We all have the drive to love ourselves and the world around us. After all, life is much better when we can enjoy and are invested in ourselves and others. Love is one of the biggest ways to find purpose in life.
Loving unconditionally can be difficult at times, though. When it comes to hard times, how do you continue to love unconditionally?
What Is Unconditional Love?
The first question is, of course, what does it mean to love someone or something unconditionally?
Unconditional love is to love someone or something even during hard times. You are more than willing but want to be there even when things go wrong. You don’t love these people or concepts only when they are perfect but when they show their flaws as well.
However, unconditional love is not accepting everything. If something is harmful or toxic in your life, you don’t have to – and shouldn’t – take it at face value. We’ll look more into this in a bit.
Show Your Love
If you want to feel unconditional love and receive it in turn, you have to demonstrate your love. Think about it this way; if you aren’t expressing how you feel, you probably don’t feel authentic.
As such, this is a big part of not only loving individuals and entities other than yourself but loving yourself as well. To love yourself, you need to demonstrate yourself in a light that you love. It’s much easier to love who you are when you carry yourself as you want to.
It’s also much easier to love yourself unconditionally when you have people around you that love you unconditionally. This comes back to the golden rule: when you love others as you want to be loved, you’re likely to get just that.
Showing your love doesn’t have to be done in solely big gestures and it probably shouldn’t. The little touches you can do every day are absolutely important.
Asking someone how their day is, putting a note in your child’s packed lunch, or lending an ear when something is wrong are all simple, everyday modes by which you can show your love. Using some of these models to show your affection can go a long way in expressing what you feel to those around you.
Express Yourself and Your Concerns
We noted earlier that loving unconditionally doesn’t mean staying in situations in which hurt you.
If your family is doing something that is detrimental to you, take the time to speak with them about it. For instance, if your spouse has a behavior that makes you feel poorly, discuss this behavior with them and ask for change. This can be a great opportunity to seek out the help of professional family counseling as an objective third party. Check out this article for resources.
In the same vein, if someone around you comes to you and asks you about your behavior of your own, you have to be willing to listen to them and grow as well. For all parties involved, unconditional love comes not only with understanding but with growth.
Be Reasonably Forgiving
Everyone makes mistakes. Those around you will at some point make mistakes. As we just discussed, you will sometimes come to moments where these need to be addressed. However, there are also smaller moments as well. Maybe a loved one forgot a birthday or they were rude to you on a bad day.
Whether these are bigger problems that need to be worked through or small slights, forgiveness is a powerful tool in unconditional love. Being able to get past problems by understanding the imperfections in who or what you love is crucial.
This goes for the unconditional love of yourself as well. You are going to make mistakes throughout your life. As noted earlier, though, growth is important and for that growth to occur you need to forgive yourself for the errors that helped you grow.
On Loving Your Home
As unconditional love pertains to your home, there is an important distinction to be made between house and home. Your house is the building you live in. The structure itself is just that – a structure.
A home, on the other hand, is what you make out of that house. The belongings you put into your house and the memories there are what transforms a house into a home.
This being said, the best way to love your home unconditionally is to make it into something you love. Use decor that is reflective of and comforting to yourself and your family. Fill the house with memories – even if you haven’t been there that long. This could be artwork by your children or even photography of your family, friends, and yourself over the years.
When the decor you use doesn’t reflect yourself and your family anymore, don’t be afraid to make adjustments.
It can also go a long way to take on home improvement projects. These can be anything from large remodeling jobs to personally tackling smaller home improvement and home repair projects. The more you put into creating a true home, the more you will love it.
[pextestim pex_attr_name=”Pete Alman” pex_attr_img=”https://uncustomary.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Pete-profile-photo.jpg” pex_attr_parallax=”disabled”]“Hi there, I’m Woodworking Pete Alman. I’m a former carpenter turned writer, and proud resident of Nashville, Tennessee. When not working on a project in my shed, I’m lifting weights or hanging out with my three dogs (Dobermans).”[/pextestim]
