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Unconditional Love and Healthy Boundaries
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Adapted from The Findhorn Book of Unconditional Love, by Tony Mitton (Findhorn Press, 2003).
The phrase “unconditional love” is a popular one. But what does it mean, exactly?
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Where do healthy boundaries –those emotional boundaries that define our own unique presence --fit in? Don’t boundaries keep us separate? Is merging with another the goal?
Are you misunderstanding the true nature of unconditional love? Find out what this wise author has to say about it, and its relationship to healthy boundaries, here:
Unconditional love has no goal in view. It simply is. It is the love that made us. I believe that this is the root of humankind’s restlessness, that we are looking for unconditional love and do not realize that it is already within us. So we fantasize and when we hear about unconditional love, we think we must emulate God and extend it to everybody immediately.
Then, of course, we flunk and feel a failure. Unconditional love is a universal principle, but it is also a learning experience. If we take the conscious decision to choose love as our spiritual practice, our personality blooms and flourishes. We grow.
But a misunderstanding of the true nature of unconditional love can be disempowering and weaken a person‘s capacity for self-sovereignty. It can foster dependency and co-dependency in a relationship. If I surrender or ignore my boundaries, then I don’t have to worry about or do the hard work of maintaining them. But boundaries don’t have to be separative at all; they are defining, and they help coalesce and focus energy and presence in a unique way.
Unconditional love does not say “I love everyone equally,” but rather “I love everyone appropriately and in response to their uniqueness.” And, very importantly, unconditional love does not mean unconditional acceptance of behaviors
Kathy Hamilton/simikathy.com
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