One Strategy for Practicing Unconditional Love

I see you. I love you. You are enough just as you are.

I’ve had a few hard conversations this week and witnessed some other folk’s difficult situations.

Parenting, eldercare, working with people, relationships of all kinds give us opportunities to learn.

Opportunities to be present.

To see and be seen.

To accept.

To love.

Sometimes in my exuberance and enthusiasm for the possibilities about what can be learned and changed, I don’t realize that what someone might be hearing or feeling is: 

I’m not doing enough. This isn’t good enough

I’m not enough

Ouch!

The absolute opposite of what I want someone to feel.

What I want to feel.

I want to love unconditionally, and that’s what I want to feel, too.

Not breathless from trying to keep up with or never meeting someone else’s expectations.

But secure in feeling seen and loved and accepted.

When you start with a foundation of love and acceptance you don’t need to chase after outside validation or someone else’s definition of success.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.  – Maya Angelou

Loving and accepting yourself fuels your ability to love and accept others as well as your ability to create opportunities and to embrace challenges.

It gives you confidence to learn to use your gifts, whatever they may be, to help you find joy in your journey.

So how can you help build this foundation?

How can you help feel and spread unconditional love?

As I was pondering and journaling, I overheard a nearby conversation.

One woman was talking about her worries about her child not reaching her potential. Another woman talked about acceptance. And a third woman shared how she reminds herself to be present and very intentionally send a beam of love and acceptance to her child, especially when the child appears to be struggling.

She said whenever she looks at her child, she silently repeats this mantra:

I see you.

I love you.

You are enough just as you are.

It immediately brought tears to my eyes.

So simple and so powerful.

What a different feeling than looking at someone and thinking:

You could be…

You should be…

I want you to …

Acceptance instead of judgement.

I think how much better so many situations in my life would have been, would be if I was intentional about starting from:

I see you

I love you

You are enough just as you are.

Yep, I’m always learning.

So, this week I’m going to practice this mantra whenever I look at someone, no matter what their age.

Or even when I think about someone I’m communicating with.

Or even when I look in the mirror.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Want to join my experiment?

XO Lisa