Unconditional Love

I’ve been reading “The Five Levels of Attachment,” by don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. At the same time, I’ve been working to understand the concept of “unconditional love”.

My understanding of the message from the book is that our attachments to our beliefs get in the way of our following our own, best path. The more strongly we are attached to a belief, the less likely we are to challenge it, even if it becomes almost impossible to make that belief work with what we see around us.

People kill and die because of their beliefs. That belief may be that only their religion is right, that their country is the best, or that their physical body’s shape, size, or color is somehow better than another.

The Dalai Lama, the well-known Tibetan Buddhist teacher, explains the difference between attachment and unconditional love:  “Attachment and love are similar in that both of them draw us to the other person. But in fact, these two emotions are quite different. When we’re attached we’re drawn to someone because he or she meets our needs.[…] On the other hand, the love we’re generating on the Dharma path is unconditional. We simply want others to have happiness and the causes of happiness without any strings attached...” He neither accepts nor denies that unconditional love is possible, but he does explain it quite clearly.

People harm each other because of attachments to a belief that there is a limited way to love. I’d bet on the fact that you know someone who believes it is wrong to love outside of your race, your religion, or to love someone of the same gender. Those same people may tell you that God doesn’t want you to love in the ways they believe are wrong—and they may also tell you that God loves unconditionally. 

Perhaps they explain this as a paradox—that God loves unconditionally, but with a few conditions.

A Yoruba priest, Kalila Borhgini says, “God’s love is unconditional, but God also has expectations and requirements.” She accepts this and, a little later, calls it a paradox.

Baptist Rev. John Piper writes, “There is such a thing as unconditional love in God, but it’s not [...] for everybody. Else everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions, not even faith.” What I get from this is that God loves us unconditionally, only if we have faith—which is of course, a condition.

I don’t believe in paradox. My feeling is that when we see something as paradox, it’s because we are seeing part of the equation incorrectly. 

2+3 will never equal 4. No matter how attached I am to the number three, as long as I hold it in that part of the equation, I am going to come up with a paradox because the only thing that logically fits, is another two.

Consider this statement: God is everywhere. 

At first, I took that to mean that God was here with us, all the time—that God was always present, right along with everything else. In time, I considered the possibility that God was neither another dimension superimposed over what we see and feel, nor a presence far away that was somehow aware of everything else.

Maybe God isn't here WITH everything, but AS everything. Maybe God’s presence “everywhere” really means that everything and everyone is God. 

Einstein and other physicists tell us that all matter is actually energy. Slow down energy's vibration and you get what we call matter. This means everything we see, feel, know or imagine is energy. Our thoughts and feelings, our movement through space, and even our bodies. 

Everything is energy. God is everything. Therefore God is energy. This equation makes sense to me. 

Perhaps God slowed down bits of that energy in order to experience what we think of as the physical realm. 

In the Law of Attraction teachings (also called the teachings of Abraham) it says, “Unconditional love is staying in the vibration of Source regardless of the condition.” To me, this says that we can only love unconditionally if we are in alignment with the vibration of the Universe (God). In a way, this is saying the same thing as the Baptist Reverend--that faith(or alignment with God) is a condition of unconditional love. 

One could look at it to mean that only God can love unconditionally, but if we did accept the premise that God is all, then God is us, and we are God and therefore, we should be able to achieve unconditional love.

I will make mistakes and you will make mistakes, yet God is perfect. If we are God, then mistakes do not take away from our perfection. How can that be? 

If I am God and you are God, then the concept of ‘loving thy neighbor as thyself’ has a different flavor. Thy neighbor IS thyself and both of us are God. We are meant to love ourselves and others and God constantly and equally, because they are one and the same and Divine—and therefore perfect. It’s like saying God has unconditional love for us because we are Divine and perfect aspects of God. That equation seems to ring as true as 2+2=4. Both sides are equal and the same. 

Catholic Fr. Vincent Serpa writes, “God does love us unconditionally in that he loves us even in our sins. But he cannot love our sins.” This is the “love the person not their actions” version of “unconditional” love. It represents an attachment to the “good and evil” concept. 

But maybe the way we choose to manipulate the energy around us (the way we choose to live our lives) is not good or bad. Maybe that judgment is irrelevant to God. Maybe God does not have any expectation of how we will use our time in this physical realm, but instead, has a knowledge that all aspects of God will always be aspects of God regardless of how we shift that energy—that no matter what we do, we are still perfect.

