00:00 

Hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 10, "Unconditional Love." Welcome to your point of finding greater happiness with intentional growth, because we don't just go into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well, hello there today. It's so good to be with you today. I just think today's amazing. I'm so happy to share with you some of this information that I've been working on this week. Unconditional love is the topic of what we're talking today. And I think that I just grew up with so many, maybe not many, with such a small understanding of what unconditional love was. And I've really been looking into this lately and learning more about it because I think it's fascinating when we start thinking about what it really means to have unconditional love. 

00:59 

So I think one of the easiest examples that we have is our children, or dare I put this in the same category, our pets, right? For some people, they are in the same. We love our babies and our pets with no expectation that they're going to love us back. We just love them. They actually cause us a lot more work. That's one reason why personally I don't have pets. I'm always like, I have enough work. I don't need more work. I don't hone into the unconditional love part of pets yet. But they bring us more work. Think of all the diapers and all of the cleaning and the extra laundry and the, you know, everything, the potty training of both the children and the animals and how much work that is. 

01:42 

These babies and these pets can bring feelings of frustration. They can even bring feelings of anger sometimes. And yet, we still love them to the point of doing everything we can to protect them and to keep them safe and to nurture them. And the reason why is because we don't have any expectation of anything back from them. And that is where unconditional love becomes unconditional. We remove all of the expectations. Most of the time when we think about love that is frustrating for us, it is because we are placing expectations on that love. And that is where the problem comes in. 

02:26 

So the question that I want to start off with today is who benefits from our unconditional love? What do you think? Who benefits from it? I'm going to suggest that unconditional love is actually a very, very selfish love because I am the one who benefits most directly from my unconditional love. Because you know why? Because I get to feel the amazing feeling of love. Doesn't it feel great to just love somebody? Whether it be a romantic love or whether it be loving a baby or loving a dear friend or loving our children or whoever, our parents, we have this amazing feeling that comes and probably one of the best feelings in the world that comes from loving. 

03:16 

Now the people that we love can have some indirect benefits from our love because my feelings of love will cause me to act. Okay, we're going to put that in the in the feeling is our emotions line, the love, and then that leads to our actions, right? So my actions then will cause feeling, or my feelings will cause actions that are positive, but these are very indirect feelings because you know what? The person that I'm doing that action for may not even notice. In the case of a parent, sometimes that's where parents get so frustrated because they're like, "I do all this stuff for them because I love them and they don't even see it." Well, they don't. And so generally, the biggest benefactor of us choosing to feel unconditional love is ourselves. 

04:05 

And this is the thing that I love about this concept is, you know what? My ability to love someone is not conditional on them at all. There is nothing that they can do or say that can affect my choice to love them because I choose who to love and I also choose who not to love regardless of whether that person loves me or not. I love Byron Katie's work and she says, a quote from her is, "I love you and there's nothing you can do about it." You know what? Sometimes our kids will just be so angry with us and not like us at all. And guess what? I love you. There's nothing you can do about it. You cannot make me not love you. I choose to love. And I choose to love because I like the feeling of love. It's engaging, it's empowering, and it's energizing for me. It makes me feel so good when I have those overwhelming feelings of love in my chest that just overtake me. It feels so good to love. 

05:13 

And yet when I choose not to love, it feels horrible. Think of the times that I've allowed myself to be angry and frustrated and even dislike someone and it's toxic. It's horrible and it makes me feel horrible when I choose not to love. And why would I choose that? Love is an emotion and it is caused by our thoughts. If we go back to the model, we have our thoughts, create our feelings, create our actions, create the results in our lives. When I choose in my head to think unkind, unloving thoughts, and my feelings then become unkind and unloving, even maybe towards hate sometimes, that creates actions in my life that wreak havoc, causes so many problems in my life when I choose to feel something other than love. But when I choose to feel love, when I put those thoughts in my brain that say I'm going to choose love and I do choose love for my emotion, then the actions that come out of that are beautiful. And then the results of my life are beautiful as well. 

06:19 

So the only one that suffers with my choosing not to love is me. And I'll tell you why. The other person cannot feel that feeling of love that I have in my heart. They can't feel that. I'm the one that feels it. When I choose to love, I am the biggest benefactor. I feel that love and it changes what I think and it changes my emotions. It changes everything in my life. It makes me a better person. They can't feel it. Only I can. Only I can feel the love or the hate that I choose to create in my life. 

06:57 

It's kind of like forgiveness. Remember when you first made that big aha about forgiveness that, oh, forgiveness has nothing to do with them. Because if I'm choosing not to forgive, I'm the one with poison in my soul. I am the one that is living every day with anger and frustration and animosity and negative feelings that are pulling me down. 

