The Constraints of Condition

I hope in writing these words you can feel the impact seeing this has had on me, and I hope in some way that I’m able to pass a little bit of this on to you because it feels important, extremely important.

This morning I read these words by Meggan Watterson.

Although it can be difficult, loving without expectation is a profound spiritual practice. More often, our love for someone is loaded with ideas of who that person needs to be for us. But Divine love is unconditional. It’s a love that seeks only to love. No hidden agendas. No strings attached.

Somehow these words hit me deeply, I was thinking about the conditions I felt in relationships to those I love, and the conditions that I put on them. The conditions that end up causing pain in relationships when they’re not met. But I wasn’t prepared for how deeply this would go as I went through my day.

I’ve heard of unconditional love, it’s spoken about a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it. Perhaps it’s impossible in our Western society? Compassion is a big part of my work, because it’s my own work, my own journey. To come from a place of deep compassion for the flawed, fallible and raw human beings we are.

Unconditional love goes deeper. To love and tend to ourselves without condition is something so unknown. It's hidden, unexperienced by many of us. But today I saw something that I’ve never seen before. I suddenly could see all the conditions I’m surrounded by, all the conditions I constrain myself with, and others.

These invisible conditions are everywhere and it’s unconscious. It’s the resting only when we’ve worked hard or we’re burnt out. It’s the constraints we put around food, I’ll enjoy some chocolate because I’ve been good all week. It’s the I’ll be happy when I move house, or get a different car, or job, or I've got more money. It’s the I deserve something, deserve is a condition, you can only have one thing if you’ve done something else. Conditions are everywhere.

The conditions and restraints over being good, fitting in, being acceptable are immense. It governs our whole way of being in the world. I feel quite emotional writing these words, seeing just how much the conditions we constrain ourselves with impact our lives.

I’m going to say something controversial here too. I don’t think we love our children unconditionally. I think we have expectations on them, whether from us or societal conditioning, there are expectations, there are conditions. It’s the sigh we echo when they spill something on the floor, it’s the exasperated “come on” as you’re trying to get out of the door for school, it’s the “be quiet” when they’re expressing emotionally in public.

These conditions run deeply. During my session with my therapist today I declared “I am good enough, I’ve set up my own business, bought a house, I’m writing a book.” She looked at me and shook her head. She’s done this many times before but I didn’t see it until this point. Then it hit me, I can only allow myself to feel good enough on the conditions I put on myself, in this case the achievements in my life. As if listing them off will heal the wound of not being good enough. Ironic isn’t it, we’ve achieved all of this, we’ve done it all, we know it but we still feel that wound. And we think that listing them off in this way will somehow change it.

Because here it is. I’m am not good enough because of everything I’ve achieved, or everything I have, or what I’ve done. That’s conditional. I’m good enough because I am.

This has changed everything for me. Everything.

Many of us have these deep woundings within, of not feeling good enough, not being lovable, or valued. There’s likely to be a certain flavour to it that’s unique for you. This drives us a certain way, when we’re always coming from this place we’re continually perpetuating the very wound that we’re trying to fix. Because fixing is the condition. When I get there then I’ll be OK. Can you hear it? Can you feel it? It’s all the same. It’s all conditional.

Only when we let go of the conditions that we trap ourselves in can anything change.