We would not put the three in the 2+3=5 equation unless we had a really good reason to believe that the three belonged there. If we were to accept that this paradox of expectations and unconditional love is a faulty equation, what attachment would have caused us to create it?

I think it’s an attachment to conditional love that moves me—and others—create the paradoxical equation. 

In my most rational moments, I don't actually believe God loves one person more than another. I accept that everyone and everything is an aspect of God, and that God loves all aspects of the Universe equally. Therefore, what I do here has nothing to do with how much God loves me.

The first time I considered that idea, I was surprised by a wave of fear. Why would that be a scary thought?

As a small child, I wanted to be loved unconditionally but I learned that love was conditional. I believed my parents were not capable of giving me unconditional love because I was not capable of being "good enough". If I believed unconditional love was possible, I also had to accept that my parents chose not to give it to me. This is harder to accept than to believe there’s an unknowable paradox—which would allow me to never have to look at the situation too closely.

In order to imagine this need for unconditional love being fulfilled, I personified God. I gave God the quality of requiring a condition for love, a quality that actually belonged to my parents. Like many (as my examples above display) I developed an attachment to the belief that "unconditional" love would be given to me if I followed a certain set of rules.

An attachment to this belief has several benefits.

For one thing, I can solve the greatest dilemma of my childhood. With God, I can finally be "good enough" to receive “unconditional” love. 

But also, by believing that God’s unconditional love actually has some conditions, it gives me an illusion of power. If I do “God’s will” then surely God will love me more. I will become one of the chosen, the beloved, the saved—whatever name you’d like—by fulfilling the conditions imposed by my belief system.

If I give up the attachment to the concept that I gain God’s love by following certain rules, does that mean I have to believe I can’t gain God’s love?

Yes. That's true. I can’t gain God’s love because I already have it. We can't ever lose it.

If we have to follow rules in order not to lose God’s love, we live fear-driven lives. There is constantly the possibility that I might lose the love I need, so my actions are driven by the set of imposed rules in my belief-system.

If I truly accept that God's love is unconditional, then I am no longer driven by fear of losing that love. It is that fear that seems to hold us to the rules of society—the things our society has decided are "moral” or “right”. Without that fear-driven base, It seems I would no longer be governed by the laws of man. I would be free to act exactly as I'm called to act. The moral "dilemma" would not exist. 

Our attachment to the concept of "good and evil" may be the hardest one to release. How many paradoxes would be wiped out of existence if we saw that this is really a societal concept, not an actual law of the universe? We would not have to hold ourselves (mankind) to a different standard as the rest of nature, for one. We would not have to judge ourselves or others harshly for "making mistakes", for another. We all know we are going to "make mistakes" yet we live in resentment, shame and guilt. 

If we were going to release our attachment to societal morals. We would have to raise our children in an entirely different way. When a toddler first experienced rage and struck out to show it, we would not tell him what he was doing was wrong. Instead, we would teach him that everything and everyone IS God, just as he is, and that when he strikes out against the world, he is striking out against himself. 

Of course he would not understand this as a toddler, but neither does a toddler understand “wrong”. We drive that into children until they believe it and then expect them to accept the "paradox" that God loves unconditionally—with some conditions.

In This Moment

When you look at yourself, do you see what God sees?
When you speak to yourself, do you say what God would say?
When you hear yourself, do you hear God’s voice and words?
When you love yourself, can you love absolutely as God does?

What if this moment was not one in a line, stuck between others like the filling of an Oreo?
What if this instant stood alone, without the regrets of the past or the worries of the future?
If you close your eyes, can you push aside this time and place?
What would God want for you, right now?

Step Zero

A funny thing happened during my session with my therapist on Monday.

It was good to see her and talk about everything that's been going on for the last two weeks. Even though she was on vacation, she was keeping up with my ceremony posts, which really made me feel good. It also made it so much easier for me because she knew all that I'd been through and what I was feeling up until the time I left the retreat.

I'm still processing and still gaining perspective. Several people have asked me, "How are you now, since you did the ceremony?"

I didn't want to answer right away. There is often that high that comes right after an experience like that... I wanted to wait until the high wore off and real life set in so I could give an accurate account.

Anyway, while I was at my session on Monday, she pulled out some things she had printed for me to look at as she does from time to time. I imagine she does this for all her clients.

One of the pages she handed me she said came from her files but she couldn't remember where it came from.
I remembered. It came from me!

