We hear the term unconditional love a lot these days, especially in spiritual circles. But what does it mean exactly? At first glance, it seems to mean loving without conditions. Yes, it is that. Yet it is more than that. As I live my life, I begin to see other levels to it. Something that involves seeing clearly someone’s human vulnerabilities and seeming faults as well as their divinely sweet magnificence–and loving them for all of that. Holding it all in my heart at the same time, seeing it as part of this particular individual’s soul journey. And seeing myself that way too. I’ve found that viewing everything as perfectly lovable in just one other person unlocks the ability to do the same for everyone in my life—and then for everyone on the planet.
Scientists have discovered there are emotional, mental, and even physical needs for forgiveness.
Every cell in your body acts like a computer. Each cell has an electromagnetic energy field and a biochemical composition that instantly responds to your environment — and to your thoughts.
According to well-documented discoveries in epigenetics, genetic inheritance is only a predisposition. Whether it is triggered or not is dependent on the individual’s programs.
What does that mean? It means that more than anything else, the body’s response to our conscious and unconscious thoughts determines your health and happiness.
Now, here’s the really good news! To forgive is the soul’s choice.
That’s right, your soul has a choice!
Several years ago on a trip to Bali, we were privileged to meet a very old, wizened Shaman who taught us a beautiful morning love process to bless, heal, and nourish my body, mind, and soul. 
This transformative process is a fantastic way to begin each day and I highly recommend it for everyone who desires to have more love in their life!
Here’s how to do it:
When you wake up, before getting out of bed, before checking your phone, or anything else… lie in bed, with your eyes closed. and put a smile on your face.
Love often appears at our door as a beggar in disguise. There are countless ancient myths that tell how the gods would show up at the door of someone’s home, appearing to be in dire straits. On the surface of things, they seem to be seeking food and shelter; but, in truth, they’ve come to ask if the ones they have chosen to visit will make room for them in their lives. And, as these stories go, whoever agrees to make this kind of sacrifice – for the sake of their unexpected visitors – is rewarded by them beyond their wildest dreams.
In much the same way, love is always knocking on our door. But it never does so more stridently than when our heart closes itself off to our partner in the name of some unconscious pain that we blame on them.
In unhappy moments like these, not only do we slam the door shut in the face of the one we love but, without ever knowing it, we also deny ourselves the precious, timeless gifts that only love can offer us: a full partnership with all of its powers. These gifts include the unfailing presence of an unconditional compassion for all that it embraces. This level of higher self-understanding can never be pulled into a fight with our partner because it can’t be deceived into identifying with one side or another of some unconscious opposing force.
Searching for hiking near our hotel in Scottsdale, we discovered a little trail head. Walking up the dirt path I heard dogs barking and wondered about the houses. They were mostly concealed by trees. The trail led us to a junction of several more peaks and valleys. We both love the expansive feeling found in the sun and open land.
Often when someone feels wronged by their partner they demand “payment” for the pain they feel unjustly inflicted upon them. History proves they will argue until this well-established pattern completes itself, one way or another. At some point, unable to resolve who’s to blame for the pain, one or the other will either storm off to brood over the mistreatment, or decide that “retreat” is the better part of valor and make some kind of peace offering, perhaps an apology. Sad, but true to say, in the long run, neither of these “solutions” makes any real difference. Their suffering passes into the night, but not the unseen reasons for it.
This situation sounds familiar, doesn't it? One event, a single word or critical glance triggers a negative reaction. Then and there we feel our partner has set him or herself against us, and – a moment later – we respond in kind. The feeling of being disrespected or misjudged morphs into a certainty that we’ve been betrayed; pain, not love, becomes our common denominator.
A song written and recorded in 1944 that was popular with my parents’ generation had the refrain: “Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative.” Those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II often developed one of two responses to life: fear or hope, or perhaps a mix of both. You can see hope in songs like this one. And I definitely saw it in my mother when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Without fail, she always looked for the positive in any situation, person, or event. If someone behaved in an unpleasant manner, my mother’s response was inevitably, “She means well.” And then she would find something nice to say about the person.
Knowing all of this, how do we achieve ultimate happiness and heaven-on-earth? Stay mindful, stay present (Resource List Here). If you stay in the present moment, the conscious mind is the pilot and your hands are on the wheel.
When my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I heard the words, but it took me several years to accept the realities of the disease.
I’ll never forget one moment when we were sitting outside in his backyard together. It was just a few years after he was diagnosed. There was traffic racing by on a nearby highway, but he thought he heard water flowing.
“Don’t you love the sound of that water?” my father asked me.
I corrected him. “No daddy, that’s traffic.”
He shook his head and insisted that he heard water. I corrected him several times until finally, I accepted his version of reality.
“Wow, Daddy, I hear the water, too,” I said. “It’s so calming.”
He smiled and nodded, relieved that I had met him where he was.
Pain, regardless of where or how it appears in our relationship, can either remain the seed of a distress destined to flower into a mounting resentment, or we can choose to use this same pain consciously. Then it can be transformed into the seed of something new, true, and beautiful: the birth of a new level of self-understanding – the realization of a higher order of love that can never turn against itself or anyone else.
A student once asked me, “It feels like my partner and I have come to a dead-end in our relationship. I don’t think he’s aware of it, but I sure am. I love him, but...I can’t let go of an old resentment that always rears its ugly head anytime he acts out one particular part of his nature that I just can’t stand.”
Many people have a similar problem. Here are some helpful tips for transcending the pain of relationships.