07:22 

And yet when I choose to forgive, I set myself free. I open myself up to love, right? And when I choose not to forgive, it doesn't hurt the other person. Very often the other person isn't even aware that there's something that I need to forgive them for. They don't even know that's going on. It doesn't affect them. It affects me. So love is the same way. When I choose to love, it benefits me in every aspect of my life. I'm more positive. I'm more patient. I'm more accepting and forgiving of the people around me. I feel more happiness and contentment. I even feel more confidence. And I feel more acceptance of myself as well. When I choose not to love, it harms me in every aspect of my life. I feel more pessimistic. I feel angry. I feel upset. I'm easily irritated. And I will so often jump to faulty conclusions. I'll all of a sudden jump to the negative, right? And see negative reasons for people's behaviors. 

08:32 

And the thing that I want us to understand is that we are only punishing ourselves if we choose to withhold love. And sometimes we may think, "oh, but they don't deserve my love." Okay, what does that even mean "they don't deserve my love?" Who deserves anything? None of us deserve anything. It doesn't even make sense they don't deserve my love. Love and deserve should not even ever be used in the same sentence together because nobody deserves my love. Love is not something that is earned. Love is a free gift and it's given out of the goodness of our hearts. 

09:13 

And even if our loving behaviors aren't received or aren't reciprocated, I can still choose to love. Because I don't give a gift because I hope for a gift in return or because I want to thank you. When I go to a wedding reception of a friend, which at this stage in my life, all my friends' kids are getting married, right? And so I'm going to a lot of wedding receptions, which is great and I love it. But I don't give them a gift because I expect a gift in return. I don't give them a gift because I expect a thank you card or note. If I get one, I always think it's really nice and I read it and I go, "oh, that was really nice of them to acknowledge that." And then I throw it in the garbage. I don't give gifts because I'm expecting something in return. We give gifts to people out of the sheer joy of giving a gift because we want to share. And that is how love is. Love is like a gift. I give love because I choose to give love with no expectations of receiving something in return. 

10:18 

And this is when we can know that our love is truly becoming unconditional. When I don't give love with expectations attached, when I stop keeping score. This is when love truly becomes unconditional and we really start to see the benefits of it in our lives. So unconditional love really is quite selfish, but not in the way that we might have traditionally thought. It's a  different kind of selfish. And it's because I don't want something from them in return. I want something for myself in return, right? This is where it becomes selfish. I want the amazing feeling that love produces. And I want all the byproducts of that love. I want the peace. I want the joy. I want the kindness. I want the acceptance of others. Not them accepting me, but me accepting them. I want that ability. I want the gentleness that comes from feeling love. Love is amazing, and what it produces in our lives is beautiful. 

11:27 

And when I let go of the expectations that I have of other people, I free my heart to truly love unconditionally. When I let go of the expectation that they will be kind or that they won't make mistakes or that they won't say something thoughtless or do something harmful, when I can let go of my expectations that they should be perfect, then I can begin the process of unconditional love. It is so much easier to love other people when I accept the fact that they are human, when I accept their flaws, just like me. Every time I thoughtlessly say something, which seems to happen quite a bit in my life, and I think in most of our lives, we do that. Every time I do that, I think, "oh, they know me well enough to know that I wouldn't say that on purpose, that I wouldn't be mean on purpose," right? I give myself so much credit for the person that I really am inside. And I think, "oh, they know." They know. And I may still apologize. 

12:32 

But the point is, I don't go out there to intentionally hurt people ever. That's never something that's going on in my head. I do things because I'm trying to be a better person, but you know what? I'm a human. I am not perfect. And when I can let go of the, it's easy for me to let go of my expectation of being perfect and say, "oh yeah, I just made a mistake. Oops, sorry about that." You know, I didn't mean it. If I cut somebody off in traffic, I'm always talking out loud to them like they can hear me saying, "oh, so sorry, I didn't see you," right? And yet they're probably back there going, "that ornery woman just cut me off on purpose," right? Which we don't. 

13:14 

So in choosing to love and choosing to accept the fact that all people are human, when I can accept their flaws, I can learn to start loving unconditionally. My expectation of other people to be perfect and not to hurt me or not to hurt others or not to make any mistakes says a lot more about my own lack of ability to love unconditionally than it does about them. Because we're all human. We all make those mistakes. And if I cannot accept that other people are human and that they're going to make mistakes, that's my issue to deal with. It's not theirs. Because you know what? People are doing the best that they can. I really, really believe that the vast 99.99% of people are doing the best they can with whatever tools they have and with whatever situation that they're in. 

14:09 

When I can truly begin to embrace and accept this, again, then I am getting closer to being able to really love unconditionally. And this is the deal. Sometimes other people's best is horrible. Sometimes it just is because of unknown circumstances to us. We have no idea what anybody else has been through. We have no idea how they see the world or why they see the world that way. And sometimes their best is really bad. But I can still choose to love them. I can still choose to accept their humanity and believe that they're doing the best that they can with the tools that they have. And I can still choose to love. Now, this doesn't mean that I have to marry any person that comes along or that I have to stay married to someone. But I can still choose to love them. 

