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Real Love: The Love We’ve All Been Looking
For — Unconditional Love
We've heard songs about it, seen it in the movies, heard
it talked about on Oprah by relationship experts, and read about it
in thousands of self help books. But, what is unconditional love? We
all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about
it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are
incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause
of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that
our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical
need for air and food.
It is especially unfortunate, then, that most of us have
no idea what unconditional love really is, and we prove our ignorance
with our horrifying divorce rate, the incidence of alcohol and drug
addiction in our country, the violence in our schools, and our overflowing
jails.
Our misconceptions of unconditional love began in early
childhood, where we saw that when we did all the right things—when
we were clean, quiet, obedient and otherwise “good”—people “loved” us.
They smiled at us and spoke in gentle tones. But we also saw that when
we were “bad,” all those signs of “love” instantly
vanished. In short, we were taught by consistent experience that love
was conditional, that we had to buy “love” from
the people around us with our words and behavior.
So what’s wrong with conditional love? We see it
everywhere we look, so what could be wrong with it? Imagine that every
time you pay me fifty dollars, I tell you I love you. We could do that
all day, but at the end of the day would you feel loved? No, because
you’d know that I “loved” you only because you paid
me. We simply can’t feel fulfilled by love we pay for. We can
feel loved only when it is freely, unconditionally given to us. The
instant we do anything at all to win the approval or respect of other
people—with what we say, what we do, how we look—we are
paying for the attention and affection we receive, and we can’t
feel genuinely loved.
A New Definition of Love: Real Love
There’s only one kind of love that can fill us
up, make us whole, and give us the happiness we all want: unconditional
love or true love. It is unconditional love that we all seek,
and somehow we intuitively realize that anything other than that kind
of love isn’t really love at all—it’s an imitation
of the real thing.
Unconditional love—true love—is so different
from the kind of love most of us have known all our lives that it deserves
both a name—Real Love—and definition of its own: Real
Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any
thought for what we might get for ourselves. It’s also Real Love
when other people care about our happiness unconditionally.
It is not Real Love when other people like us for doing what they want.
Under those conditions we’re just paying for love again. We can
be certain that we’re receiving Real Love only when we make foolish
mistakes, when we fail to do what other people want, and even when
we get in their way, but they don’t feel disappointed or irritated
at us. That is Real Love (true unconditional love), and that
love alone has the power to heal all wounds, bind people together,
and create relationships quite beyond our present capacity to imagine.
What we Do Without Real Love: Imitation Love
If we don’t have enough Real Love in our lives,
the resulting emptiness is unbearable. We then compulsively try to
fill our emptiness with whatever feels good in the moment—money,
anger, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, power, and the conditional approval
of others. Anything we use as a substitute for Real Love becomes a
form of Imitation Love,
and although Imitation Love feels good for a moment, it never lasts
and never gives us the feeling of genuine happiness that Real Love
provides.
Most people spend their entire lives trying to fill their emptiness with
Imitation Love, but all they achieve is an ever-deepening frustration,
punctuated by brief moments of superficial satisfaction. All the unhappiness
in our lives is due to that lack of Real Love and to the frustration we
experience as we desperately and hopelessly try to create happiness from
a flawed foundation of Imitation Love. The beauty of Real Love is that
it ALWAYS will eliminate our anger, confusion, and pain. So how do we find
this universal cure?
Finding Real Love
As
people learn the principles of Real Love, they almost uniformly ask
how they can find and feel the real thing. They want to feel the actual
power of Real Love.
Fortunately, there are so many course of actions we can
take to find Real Love and experience its healing power.
1. Study. Read the book Real
Love. Watch the Essentials of Real Love as
as part of monthly membership or on the six-DVD
set. The more we study these true, lifegiving principles, the
more we tend to feel the power that emanates from them.
2. Participate in the chat rooms as
a member of RealLove.com. There you can tell the truth about yourself
and feel the acceptance of other members. At pre-specified times during
the week you will have free access to trained Real Love Coaches in
the chat rooms. The service provided by these coaches would cost you
over $100 an hour on other websites. But we’re providing this
service to our members for FREE. We want everyone to experience the
life-changing benefits of Real Love Coaching. This unique benefit will
help you find the answers to the important questions in your life and
relationships.
3. Participate in the weekly
video chat as a member of RealLove.com. Each week you’ll
have an opportunity to participate in an online group where people
share their lives and their acceptance of one another. This group
is moderated by Dr. Baer.
4. Hire a Real
Love Coach. Many people have found the guidance of a professional
coach indispensable as they learn and apply the principles of Real
Love. You can learn more about coaching at RealLoveCoaching.net.
5. Join a Real Love Group. If
one is not available, take the steps to form one. Share the Real
Love book or the Essentials
DVDs with friends, and as you do that, you will naturally find
people who express an interest in the principles of Real Love. Gradually,
you can ask these people if they have an interest in joining you in
a Real Love study group.
6. Gradually accumulate a group of people that you can
communicate with by phone or in person every day. Make a habit of communicating
with at least one person every day who is capable of loving you unconditionally.
You will find these people as you take the steps described above.
7. Attend Real Love seminars as you find them listed
on the website at Upcoming Events.
As you take these steps, and tell the truth about yourself
to other people—especially about your mistakes, flaws, and fears—they
can finally see you as you really are. They can accept you and give
you unconditional love, as indicated in this simple diagram:
Truth Seen Accepted Loved
When you feel enough of the unconditional love of others,
you'll have the most important treasure in life. The wounds of the
past will heal—wounds caused by insufficient Real Love—and
you'll feel whole and happy. As your emptiness and fear are eliminated
by Real Love, you'll simply have no need to use Getting
and Protecting Behaviors. Without those behaviors, you'll find
relationships with others relatively effortless and will begin finding
the happiness you've always wanted.
We have now seen the powerfully healing effects of Real
Love in the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. Impossibly unhappy
marriages now thrive, angry and rebellious children now turn to their
parents for love and guidance, singles are finding partners interested
in a relationship based on Real Love instead of trading in the sure
disappointment of Imitation Love, and divisive and unproductive corporate
cultures are become nurturing and supportive. Join
RealLove.com today to get the relationship advice and self help
that will help you replace your anger, confusion and addictions with
peace, confidence, and happiness.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of
Membership on RealLove.com, sign up for a 15-day Free
Trial Membership. There is absolutely no obligation to upgrade
to a full membership, though most people find that they just can't
get enough Real Love!
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