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I thought about it and I am sure I love my children unconditionally. Although I find it hard to love anyone else unconditionally....even my family sometimes... I am not sure if there is a universal understanding of this type of love.....what do you think. "Unconditional" sounds pretty serious and very hard to attain. Oldergal
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Don't Worry About Growing Old, It Is A Privilege For Some Of Us.....
((((Ogal)))) I thought that way myself at first and felt justified in it and then I just couldn't shake the blaming and justifications for resentments and judgements. I was never able to "get free" of my negative feelings and ego and pride. I eventually was led to the teachers when I made and kept myself ready and an elder female member told her story one night about how she came to have empathy and compassion for her alcoholic and started treating him with mercy without any excuse not to. After the meeting I follower her out to her car and asked her for a moment to explain her defintion of love which allowed her husband the gift she gave him. This is her definition and doesn't even contain the word alcoholic in it. "Love is the complete and total acceptance of every human being for exactly who they are". The word love is replace with acceptance and exactly who they are means without conditions. That still is my definition for love today and it isn't a thought or perception anymore. It is a principle and behavior.. I'm now gonna listen to what comes behind us. ((((hugs))))
((((OGal)))) I love and understand; for me that phrase Original Programing as being that programing done by my HP, creator, father. before the diseased and dysfunctional family came about. I faulted the Original Programing by replacing it with what I learned and accepted by and in my family. Program returned me to the original and helps me to stay connected with it. Hugs/
That's been my experience, OG. Divine intervention has changed my mind at times in ways I know that G2b on her own could never have manufactured. I marvel at it and know that little me has just experienced the amazing power of Unconditional Love at work and still can't define it. HP has worked through you for me at times. And you don't know me at all. (((OP))) Still love the bears avatar. My understanding of Divine intervention is unmerited favor. When I can see the stars shining, the flowers growing, my grandson growing, my son at peace, my daughter finding what she needs, hundreds of cars on the roads with few accidents and other beautiful forms, I can experience that favor and know that it exists for all and not because of anything I have done or not done. It just is what it is - grace.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 18th of August 2013 12:04:08 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 18th of August 2013 12:06:29 PM
That's been my work, OG, and it has been a divine providence kind of thing when it comes to changing my way of seeing. I just had to keep an open mind, admit my attitudes and feelings were stinko, wait, and new perspectives occurred with really very little work on my part at all other than what I stated. Good you are seeing your attitudes as the problem and not the person whose helping you see them for what they are. Until I could see that my thinking was the problem and not the person in front of me, HP could help change my view/change my perspective/change my attitude. No human being could have done that for me. And, I still catch myself judging - as if I am God who can see into the heart and mind of another person. I can't even see into my own at times. I'm not sure if this is what you're meaning, but it is what it appears (your share) to mean to me. Sorry if I've missed your meaning. Thank God, we're a family. If one of us miss it, there are plenty more of us to fill in the rest of the message/story/understanding. That's what I love about MIP. And I'm one of those difficult people to love, OG. To some degree, I think we all are in various relationships or circumstances. The person I have found most challenging to truly love has always been me.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 18th of August 2013 01:24:14 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 18th of August 2013 01:29:42 PM
Unconditional love, to me, cannot be achieved by human beings on our own. I think we tend to know more what it isn't than what it is. Yet, I've experienced it in my lifetime and watched it at work in the lives of others and knew it to be the work of a power greater than any human being could ever achieve or hope to achieve on their own. I just can't define within the limits of the English language because IT is greater than any created word and cannot be boxed into a simple definition in my experience. I could use language to point to it, but I can't seem to find language that defines it. Some refer to it as the Observer Self. Some refer to it as a Benign Consciousness. Others - like me - refer to it as the Presence of Love.
But all those terms to me are simply pointers to the Greater Good that cannot be defined by human language - at least not mine.
I practice Jerry's explanation. I too strive daily to accept each person that I meet and to treat them with courtesy , kindness and respect without judgment or criticism . This is the best I can do and it feels right
I began doing this is my alanon meetings and it worked . Taking it our into the "real world "worked as well I am so grateful for the tools of alanon.
I meet many, many people on a daily basis at my job, and I am kind, courteous and respectful to all no matter what kind of day they are having, or I am having, I have practiced that and have it down now, although that interaction is 10, 15, maybe 30 mins. I guess I mean the unconditional love in a deeper sense to the people you work with for years, the people you live with in your home daily, your relatives. Lots of times I have judgments in my head, I may not express them out loud, but I sure can think them. Your experience with this, comments, opinions are appreciated. Maybe "divine intervention" is the key...OG
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Don't Worry About Growing Old, It Is A Privilege For Some Of Us.....