15:02 

Unconditional love does not mean that if I love them, they have to love me in return either. That all of a sudden puts an expectation on it. Just because I choose to love that ornery checkout cashier at Walmart doesn't mean that they have to love me in return. But why do I choose to love that person who's being so grumpy and so ornery? Because I have no idea who they are. I have no idea what they're going through. I just know that they're a person and I feel so much better. I'm so freaking selfish. I feel so much better when I choose to believe the best of them, when I choose to love them, rather than if I choose to walk out of that store and whine and complain and moan for 30 minutes about the cashier. Right? 

15:58 

This is the thing. Expectations probably cause 99% of our negative feelings in life. Okay, so I just made up that percentage out of the blue. But the point is, when I have expectations of other people, I'm inevitably going to be disappointed, right? And it's not to say if my adult children come over, I can expect them to clean up after themselves. Absolutely. Right? But if they don't clean up after themselves, it does not change how much I love them. I still love them the same, even if they don't do that. So love cannot be tied to expectations. So that's the kind of expectations we're talking about. We can have  expectations that our children fulfill certain responsibilities or that type of stuff, but it cannot be tied to our love. Whether it be a child, whether it be a spouse, whether it be a friend, expectations and love, again, should not be used in the same sentence. 

17:01 

So here's another aspect of unconditional love. Really wanting people to be who they truly are is unconditional love. And what if who they truly are doesn't love us back? Well, that's okay. I still have the choice to love them. And my unconditional love means that they don't have to love me in a certain way or they don't have to respond in a certain way. It just means that I choose to love. And I will embrace the person that comes forth through that process. I mean, who are they really? And do I love them? 

17:42 

So this is why unconditional love is ultimately so selfish because you know what? I can love whoever I want to love and I can have all the good feelings that I want to have. And I can have them all the time. I don't have to be angry and upset. There will be situations that come up for sure, but can I still choose to love those people? Everything can be rooted in love. 

18:08 

Okay, so question that we'll hear a lot. What about those people that say that love only sets them up to be hurt in the future? And I'm just going to say, what are you talking about? How has love ever hurt you? Love never leads to hurt. Love only leads to goodness. And someone may say, well, what about my spouse who committed adultery? Did love cause the adultery? No, love did not cause the adultery. The spouse made a choice independent of our love. The actions of the spouse can lead to hurtful feelings, such as betrayal or heartache. But the love did not cause the feelings of betrayal and heartache. The actions of the other spouse helped to create those. And our thoughts about those actions, right? But the love itself didn't. Love only brings love. 

19:04 

I love this quote that I happened upon this last week from, and I don't even know how to say the name. It's got all kinds of weird symbols over the top, but I'm going to slaughter it here for you. Meša Selimović said, I love this, "everyone says that love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality, love is the only thing in this world that covers up all the pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt." Isn't that just beautiful? I read that this last week and it just spoke to my soul. It just said, that is true. Sometimes we think that love, we make love synonymous with loneliness and rejection and losing someone or envy, but it's not. Those are all separate emotions. 

20:03 

Don't you just think it's time that we start becoming more emotionally savvy and pull out our emotional dictionary and start naming things for what they are, naming emotions for what they are. We sometimes are so limited in what we will call things. And the thing is, I love this concept because you know what? It is entirely up to me. Other people are not powerful enough to cause my emotions, but guess who is? I am. I am powerful enough to choose my emotions based on what I choose to think. 

20:40 

So what do you think would happen if I chose to love people every single day? How would my life change? How would your life change if you chose to love every person you came in contact? Instead of being angry at the driver or your mother-in-law or that neighbor, what if we chose to believe that they were doing the best they could with the tools that they have under the circumstances they're in? What if I were to stop having expectations that people would act how I wanted them to and just love them for who they are and what they have to contribute to my life? Maybe they're contributing an opportunity for me to be more kind and Christlike. Well, bless their hearts, because you know what? I need to be more kind and Christlike. And if they're presenting me with an opportunity to practice that and to get better at it, thank you. Thank you for giving me these opportunities. 

21:38 

So what if I decide to love them on purpose all of the time, regardless of what they do or say? I will tell you, as I've taught middle school, I have the opportunity to do this every single day. My specialty is eighth graders, and I love and adore those eighth graders like nobody's business. It's arguably, nobody will argue that it's the hardest age to teach in middle school. And most people, when I tell them I'm a middle school teacher, just stand back and go, "whoa, you are amazing." I'm like,  "yes, I know. Thank you very much." I get a golden ticket straight to the celestial kingdom, right? But I teach eighth graders and I love them. But this is the thing that I've learned about eighth graders. I have to love them regardless of what they do or say. And that creates a relationship with them that makes all the difference. 

