What is unconditional love?

Unconditional love is taught to us from a young age by many cultures and religions. A popular definition is quoted at many Christian wedding ceremonies “for better or worse” and is interpreted to mean that if we have unconditional love for someone, we tolerate, excuse, and look past any unhealthy or damaging traits. 

Brené Brown offers an alternative, and her book “The Gifts of Imperfection”, where she explains that the highest levels of compassion for another is achieved through maintaining consistent, healthy boundaries with those we love. I have found in my work on myself, and work with clients, that resentments are avoided when we know our boundaries, when we clearly communicate our boundaries, and when we consistently follow through when someone crosses our boundaries. At the Gottman Institute, contempt (which is the next step after resentment) is determined to be the largest killer of love and compassion for another, and is therefore an important signal to us that we might not be setting boundaries, communicating our boundaries, maintaining our boundaries, and/or need to determine and define new boundaries. 

Attachment theory explains that secure attachment looks like allowing our loved ones to go out in the world and explore as they would like, and being there for them when they come back. I believe this is what unconditional love is: excepting that those that we love will cross our boundaries, consistently following through with our grounded, respectful consequence for the boundary being crossed, and being ready with lots of love, compassion, and open arms, when that person is ready to come back and try again to respect our boundaries. 

My challenge for folks is to create awareness around what has been taught to you about unconditional love, and then identify what parts of that feel authentic and true to you. We are only able to live into this our truth and integrity once we know what our definition of unconditional love is.