someone asked a question, i cannot say this is ‘the right answer’, but it is the one that rose to be given.
Q: How do I learn how to love unconditionally?
start with yourself. seriously. pay attention to yourself. your inner speaking. how you speak to yourself. when you hear yourself speaking harshly… stop… really listen to those words… consider how they hurt or hinder, how they make you feel. work upon treating yourself kindly, upon accepting that in every moment, in everything you do, in everything you choose not to do, you are both demonstrating to all others and reminding yourself precisely what you think of yourself, how you look at yourself, and what of yourself you reject or embrace.
work upon embracing yourself fully… instead of trying to ignore or reject ‘the bad’ and nourish only ‘the good’. we are, each of us, made of both roses and shit. (grin) it is important to remember that it takes shit to make roses. learn to love your shit as well as your roses. they come together for a reason, and balance one another in every way when we embrace them.
the natural outcome of this is unconditional love, it begins within and radiates outward. when you truly and unconditionally love yourself, you will naturally find the way to unconditional love for all else. because the nature of unconditional love cannot be segregated. that is both the beauty and wonder of it.
thank yourself for all things you do, think, say, feel. thank yourself for being precisely who you are. in every moment. thank yourself for wanting to learn. thank yourself for every fear of failure in relation to such learning. let all things of you lead the way, and look upon them all for lessons and indications of where your own, personal roadblocks are…. you will find every one of them… perhaps you can list some of them now… but thank yourself even for these… as they are markers you have given yourself so you CAN learn. there is no learning without lessons and the more you look, the more of them you will find. smile to find them. they are the best indicators you will ever have that you possess both the potential and the unrealized actuality of everything you want to be… and also of everything that you can be (which is, in truth, an infinite thing).
work at not kicking yourself when you are not perfect. learn to be forgiving of yourself even when you can find no reason to justify it. you are deserving of all things, and the only one who ever denies them to you IS YOU.
i wish you more than you hope, less than you fear, and always and in all ways, all that you need.
namaste.