“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Do I really love them, or am I simply afraid to be without them? Is my love an expression of freedom, or is it merely a mask that hides my insecurities? These are questions that haunted my awareness. What is love, if I am afraid to lose it?
It seemed that I was running in circles trying to catch something that was never there.
I felt as if my love was not love, but rather just a fear that saw myself as unlovable; thus I attempted to complete my self-love through finding others to love me. However, it wasn’t working.
It seemed that no matter how much another person loved me, whether it was my wife, family, or friends, it didn’t complete the love I was searching for.
Then it hit me, like a two year old who unexpectedly smacks you across the face: If I were looking to find love within myself, what good would it do to rely on the love of another person?
For if I did, then the moment they stopped loving me, I would be back where I started in the space where love felt lost.
I wondered what it would mean to love myself without needing a love that existed outside what I am.
I recognized that I’d manipulated other people with the hope that they would love me. I’d tried to create stories that made me seem better than other people, always knowing deep down that I was only pretending. I was looking to trick people into liking me, loving me.
However, when I was insincere, when I was only telling people what they wanted to hear so they’d like me, what was it that they loved—me, or a lie?
What good was it if they loved a pretend me, rather than the real me? If I was pretending to be something I was not, then they didn’t love me, but rather someone who existed in the imagination of my mind.
This game of seeking love through pretending got me nowhere, so I asked myself: What does it really mean to love someone as they are? I mean really, am I loving someone as they are, or am I loving a pretend version of who I hope them to be?
What is this love that truly loves, and doesn’t play a game that wants people to change in order to become lovable in the future?
As a society, our love is often the kind that says, “I will only love you if…” How could this be love? If we put conditions on it, then it is not really love.
It reminds me of the love I have for my daughters.
It’s a love that says, “Regardless of what you do or don’t do, I love you all the same. There is nothing you can do that will take this love away; even if you hate me, I will still love you.”
If I were to say, “I will love you only if you make me feel like a good father and not make me look like a bad father,” this wouldn’t be love; it would be manipulation.
It would be an effort to keep hidden the love I withhold from myself.
It would reinforce the belief that I am not lovable unless I change, unless I become something other than what I am. These conditions I put on other people, before I extend love to them, are similar to the conditions I place on myself.
So what would it mean to really love someone? It could only mean that I love them as they are, not as who I think they should be.
If this is true, then the love I am searching for means loving myself as I am now, and not as some future self that exists in the future, in an imaginary tomorrow.
I love my children in such a way that they feel free, in the sense that they know it would be impossible to lose my love for them. I love them in a way that gives them the freedom to be what they are, and not be caught up in a quest to change into more lovable versions of themselves.
This, of course, makes me reexamine the love I have for all those I claim to love. Do I love them as they are, regardless of what flows through them; or am I using love to control them with the hopes that they don’t make me feel insecure?
Do I love them, or am I merely hiding from my own lack of self-love?
If I love my partner, it can only mean that I love them as they are. For if I want them to change, then my love becomes conditional—and that’s not love, but rather an expression of fear.
This is the love I’ve been searching for: to love myself as I am; to realize that I don’t have to change in order to be more whole, or more lovable. I am lovable as I am. I am free.
At anytime I am without this self-love, it means that I am putting a condition on love, by saying that what I am right now is unlovable, and I must change. However, it simply isn’t true. It’s a judgment that attempts to compare myself with another person, or the pretend version of me in my mind.
The truth of the matter is that we are all doing the best we can with what we have. When we love ourselves with conditions, it puts us in a position where love can be given and taken away, thus we find ourselves with anxiety about living up to this condition we’ve created in our mind.
Unconditional love means loving ourselves in such a way that we feel free to be what we are now, in this moment.
Photo by julipan
About Tigmonk
Tigmonk is a 31-year-old modern day Mystic. His greatest joy is in sharing meaningful Insight & Wisdom with Sincere Individuals who seek a Sacred Truth. He is the author of “An Explosion of Love; the Color of All Things Beautiful,” and shares Freely on his website Articles and Audio Recordings. Visit him on Facebook and YouTube.