22:32 

When I first started teaching and a kid would cross a pretty serious boundary, I used to pull them out into the hall and I would be a little bit harsh with them. Well, I can say a lot bit harsh. I would be like, "who do you think you are? You're not going to behave that way in my class." And I would not respond in a loving way. I would be, like I said, pretty harsh. And after about two years, I learned that if I pull them out instead and respond with love and kindness, it's a miracle what happens with those kids. When I pull them out into the hall and I go, "oh, Johnny," I can say that because I've never had a Johnny. So, "Johnny, I'm really concerned about you. This behavior is not normal. Is everything okay?" And when I come at them from, sorry, I just love those kids. When I come at them from an angle of love and compassion, I got so much farther with them. 

23:32 

And not only that, my love increased tenfold for that kid, even though they had been an ornery little stinker in my class. Right? And it made a huge difference for me to start responding to them with love. Do I still get frustrated sometimes and not respond with love? Yes, yes, yes. I teach eighth graders, 13 and 14 year olds. Of course I do. But for the most part, they know that I love them and they can cross a boundary and I can call them out and I will immediately be right back to loving them. Which I call them out because I love them in the first place, right? That's why that happens. But no grudges are held. No continued frustration. Just go right back to loving. 

24:22 

So when I look at this in other aspects of my life, what if I decide to love everybody on purpose all of the time, regardless of what they do or what they say? Huge difference in my students, huge difference in the rest of my life. Because happiness, guess what? It's found within me as I choose to truly love unconditionally without any expectations. And this is the thing. Leaving a job will not make me happy. Leaving a relationship will not make me happy. My ability to be happy is not dependent on another person or another or a situation. Those things, if I'm unhappy in those situations, guess what? Or with that person, I'm going to change. And guess what? I'm still going to be unhappy. Because happiness does not depend on other people or situations. Happiness depends on my thoughts and how I choose to perceive what's going on and the expectations I choose to have. My ability to be happy is completely tied in to my ability to love unconditionally. 

25:31 

And when I figure out how to control how I feel, I don't have to change my circumstances to change how I feel. I learn to control how I feel by my thoughts. And if I am happy, then I can make those choices, such as leaving a job or possibly leaving a relationship, and my happiness will be sustained. And then I can know that I'm making a better decision because I'm not basing it off of whether I'm happy or not. That's completely unfounded there. When I feel true unconditional love, this is the other thing. I become more Christlike. Because the closest emotion we have to being like God is unconditional love. We can love and still set boundaries. 

26:20 

In fact, love is the motivating force behind setting healthy boundaries. And actually, the more we love, the more protected we are because love is not weak. And a lot of people think that if I love, I'm being vulnerable. Well, that's true. But a lot of people think that being vulnerable means that we have an easy-to-kill soft spot, right? Not so. 

26:47 

So the question comes up, do we have to be mean to protect ourselves? Absolutely not. In fact, being mean opens us up to all sorts of other negative emotions that are not protecting ourselves. Love is the protecting force in our life. It's love that keeps us balanced. It's love that helps us to see clearly. And it's love that gives us a more privileged perspective. The lack of love never protects. The lack of love opens us up to all sorts of negativity. Whereas love feels great, withholding love feels terrible. And the love is for me. It's not for the other person. The other person, as we said before, does not benefit directly from my love. They may benefit indirectly through my actions, yes, but they're not directly benefiting from my love. I am the one who feels all the benefits of love. 

27:50 

And love is always the best option because love will never fail. You know that phrase from the Bible, like "charity never faileth"? Because charity is the pure love of Christ. Charity is how Christ loves. It will never fail. It is unconditional, and it will always sustain us. It will help us to heal more quickly. Love helps us to see more clearly. Love helps us to understand more thoroughly. And love helps us to feel more deeply. Love is the answer. Always. Love is the answer. 

28:38 

I love growing up, don't you? These things that I'm learning as I hit this stage in my life are amazing to me and I'm so grateful to be growing up and to hitting this point. So in closing, if you feel it's time to step up your game and dive deep into learning how to more effectively and confidently love unconditionally, you can contact me at tanyahale.com and you can book a free 20 minute coaching session to get you started. I'd love to help you have more connected, intimate relationships with those people who are most important to you. 

29:08 

If you feel this podcast is adding value to your life, please do a few things for me. One, subscribe. Two, share it with other people who you feel would benefit from these beautiful, amazing, life-changing concepts. And number three, if you'll leave a review, I would appreciate that so much. It will help me to be able to move forward. So I hope you have an amazing, fabulous day, and I will talk to you next time. Bye.