Love is in the air! Can you feel it? I think autumn is the most romantic time of the year. Yes I know it’s spring down under but It’s this time of year for me that turns on my romantic buttons. I know I’ve said this before but I just love all aspects of love. I love being in love and helping people understand and experience more love. I love my awesome husband, I love my job, I love my dogs, my friends, my students, my employees and you know what -my world is brimming with love! I have so much of it to give. And so I do!
It was not always like this. I used to look for love, and determine my worth for how much the outer world would reflect my lovability and value depending on who was there or not there to prove it to me. I thought longing and yearning was love but it wasn’t – it was the focus on the lack of love that was so compelling and “romantic.”
For many years I struggled with this need to be loved and seen as worthy. When I was single, for a long time to me it was a message that I was flawed. I could only see the empty part of the glass. Yet thank goodness I saw the Light. It was only when I surrendered this fully, and learned to love myself and be a channel for love that I no longer saw myself that way. And paradoxically the more I let go the need to find love, the more of it came to me!
I know that for many people, the mention of love and relationships elicits frustration, regret, anxiety, and a sudden need for chocolate. You want to meet the right person, but things just never seem to pan out. Or, you keep thinking you’ve met “the one” only to discover that he or she is just as commitment phobic or dishonest as “the one” before him/her. It’s the same old story with a new leading love interest, and you wonder what you’re doing wrong.
Have you ever wondered why we find it so easy to love other people yet find it so difficult learning how to love yourself?
I think it’s because we have been taught that loving ourselves is selfish or conceited in some way. After all, nobody likes a narcissistic person who walks around saying, “I’m so awesome!” all the time, and never seems to care very much about anyone else.
But there is a huge difference between loving yourself and being a narcissist!
Loving yourself doesn’t mean you think you’re better than everyone else.
It’s simply a matter of recognizing your own good qualities and acknowledging that you are a loveable person and that you are worthy of love.
Because no matter what you’ve been taught to believe, you ARE worthy of love. I want you to understand that at a bone-deep level.
No matter who you are or where you’re at in life, you deserve all the love in the world.
And the most important person you need to receive that love from, more than anyone else, is yourself.
Love is like air. It may be hard to see, but it's in you and all around you.
Do you believe in love?
The Practice:
Have trust in love.
Why?
Take a breath right now, and notice how abundant the air is, full of life-giving oxygen offered freely by trees and other green growing things. You can't see air, but it's always available for you.
Love is a lot like the air. It may be hard to see — but it's in you and all around you.
In the press of life — dealing with hassles in personal relationships and being bombarded with news of war and other conflicts — it's easy to lose sight of love, and feel you can't place your faith in it. But in fact, to summarize a comment from Gandhi, daily life is saturated with moments of cooperation and generosity — between complete strangers! Let alone with one's friends and family.
Most of us tend to pick partners who reflect the vision we have of ourselves and our world. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Compatibility and a sense of ease in a relationship come from having similar preferences, ideas, and values about things like money, religion, monogamy, parenting, and even what makes for good sex. The Legacy Project at Cornell University even did a study on this. They interviewed hundreds of people who had been married 40 or 50 years, and even longer. Most agreed that shared values are at the core of a healthy, long-lasting marriage.
But we don’t pick the people we’re with based on values alone.
We also choose people who have similar ideas about what relationships look like and how they should play out. This sounds good but it can also backfire.
What would it be like to feel love in every moment, to live your life from that place? Is it possible? I believe it is. In this week’s video blog, I talk about how a new dimension can open up to us when we center our hearts and minds in loving the people and the world around us. When you see possibilities instead of problems, everything begins to unfold in expansive and magical ways.
My friend Martha said something to me the other day that stopped me cold. “I have an idea for you,” she said. Having no idea what her idea could possibly be, I said, “Go for it. Tell me.”
Now, Martha knows me well. She knows my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears. She’s stood beside me when it was dark and she has constantly and consistently pushed me into my own light. When a person like that says they have an idea for you, pay attention.
Martha went on to tell me that a mutual friend who had recently been in a meeting with me remarked, “I didn’t know how smart Maria is. I didn’t realize who she was until that meeting. Why is she holding back her power?”
Ouch.
Martha continued, “Why don’t you take a week and walk into every encounter – personally and professionally – and say exactly what’s on your mind? Why don’t you take a week to feel your own personal power? Don’t be afraid that you might offend people. Don’t be afraid you might scare people. Don’t be afraid of your own intensity. Step into it and see how you feel.”
Are you too quick with doubt, limitations, cost analyses, reasons why not?
Why do we have cheerleaders?
The Practice:
Don't rain on others dreams.
Why?
Let's say you've had an interesting idea or moment of inspiration, or thought of a new project, or felt some enthusiasm bubbling up inside you. Your notions are not fully formed and you're not really committed to them yet, but they have promise and you like them and are trying them on for size. Then what?
You’ve probably heard the saying “what you put your attention on grows” and this is especially true when it comes to love. If you desire MORE love in your life, you can it today!
In recent years, science has discovered that our brains are filled with something now known as mirror neurons. These are a type of brain cell that responds equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else perform the same action.
For instance, let’s say you are watching a couple holding hands, snuggling or kissing – whether it’s in person, or on a TV or movie screen, your mirror neurons fire off the same synapses as they would if you yourself were doing the snuggling or kissing!
I was recently asked a very delicate question in one of my seminars: “How do I deal with my partner who cheated on me? What do I do?”
There is not always a simple answer.
If your partner cheats on you, it is deeply painful.
When you feel that your heart and trust is betrayed it can be a very difficult thing to recover from.
So does that automatically mean the end of your relationship?
Consider this:
Relationship is a profound path of personal growth and spiritual evolution.
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