From The Daily Dialogue
From The Daily Dialogue
Broadcast of 9/17/98
Subject: [DailyDialogue #261] Title
"You want unconditional love and acceptance in your beloved relationship. Well, you can’t have it. … On Earth you must learn to do conditional love and standards for self. This is the purpose for romantic relationship. … It is okay for you to have conditions! It is okay for you to have standards for self but let go of expectations for others."
- Jane Fendelman
A friend mentioned unconditional love and relationship recently. She asked: "How do you reconcile your desire to have and give unconditional love with having criteria for a suitable mate."
I think it’s easy to get confused about unconditional love and primary relationships. Unconditional love and our decisions about who to share our life with are two separate issues. We strive to love unconditionally, to love equally without regard for how we are treated. Unconditional love is something that we might strive to express for all peoples and our planet. This sort of love expresses itself as a preference for being kind rather than being right.
But, we choose to spend time with and express our love for people who enliven us. Our choice is fundamentally conditional, it depends on the nature and the actions of the other and the extent to which we share compatible preferences, vision, and purpose.
Experiment: Dialogue with your partner about how their presence enlivens you.
Affirmation: We are expressing our self-love by choosing to spend our time with those who help develop and enliven us.
The Daily Dialogue is published each day of 1998 by e-mail. Copyright 1998, Eddy Brame and Marty Crouch, All rights reserved.
