What Did You Do With Jill?Jill Whalen's healthy lifestyle transformation                                               

[Jill’s Note: If you prefer to listen rather than read, please scroll to the bottom of this post for the audio version.]

The most natural desire we human beings have, is to feel needed and loved. So we do whatever we can to win that love from others. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. To keep the cycle going, we do our best to try to reciprocate that love.

For most of my life it looked like some people were super easy to love and some weren’t. The easy ones included those who were kind, funny, smart, good-natured and interesting. The less-than-easy to love were those quirky characters in my life. I’m sure you know the ones I’m talking about!

Yet in all likelihood, those difficult people need love as much or more than their easy-going counterparts.

But in this world of judgment that most of us live in, it often seems that people need to be “love-worthy” for us to give them love.

So how can we love the seemingly unlovable?

Before answering that, let’s step back a bit.

When I first encountered the inside-out understanding I share with the world, I had an inkling that I didn’t truly know what love was. Sure, I loved my family, but sometimes it seemed like more of an obligation than an actual feeling of love. We have to love our parents and siblings, right? Surely it would be weird if we didn’t. And obviously we must love our spouse, our kids and our friends.

And so I did. As best as I could.

Yet, often, I wasn’t feeling it.

The love I felt sometimes seemed hollow and fake.

The lovable ones who didn’t take a lot of work, weren’t a problem. But those who seemed to suck away my soul, were much harder. How do we love the weirdos, the meanies, the ones who won’t listen? How do we love the needy, clingy, unhelpful, and/or often negative ones?

Sometimes it simply seemed impossible.

“Act appropriately! (The way I want you to be.) Then I’ll love you.” I unconsciously thought.

In other words, I often couldn’t find it in my heart to love them.

And not only that…it was their fault!

If only they’d be different, then I could love them.

So when I first started feeling better in my own skin (through my self-studies of the inside-out nature of life), all I could think was, “Imagine how this could help so-and-so? This could finally fix them and make them feel better too!“

Which now I see actually meant, “It would be so much easier for me to love them if they would learn what I know and be happier.“

Yet again, in a twisted way, it was all about me.

Even though it looked altruistic on my part to want to help my loved ones feel better, it was still a back-handed attempt to make my own life easier.

While I was truly interested in their happiness, the underlying reason was so that THEY would be easier for ME to love.

Obviously, there was something I was missing when it came real love. What I didn’t understand was that…

We are not our outward appearances and behaviors.

You see, behind our conditioned mind, which causes us to create a crazy character in this world–is actually one Mind. It’s the “Unconditioned Mind” that is in all of us. It is the same thing that’s in all of nature. That “intelligence” that changes seeds into plants and trees and fruit. The same force that forms all the right appendages and organs in a growing fetus.

The Unconditioned Mind is a field of energy that simply Knows how to do whatever it’s supposed to do, depending upon the circumstances.

And it’s inside all of us.

Not only that, it’s what we’re made of!

You, me, the neighbors and even those seemingly hard people to love.

Behind and beyond all of our weird outward behavior, there lies a much larger part that is whole and perfect. And while we may find it difficult to love the crazy conditioned character that’s acting out on the outside, how can we not love who they truly are at their core?

If and when we’re not feeling love for someone, it’s our OWN conditioned mind that is having the problem. Our own personal mind is blocking the natural love that flows forth from our true Mind.

With this new understanding of the Unconditioned Mind that’s in all of us, I finally realized…

It’s impossible for two conditioned minds to love unconditionally.

To further grasp this concept, let’s look at the words conditional and unconditional more carefully.

Conditional, according to the dictionary, means “subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met.” In other words, our everyday, personal thinking mind always has conditions. These stem from our culture, our upbringing, our genetics, and everything that’s ever happened to us.

Unconditional means, “not subject to any conditions.” The Unconditioned Mind that’s in each and every one of us, doesn’t know how to judge. It doesn’t see the world as good or bad. Whatever it is, it simply is.

It is from this Unconditioned Mind where real and true Love comes from.

Meaning that our Unconditional Mind is what is loving the other’s Unconditional Mind. Which is funny when you think of it, because we all share the same Unconditional Mind.

Yours is mine and mine is yours. In fact, there’s really only ONE Unconditional Mind!

Whatever behaviors our human character has layered on top of the one Unconditional Mind, is unimportant.

Therefore, the answer to loving the seemingly unlovable ones is simple…

We don’t have to.

At least the character we are playing doesn’t have to. Instead, that part of us which is perfect and whole and full of love, naturally loves that part of them that is perfect and whole and full of love.

In essence it’s the One True Self loving itself!

Which it does automatically.

–Jill

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