Before I started this blog, before I had my current sponsor, in CoDA, I had another sponsor for a short time. The first time I was trying to do Step One, I was having a really hard time. Honestly, before she handed me this page, I'd forgotten what a tough time it had been. I believe I have told people that step one was not difficult because I always knew my life was out of control.

Although I was quite aware that my life was unmanageable,I did actually have a great deal of difficulty getting through the first step.

The page my therapist handed back to me that day was something I wrote as I was trying to find my way through that difficulty.

How to Begin to Love Yourself (aka step zero)

In step one of Codependents Anonymous, it states:
“We admitted we were powerless over others – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

I've read and reread this many times. Each time I thought to myself, yes, my life is obviously unmanageable. Then I would move on to thinking about all the ways my life was unmanageable and begin to beat myself up about it. The more I thought about it, the more fault I found in myself.

It’s taken me several months to realize that this is the problem I’ve had with this step from the beginning. Thinking about it made me feel bad because it inevitably brought on a long session of self-abuse as I blamed myself for every negative aspect of my life. Today, it occurred to me that this is not the purpose of this step.

So, I’ve decided on a step zero—a preliminary step that, for me, will be helpful to get me to step one. This step will be stated as follows:
Realize that you are perfect in your imperfection.

I've heard the expression "Perfectly Imperfect" in meetings. I suppose I didn't really understand it, until now.

Why do we kick ourselves when we’re down? Is it human nature or something we learned along the way?
It seems likely that if you judge yourself harshly, you may do the same to others.

If you always use your turn signal before a turn, and condemn yourself for the occasional time when you forget, you are likely to be very angry when someone turns in front of you without signaling.

If you work at being punctual, and beat yourself up when you are running late, it’s likely you will be annoyed when someone keeps you waiting.

However, while you are quick to jump on yourself for each little misstep, it’s likely that you don’t make a scene each time someone else commits a small personal foul. You may not say anything to others that behave in ways you find objectionable in yourself.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you are forgiving and generous with others. More likely, you are making marks on the infinite tally sheet in your mind, building resentment as you go. This puts an unnecessary strain on all of your relationships.

So how can you stop ruthlessly criticizing yourself, and alleviate the strain you put on others?

For me, I find it helps if I think of myself as one of my children. If my child did what I've done, how would I react? Would I call them stupid? Would I want them to feel awful about it? Would I punish them for every mix-up or blunder? No! I would give them a hug and encourage them to try again. When I look at my children, even their mistakes can make me smile because I accept them and love them exactly as they are in this moment.

This kind of unconditional love is precious. Whomever you deem worthy of it will reap great rewards, some of which they will carry with them throughout their lives. It’s a gift you’ve always had to give, but may have been too stingy with.

If you can learn to look at yourself the way you would a loved child, you may see yourself as someone who feels sorrow and joy; makes mistakes big and small; incurs little triumphs and great accomplishments; knows the burden of fear which is sometimes tempered by courage; and has a mind that is striving to understand the world and a heart that can give even you unconditional love.

When I told my therapist that this was something I'd written and sent to her, (I later went back and found the document - I wrote it in February of 2009 - and the email I sent her with it attached, mostly to convince myself), she said, "It seems you've been on a quest for self-love and unconditional love for a long time."

She's right. When I was writing this, it was the beginning of a path that has brought me to a much better place. So often, we have these little glimpses of truth. It may seem, at times, that we work so hard and the continue to fall backwards, again and again.

I don't see this in that way, at all. I believe it took a long time for this message - that it was good and right to love myself unconditionally - to get from my brain to my heart and soul. It doesn't happen in an instant.

But it can happen.

Unconditional Love and Forgiveness

Last night, I went to a Forgiveness Workshop, facilitated by Mary Hayes Grieco. I learned of this workshop in January when one of the women from the Wild Souls Retreat saw that Ms. Grieco would be giving the free workshop in my area, and sent me an email.

The woman who sent the email, said she had been able to attend a lecture given by Dr. Edith Stauffer, years ago. Dr. Stauffer was a spiritual teacher who developed an Unconditional Love and Forgiveness workshop, and when she retired, she passed it on to Ms. Grieco.                                     

Creating Space by Shen

The first hour of the free, two-hour workshop was full of entertaining anecdotes that made me understand Ms. Grieco as a real human being. There was no preaching-from-the-pulpit feel to this presentation. Everything she said came from a place of honesty. Yes, she seemed to say, I am not perfect, but I am learning and I am getting better all the time.