Well I guess I am talking about "love in thought and action", that we offer our brothers and sisters the ones that are not kind, that don't look or live like us, the ones we don't understand, outcasts.
What I offered you online in response to your posts is easy because it is part of me. I know that we share "the gentle art of Al-anon", and my wisdom/experience would be appreciated. I am talking about the difficult people to love. Although prayer is my first and foremost defense in my daily life to do God's work, I know there is more I can do and wanted to get some opinions from the board. An example is working with a boss that does not have the same work ethics that you do. And all her work effects me in how I get my jobs finished, resolved, responded to. I run around all day with a negative dialogue in my head....I don't want to do that anymore I want to get over it. I love my job other than that.
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Don't Worry About Growing Old, It Is A Privilege For Some Of Us.....
More on unconditional love - in action: I knew a nun many years ago. I met her when she was 72. I was in my mid-30s. She had been a hospital administrator, a scientist, a teacher, retreat planner and facilitator, a spiritual director and when I met her her main function was to help people living in a senior center prepare to die by living life to its fullest with their limits.
A____ was lame. She wasn't pretty. She still wore a modified version of the habit of her order. And she was the kind of person who when she spoke, nobody wanted her to stop. She led a workshop once that I was at - 50 people were there. She spoke over an hour and said she needed a break. 50 people followed her straight to the punch bowl. They couldn't get enough of her. She knew exactly how to speak to the human heart in a way that made folks feel understood and appreciated for themselves. She would look at one person as if they were the only person in the room and could say things that made you feel as if whatever you had ever done in your life was understood and would always be understood. There was no judgment with her - only mercy although she did have her own personal boundaries and she held them in place in a way that said - "Try to cross them and it won't be good." Yet, she wasn't a hostile person or angry person. She didn't criticize, minimize injustice, or deny the realities of life - no matter how ugly.
She stayed in my home for a week and that is a week that I will never forget. I had never experienced unconditional love until I had been in this woman's presence. She taught me more in one week than any teacher I had ever had in years. She had a way of being that was soft yet firm, gentle yet strong, merciful yet had boundaries, compassionate yet probing, insightful yet humble, vulnerable but not foolish. She didn't bother about herself, or fuss about herself, or complain about herself or worry about herself. She just was her Self. She had no false modesty and she didn't put on airs. She just allowed her Self to be what it was and lived her life in faith and sincerity. She never tried to impress anybody with her knowledge and allowed others to have their own views without trying to change them. She - to me - was the only example of unconditional love in a person that I have encountered in my lifetime. And to a large degree, I think she got there because she surrendered her ego and her strivings and just let love be within her. She died a horrible death due to her work in a science lab and experienced depression when she learned her fate. But her friends tell me that people loved to be with her even with the physical disabilities she was forced to undergo because they could feel love emanating from her even in her pained and twisted body as her disease progressed.
Unconditional love was something she allowed to be within her and she carried it out into the world as easily as a bird finds its own nest.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 18th of August 2013 08:22:14 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Monday 19th of August 2013 06:46:57 AM
I don't have to love all people unconditionally. We should show respect of others beliefs and cultures. I don't have to accept your beliefs, but I do respect your human rights. I had a strong compassion and love for the alcoholic . But it had conditions. I still couldnt live with him.
So it did have its boundaries and limits, for my protection. I leave unconditional love to God, Jesus, Buddha, Dali Lhama ....even Mother Teresa had her limits.
I prefer compassion over Love. Love can be enabling, but real compassion shouldn't be.
I think we love our kids unconditionally, but still need boundaries.
So I think unconditional love needs a better definition, after all life is not black and white.
I have to keep stuff real and gritty. I do not love unconditionally, I aspire to do so and when I fail, which is several times a day, I ask GOD to help me see ______in a different way to enable me to be compassionate and less judgmental. We can talk pretty, yet, in my experience, everyone I know (and maybe my experience is limited?) has judgmental thoughts about others. What I am grateful for, is that I can courageously take my inventory and see my boogars. Sometimes, when I get really snarky about someone, it is because they have triggered a shadow within me I am trying to hide. Great post and perseverance for info you can chew on