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
Extremely insightful…I love the part where you say if we rely on the love from another person and that love is lost we are back where we started…without love.
I believe self love is the highest form of love and it is only when we love ourselves are we able to love others.
If we cannot love ourselves, how can we expect others to love us?The clallenge here is to accept ourselves completely without self doubt…and thats no easy task, I am working on it on a regular basis and I fail more than I succeed but by being aware of my feelings towards love helps me to switch back to self love.
Thank you for sharing your valuable insight into this subject.
Wonderful to hear Sati, thanks for sharing. What I find helpful is to also love fully those times when I am without self-love. Rather than criticizing myself for ‘getting it wrong’, I can see clearly that those times I am without self love, are simply just another opportunity to learn, or to go deeper in my understanding of Love.
Cheers!
Wonderful article, Tigmonk! Thank you.
Cheers! to the beauty that is you.
Just to add a little to what you’ve already said, Tig. There is a significant difference between loving and liking someone. As we achieve enlightenment we are able to share our love with everyone, not just those close to us. But that does not mean that we have to like the way people behave, act and think. Meaning, if your closed ones are behaving in a way that is not comfortable for you, you should not feel like you have to accept their behaviour just because you love them and be able to stand up to them and share how you feel. And sharing your feelings and opinions is also an integral part of loving someone, and if you fail to do so, you are not really giving them all your love! The tricky part is communicating your feelings without making them feel like your love is in fact conditional on how they behave, but as long as your intentions are to share your love with them and not to control them it’s not such a challenging task to overcome in the end 🙂
Loved this. thanks for sharing.
Lovely post that I connected to on so many levels. Several quotes went in my journal so I can refer back to them. Lovingkindess to you and your family.
Thank you Love, Cheers!
My pleasure 🙂
Very thought provoking post! Thank you for sharing such amazing insight!!!! Whoa! 🙂 …this blew me away…”am I using love to control them with the hopes that they don’t make me feel insecure? Do I love them, or am I merely hiding from my own lack of self-love?” Awesome!
Yay! Wonderful to hear. Cheers Lovely.
This comment is for Lori…I have been subscribed for some time but am no longer receiving the posts. I also checked my Spam folders regularly but now have to manually come to the Tiny Buddha website to find out about the new posts. This is odd. Just a note.
Very insightful, made me want to reflect on how I show love to others in my life.
Cheers!
Hi Nicole~
I’m sorry about that! I searched for your email address (the one associated with your comment) and I didn’t actually see it in the system. Were you subscribed with a different email? Can you email directly at email(AT)tinybuddha(DOT)come with the email address you used, and then I can look into it further?
We’ll figure it out!
Lori
Beautiful. Exactly what I needed to hear/read. A lovely reminder. Thank you.
This was a great post. Love is complicated! I want that self love so badly, but rarely ever feel it. It was nice to hear that someone else struggles and loses that self love at times too. I agree with you that we can give unconditional love if we have it for ourselves. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Love… is Simple. What is complicated, are all the arguments that says we are not lovable.
I recommend spending some time listening to my meditative audio on Tigmonk.com. You can listen online or download them for free. They might help you to break through the arguments, or rather see through the arguments that say you are not lovable right now.
Cheers!
Life says… You are welcome.
Cheers to the beauty that is You.
Your article is wonderful and I just loved it. It is extremely insightful. Love without conditions
is always fruitful.
See my latest blog post about How forget some one you love :http://makinglovepossible.blogspot.in/2013/05/how-to-forget-someone-you-love-7-rules.html
I literally choked up. I’ve just started on a journey to find real love for myself, and it’s brutally hard for me. I’m afraid, as it seems we all are, of being alone, being unlovable, being myself. Your post capturing so many of my struggling thoughts. Thank you.
You’re welcome Love.
I understand this difficulty, and have compassion towards it. However… from the deepest part of me, I can share with you that the real struggle, or the real difficulty, isn’t so much to Love ourselves, but rather it is hanging on to our illusions of self.