                                                     
During the second half of the workshop, she talked about the Eight Steps to Forgiving Another. There are also Five Steps to Self-Forgiveness. These were not new concepts to me - I have been an active student of "how to forgive" for some time now - but hearing her real-life examples and seeing everything outlined so succinctly, helped to clarify and solidify the ideas in my mind. I know the steps to forgiveness are going to be extremely helpful to me, not just next week, but for as long as I remember to use them.

These phrases particularly stood out to me, as she spoke last night.

Spirituality is a state of presence
Master your life
Remember, but forgive
Aim for alignment – spiritually, physically and emotionally
Be present in the moment
Resentment and unresolved rage are toxic to the soul
Shift the energy
Anger is an emotion. It can’t be resolved mentally – it must be resolved emotionally
Look at yourself as God sees you - perfect and whole; a cherished child

The other really important thing I got out of hearing Mary Hayes Grieco speak last night was clarification of an idea that has been growing inside me for some time. I know that C has said almost this same thing to me. I know others have, as well, and I've read things like this in books and blogs. Sometimes it just has to be the right time and place, and I think I am in that time and place, right now.

So, here is my “wisdom of the day”:

The resentment you carry is the connection between you and the one with whom you are angry. When you release that resentment, the connection is gone. Your anger is literally holding you to the one who has hurt you! Dissolving that attachment can unblock the flow of energy and love in you and make space for all the good things you want.

Could the timing of this workshop have been any better, for me? As I said, I heard about this five months ago and had nearly forgotten about it until an email reminder came out a couple weeks ago. To me, it is just one more thing that points to my Awareness Ceremony being exactly the right thing at the right time. So many things are coming together. Everything feels as if it is in alignment.

I brought my copy of "Be a Light" for Ms. Grieco to sign. I was a little embarrassed when she opened it to sign it and it was already signed. I had bought it online, and it came as a signed copy. It really is not the same as having her sign it in person. I explained, she smiled, asked my name and signed my book to me.

I bought two of her CDs, last night. One of them is called A Woman’s Ways. It is about developing intuition. The other one is called, A Peaceful Heart. This one I will be putting to good use, next week. It is “A practical guide to unconditional love and forgiveness”.

I will be using the CD on Wednesday, along with her Steps to Forgiveness, and some other tools I've collected along the way, to guide me through the rest of the emotional baggage I am still carrying. When I sit down for my ceremony on Thursday, I want to be completely ready. I’ve done a lot of work, and I feel very certain that this will be a final piece of release, for me, about much of what I am carrying around from the past.

I don’t want to carry it, anymore. It’s heavy and dirty and ugly and I have much better things to do with my life. Somehow, I know that releasing all of this old clutter from my soul is going to make room for something really wonderful. I know that the space I am creating is necessary and I have such a strong sense of anticipation.

I can’t wait to see what will fill me up.

Grace in My Garden

From people in the meetings, and in books on Co-Dependency, three terms seemed to be used as synonyms:
Acceptance,
Letting go,
and
Forgiveness.
When I first came to CoDA, I heard people speak these words and my heart would immediately close. I would hear that these things were things we needed to do.
It was explained that forgiveness was not for the person who had committed the offense.
Forgiveness was for the victim.
I’d think, “How is that possible? It makes no sense!”

Over time, I began to object to the way people used these terms interchangably.
Acceptance seemed like something I might be able to achieve. Letting go was still out of reach, but the idea that I could accept that my life was how it was and move forward from there was very different from forgiving those who I blamed for putting me on the course I'd been following. To me, it felt like forgiving was the same as saying what had happened to me was okay. It was like saying, “I’m not that important. It’s okay if you hurt me.”

I told my sponsor, last summer, that I would never forgive my father. A defiant child inside me screamed, “You can’t make me!”

In the garden of our lives, the wounds of the past are barren places. Many of us avoid looking into these dark deserts of despair. Fear of these bleak, infertile spaces haunts our thoughts, dreams, actions and aspirations. No one showed us how to care for our garden. We allow ourselves to be victimized and avoid the things we need most. As the sterile darkness spreads, we find ourselves in smaller and smaller cages of denial, but still we refuse to face that which is preventing us from becoming what we can be - what we are meant to be.
It feels hopeless.

In our hands, we hold the seeds to Acceptance, Letting Go, and Forgiveness, but until we take the time to step into the barren places, push the dirt aside, and place the seeds in the ground, there is no hope for them to grow.

