY then don’t want to be hurt by you. Which is what blocking does. You are not inviting anyone in to your heart by how you act. (See The Reverse). You are creating your fears. (See The Fears).

When you understand and you see what you are really creating and you want to let these fears go, as you don’t want to create these things anymore…you take a deep breath, gather your courage…and step through those fears. And then, and only then, do you understand that you have created a heavy load that has hung over your head forever. And when you do step through that fear, the feeling that you have is an incredible deep breath and release of that load that you have carried with you for a long time. The next sensation is the joy and tears that you have finally released it, and you smile and laugh and are amazed that you have done this. And the most important part is now you have finally opened your arms (physically) and your heart (emotionally) and the overwhelming feeling of relief and emotional openness because of what you have been able to do, NOW allows the love to flow through, you begin to attract it to you instead of blocking it. That is why you feel so good after you’ve let go that fear. It is a rush of pure love, a let go of something you no longer want as a part of you, and allowing it to be replaced by a feeling so pure and open you will smile forever.

Well, that WAS the secret of the universe! I was totally flabbergasted to have it put to me in this way. So simple, so understandable that I was stunned to think it was always JUST there. Always with me but not be able to understand because I wasn’t ready yet. I needed to reach a certain point so that when I was ready and given this understanding, it was something that I would now begin to integrate in everything that I do. To put it bluntly, it was a game changer, it shocked me to such a degree that I now began to rethink, readjust and re-everything that was me up to that point. It opened so many walls that I had fervently built in my life to protect that little pump,  pump that I now began to release and drop those walls. The weight loss (emotionally), was incredible, you really do not realise just what burdens we carry with us through our lives.

So now I have released that fear…the fear of losing something that I had held on to so hard because I was afraid to lose it. Afraid of losing something so much that I was in fact pushing it away with my fear. I now understand what it means to truly let that fear go and give from a place within that is not controlled by anything but the love that it is given. And an incredible freedom because of that. We put so many conditions on our love that it binds us. Binds us in fear because that is what it is created with. When you finally understand, and give truly, freely, with no expectations, it gives you such a feeling of joy and happiness that you can still move mountains, can still do amazing things and can still see the wonder of everything around you and not a pair of rose coloured glasses in sight. This is truly you. Underneath all those fears and all those attitudes, lives the beating heart of unconditional love. Waiting….waiting to be finally, forever, set free!