It is kind of like saying… we don’t struggle with Love, we struggle with Possessiveness. We are simply clinging to a false self, a false reality, and it is the clinging that hurts.
Here is a gift for you that might help. Send an email to eolfree@Tigmonk.com and you will get an automatic responder email that will have free ebook copies of my 2 books “An Explosion of Love, the color of all things beautiful” & “Intimacy, with the Silent Nothing that is Everything.”
Cheers, to the beauty that is You.
Clinging to a false self and reality really nails it down for me. Then, when that false reality or perception feels threatened, inner war and flight.
Thank you so much. I can’t wait to read them.
Yes, yes yes. What hurts in Life, is the destruction of our story, because we believe the story (false self/reality) is going to give you the love you long for. But in Truth, what you are is Love. The story only creates limits to that love. It creates arguments that say you aren’t lovable yet, and must attain something in tomorrow before you can be Love. Which is silly.
The more this story of self falls away, the more we can remain in this moment as the wholeness we already are. The more we chase something in the future, an idea or different story, the more we suffer in this moment.
yay for discovering Love! Smiles ;-D
Tigmonk,
This almost sounds exactly like what I have done. Instead of “Manipulating”, I would do anything to hide that I did not love myself. I would go out of the way and pick mates that I felt needed to be rescued. I would then hope find love by making them happy. When i failed and they were upset, I would try harder. It was a vicious cycle.
I found out the hard way, that as you said: ” if we rely on the love from another person and that love is lost we are back where we started…without love.” that this is true.
I am now trying to learn to love me, and hope once I do, I can attract a proper love,
Thank you
Robb
MinimalAnarchy,
I have do this pattern over and over again as well. Nice to See I am not alone. I hope you and I cam break the pattern
Very powerful and motivating…yet it leads me to wonder that, not everyone is perfect…we all have flaws we need to work on. Whether it be the lack of thinking for yourself, or being too insensitive and having anger management issues…should we accept those “qualities” about us and not work toward overcoming them, because we “are who we are?” Or is there a balance…that we should recognize our weaknesses, love ourselves regardless, and strive to achieve our goals to better ourselves and our relationships with those we love? If that’s so…what types of qualities are considered in need for changing?
How do we love someone unconditionally in today’s society, where unconditional love is, every so often, abused and misused? How can we then, claim to love ourselves unconditionally, if we allow our unconditional love for others to cast a shadow of abuse and misuse upon ourselves at the same time? A sincere question that hopes to be answered.
The confusion lies in your definition of ‘unconditional love.’ If someone is with unconditional Love for their own self, then with this comes the willingness to not submit the self to abuse by others.
For example.. if you are in a relationship where your partner is abusive. Unconditional Love for your partner means, you give them freedom to live out their own life without judgment. Unconditional Love for the Self, means that I love myself enough to know that I don’t need your Love, therefore I don’t need to stick around and receive abuse.
If we find ourselves in an ongoing abusive situation, it would be wise to investigate why it is we feel we need to stay. Much of the reasoning we use, is wrapped around the idea that we need this other person in order for us to love ourselves.
For example… I need to stay with my abusive husband so I can help to fix him. If I can fix him, it means that I am a good human being, which means I can love myself.
A point worth noting, is that no matter what type of relationship you find yourself in, it is your perfect teacher. If you are with an abusive relationship partner, it is because somewhere deep down you want it that way. Such things can be tough to hear, but the truth is, we draw to us life lesson that want to teach us exactly what we need to learn in order for the Self to Bloom.
If someone is using “unconditional Love” to manipulate another person, then it’s not really Love, it’s a form of possessiveness that is sprung from fear. A fear that says… I must get this person to do what I want, so that I can Love myself. The confusion is, that you need someone ‘out there’ to change before you can Love You for You. This is simply an illusion of perception.
It might be helpful to read my book “an Explosion of Love,” which you can get a free ebook copy by sending an email to EOLFREE@Tigmonk.COM
Cheers, to the beauty that is already You.
Cheers Robb, thanks for sharing.
To note… The most profound loving relationships will come naturally as you discover a profound Love for your Self, as you are right now.
