LOVE IS?

By James Gitau
We all know of love in many forms,
including romantic love. We have
heard songs about it, seen it in the
movies, heard it talked about by
relationship experts, and read about it
in self-help books.
But what is unconditional love? We all
want to feel loved. We think about it,
hope for it, fantasise about it, go to
great lengths to achieve it, and feel
that our lives are incomplete without
it.
The lack of unconditional love is the
cause of most of our anger and
confusion. It is no exaggeration to say
that our emotional need for
unconditional love is just as great as
our physical need for air and food.
Ignorance
It is especially unfortunate, then, that
most of us have no idea what
unconditional love really is, and we
prove our ignorance with our high
divorce rate, the incidence of alcohol
and drug addiction, the violence in
our society and our overflowing jails.
Our misconceptions of unconditional
love began in early childhood, where
we observed that when we did all the
right things when we were clean,
quiet, obedient and otherwise good,
people loved us. They smiled at us
and spoke in gentle tones. But we
also saw that when we were bad , all
those signs of love instantly
vanished.
In short, we were taught by
consistent experience that love was
conditional; that we had to buy love
from the people around us with our
words and behaviour.
If we do not have enough real love in
our lives, the resulting emptiness is
unbearable. We compulsively try to
fill our emptiness with whatever feels
good at the moment money, anger,
sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, gossip,
bad mouthing others, power and the
conditional approval of others.
Anything we use as a substitute for
real love becomes a form of imitation
love, and although imitation love feels
good for a moment, it never lasts and
never gives us the feeling of genuine
happiness that real love provides.Most people spend their entire lives
trying to fill their emptiness with
imitation love, but all they achieve is
an ever-deepening frustration,
punctuated by brief moments of
superficial satisfaction. Lack of real
love and the frustration we
experience as we desperately and
hopelessly try to create happiness
from a flawed foundation of imitation
love results in unhappiness.
The beauty of real love or
unconditional love is that it always
eliminates our anger, confusion, and
pain.
Expectations
Real love is simply love without
conditions. It means loving without
any expectations. Love is the
essential reality and our real reason
for being in this world. To be
consciously aware of it, to experience
love in ourselves and in others, is the
meaning of life.
To feel this love that we are born
with, we must learn to forgive
ourselves for being human and,
therefore, imperfect. The only place
we can find real love and be able to
give the same is within us. As
Whitney Houston sang, I found the
greatest love of all inside of me.
Therefore, find that love that lies
within yourself and you will
experience abundance in your life. Do
not go looking for love outside
yourself as you will not find it, no
matter how long you keep looking.
Remember, as Marian Williamson
says, ?we are not held back by the
love we did not receive in the past,
but by the love we’re not extending
in the present.
We must learn to give ourselves and
others total love without conditions.
Our love must be like that of a parent
for their child; no matter an exam
score, a life changing decision,