For me, I believe I began to bury those seeds in March of last year.
If I had a bottom, that was it.

I recently heard this question asked at a CoDA meeting:
When does one hit bottom?
The answer: When one stops digging.

I looked at the holes I’d been burying myself in and decided, instead, to plant those seeds I’d been hanging onto. Continuing my Inner Child work in therapy has let sunlight in my garden. Working the steps in CoDA has been the much needed rain. In the last year, I believe the seeds have grown into something tangible, something I can almost taste, but still there is something missing.

Acceptance.
In my garden, acceptance is a tangy, not quite ripe orange. It is hard to peal, but I have been working at it for some time. The sections I have free are not as sweet as I would like, but I can get them down without too much discomfort.

Letting go.
With the first sections of orange inside me, the green limes of letting go have become thin-skinned and ripe. I can open them up and breathe in the citrus smell, but the tartness puckers my mouth before I can swallow a mouthful.

Forgiveness.
Yellow lemons grow in my garden. They are forgiveness; beautiful to look at, but impossible to digest. Just opening them makes my eyes water.

I am writing out my eighth step, this weekend. This step is:
“Made a list of all persons we have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”

The timing on this seems perfect. My “Acceptance Ceremony” is only ten days away. What better time to begin to take responsibility for my part in it all?

I have not been perfect. As Melody Beattie says in “Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps”:

“It is hard to be nurturing, loving nonshaming and present to...if we have never been nurtured or if all we know is control and shame, and if we ourselves are doubled over in pain. Being without boundaries, not being able to set appropriate limits… is doing harm.”

I could continue to play the victim and relieve myself of all responsibility because of what has happened to me in the past, but does that really serve me? Even if it did, wouldn’t this kind of attitude mean that I also have to relieve those who have harmed me of responsibility? Surely their behavior has stemmed from unmet needs and abuse in their own lives….

As suggested in the Beattie book, I am taking breaks to “find peace” when it feels overwhelming. I wrote the first part of this blog post during the first break, and now I am coming back to finish it.

I think I understand what was once missing in my garden.

I believe there is more to creating life than sunlight, water and earth. For my seeds to grow into something I can ingest, something nourishing and sweet, I need divine intervention.

As I said, I have not been perfect. How unbelievably lucky I am that there is a thing called “unconditional love”. If there is anyone who can love unconditionally, it would have to be God. Since I feel the presence of God in my life anytime I sincerely look for it, and since I believe in unconditional love, I know that God loves me unconditionally.
I am not meant to live in shame, anger and fear.
I am not alone.
I have been forgiven.
This kind of presence, forgiveness and unconditional love has a name.
It’s called Grace.

Grace is the final ingredient I need to make my garden flourish. Grace is like sugar, sprinkled generously on the tart and tangy fruit I am finally harvesting. Sweetened, watered and warmed by the sun, what was once impossible to swallow is becoming something too sweet to resist.

What Integration Means to Me

Once again, I'm deleting the text that I will be using in my memoir. I've left the image and the comments
~Shen 2-21-12

Am I Going to Die?

When my son was six years old, I was tucking him into bed one night when he asked, “Mommy, are Grandma and Grandpa gonna’ die some day?”

I told him that, yes, one day they would, but he shouldn’t worry about it. When it was time, they would be ready.

He seemed to accept that, but the following night, he had tears in his eyes. When I asked him why he asked me, “Are you and Daddy going to die some day?”

I again tried to reassure him, but told him the truth. "Yes, one day, but that day is a long way off and you don’t need to worry about it. By that time you will be all grown up and taking care of yourself and you will be able to handle it."

The next night, again, I was sitting on his bed, pushing his hair out of his face. He started to cry.

“Honey, what’s the matter, don’t you feel good?”

After a long pause, he sobbed, “Am I going to die one day?”

My heart ached for him. How I wished I could deny it! I hugged him and told him the truth. "Yes honey, everybody has to die. One day even you will die. But that is only one day in your whole, long life. Are you going to spend all the rest of the days worrying about it?

It isn't the end of everything. Only the end of what you know, now. One day, you'll understand this, and when the time comes, you'll be ready. For now, just work on being the best you you can be."

Sleepily, he nodded his head.

I wonder if he even remembers those conversation. I wonder if somewhere, inside him, there is a sense of peace because his question was answered.... I wonder how different my life might have been if I'd been able to ask questions like this when I was six years old.