The biggest illusion, so to speak, when it comes to Loving the Self, is the silly ass idea that you first have to change who or what you are, in order to become a more lovable version.
This of course in the same illusion in relationships which lead to drama and distrust, that is the idea that my partner must change in order for me to love them fully.
How is it you are going to Love yourself more tomorrow? You must be trying to change something about yourself in right now, that you see as unlovable…. yes?
Love, Loves. Love, doesn’t discriminate based on color of expression. Meaning… love doesn’t love some colors because they are more attractive, more bright, or more socialbly acceptable, Love Loves all Light’s expressions, regardless of what the mind of man thinks about these colors.
As such, you can’t use your mind to Love yourself. You can’t use ‘reason’ to Love, because ‘reason’ is just another condition and True Love, moves without condition.
It might be helpful to read my book “an Explosion of Love,” which you can get a free ebook copy by sending an email to EOLFREE@Tigmonk.COM
Much Love
All of Life’s personal and social ‘problems’ are sprung from trying to fix problems that aren’t really problems at all.
It’s like looking at yourself and finding 1,000 problems, and then beginning a quest that says… I am determined to change all these problems so that I can become a better version of myself, or rather so I can Love myself completely.
What’s not noticed, is that there is no such thing as a better version of self, because once you reach a fixed self, the mind will find more problems that need fixing. It will be a never ending quest that leaves the self lost and confused about if the day will come when you can finally be at peace and rest in what you are, as a human being.
Ongoing and problematic Issues like “anger” or “anxiety” or the like… are not something to be fixed, because they themselves are a manifestation of a self who feels that they are not yet whole, or lovable.
The confusion I see in many people’s eyes, and their meaningful questions, is that they are confused about who or what they really are.
I will say this with absolute experiential confidence… Discover the Truth about What You Are, and it will be the End of All Suffering.
Yes, I know the mind doesn’t believe this. It’s not for the mind to decipher, just as the mind cannot tell you the Truth about what you are, it can only tell you stories based on conditioning and comparisons.
Discover the Truth about What You Are, and it will be the End of All Suffering.
It might be helpful to read my book “an Explosion of Love,” which you can get a free ebook copy by sending an email to EOLFREE@Tigmonk.COM
Cheers, to the beauty that is already You.
Freedom comes by way of recognizing the pattern, and being open for Life to move in new ways. If you condemn the pattern, or judge it by saying it should not be, you only become more tied to it.
Let it be, and just see what is true.
This concept resonates to my core. There is an opportunity for profound exploration in these concepts; you have succinctly named the many paths that bring so much searching outside oneself to feel good enough to receive love. Thank you for this beautiful gift!
Wonderful to hear, thanks for sharing.
Cheers!
Your words sincerely pierced through my soul. Just an honest question and I hope you can give me an answer, while I was reading your article, the question what then will drive me to be my best self in the future? kept on bugging me. It seemed contrary to what the article was saying, or was I missing an important point there?
“what then will drive me to be my best self in the future? ”
I love your sincerity, and this question is extremely valid. I’m going to respond with questions, simply because ultimately I cannot answer this for you. However… I can point.
In becoming your “mentally created” best “imagined” future self, what will you gain?
Beyond the stories of what you will gain, what do you really want? What do you really want right now?
Do you want to be ‘bugged’ by an anxiety that says you’re not yet whole, that you’re not yet worthy ‘in your Real-Self right now?’
In Now, are you really missing anything… or does it only seem that way because your attention is saying you’re missing an imaginary something? Is your attention even in the present moment, or are you off chasing some fairytale of self-importance?
*********
For Myself…
There is no future self, there is only the self that exists right now. This Self, the one that is real, is already a freggin miracle. In the recognition that the Real Self is already infinitely intertwined with everything, becoming ‘better’ is an absurdity.
The ego-mind survives on dualistic comparisons that make the self seem separate from fullness, it’s just the conditioning. There is nothing real in life that is called a ‘better’ person.
Remain with the Real, and you can’t help but wake up to this space I point to.
Lot’s of Youtube videos to clarify… user: Tigmonk81