Intimacy: The Essence Of True Love

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Unconditional love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It is not unconditional love when other people like us for doing what they want or because we give them what they demand of us. When we make a seemingly poor choice about our lives, take a wrong turn, undo or sabotage our own happiness To love another person under any circumstances is not relegated to passionate love either.

Unconditional love allows you to love yourself first, so that you have the strength of heart and mind to give the same to another person. Friends and family can be completely unconditional with their love for you, however it is pretty rare; we are programed to be conditional, to expect something in return for our love. We are quite specifically conditioned to only give love when we are reciprocated, and most often according to what we think is worthy of our love.

Unconditional love is not a loan needing to be repaid, but a string-less gift of the heart - a gesture where only you benefit directly. On the occasion you are fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of such an act of thoughtfulness, the experience can be both endearing and a bit awkward -- what do you do for someone who gives to you unconditionally of themselves and asks for nothing in return?

Recently I had such an experience and it has given me a sense of value that is very treasured. Loving unconditionally is more a behavior versus a feeling. Loving is the act of extending ourselves, vulnerabilities and all, into uncharted emotional territory with the belief that regardless of the outcome, we want to benefit another person. Imagine love as a behavior in and of itself, with the satisfaction being that feeling you get when you act a certain way for them, not when someone else acts a certain way to you.

This becomes a pure act of generosity. Ask yourself "Am I truly acting with the most love I can for this person at this moment? Unconditional love is a entirely new process for us in every situation, and we want to convey sincerity with each person we extend that love to so that it is genuine and not conditional.

Sweet Couple Illustrations Capture the Essence of True Love in Everyday Moments

To love someone unconditionally does not mean that the act of that love is always going to be easy or feel comfortable. Unconditional love means you tell them the truth with gentle, kind communication and you are there, without judgement, to see them to the other side. What does it mean if you are someone who only loves others, giving of yourself freely without any boundaries?

Let me tell you, playing the martyr is not rewarding or validating and only leaves you and the other person resentful. Work to recognize when doing what is best for you first might sometimes have you prioritizing your needs and desires above someone else's. This is a healthy part of defining who we are as individuals and crucial to know your own gauge for self-love.

Remember, only when we know intrinsically that we have value to be loved, can we give love cleanly. Forgiveness is so important. This is why the first step in healing the wound and freeing ourselves from grievance is to appreciate the important difference between absolute and relative love. Relationships continually oscillate between two people finding common ground and then having that ground slip out from under them as their differences pull them in different directions.

This is a problem only when we expect it to be otherwise, when we imagine that love should manifest as a steady state. That kind of expectation prevents us from appreciating the special gift that relative love does have to offer: Intimacy—the sharing of who we are in our distinctness—can happen only when my partner and I meet as two, when I appreciate the ways she is wholly other, and yet not entirely other at the same time.


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If we look honestly at our lives, most likely we will see that no one has ever been there for us in a totally reliable, continuous way. Though we might like to imagine that somebody, somewhere—maybe a movie star or a spiritual person—has an ideal relationship, this is mostly the stuff of fantasy. Looking more closely, we can see that everyone has his or her own fears, blind spots, hidden agendas, insecurities, aggressive and manipulative tendencies, and emotional trigger-points—which block the channels through which great love can freely flow.

Yet our yearning for perfect love and perfect union does have its place and its own beauty. Arising out of an intuitive knowing of the perfection that lies within the heart, it points toward something beyond what ordinary mortals can usually provide. We yearn to heal our separation from life, from God, from our own heart. When understood correctly, this longing can inspire us to reach beyond ourselves, give ourselves wholeheartedly, or turn toward the life of the spirit. It is a key, as we shall see, that opens the doorway through which absolute love can enter fully into us.

We invariably fall into trouble, however, when we transfer this longing onto another person. Although intimate connections can provide dazzling flashes of absolute oneness, we simply cannot count on them for that.

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The only reliable source of perfect love is that which is perfect—the open, awake heart at the core of being. This alone allows us to know perfect union, where all belongs to us because we belong to all. Expecting this from relationships only sets us up to feel betrayed, disheartened, or aggrieved. Riding the waves of relationship becomes particularly difficult when the troughs of misunderstanding, disharmony, or separation reactivate our core wound, bringing up old frustration and hurt from childhood.

In the first few months of our life, our parents most likely gave us the largest dose of unconditional love and devotion they were capable of. We were so adorable as babies; they probably felt blessed to have such a precious, lovely being come into their lives. Yet this also gives rise to one of the most fundamental of all human illusions: As a child, this was indeed the case, since we were at first so entirely dependent on others for our very life.

But even if at the deepest level our parents did love us unconditionally, it was impossible for them to express this consistently, given their human limitations. This was not their fault. Like everyone, they had their share of fears, worries, cares, and burdens, as well as their own wounding around love. Like all of us, they were imperfect vessels for perfect love.

The scariest moment of the film is also the most tender

It affects our whole sense of who we are by causing us to doubt whether our nature is lovable. As Emily Dickinson describes this universal wound in one of her poems: This wounding hurts so much that children try to push it out of consciousness. Eventually a psychic scab forms. That scab is our grievance. And so we grow up with an isolated, disconnected ego, at the core of which is a central wound, freak-out, and shutdown. And all of this is covered over with resentment, which becomes a major weapon in our defense arsenal. What keeps the wound from healing is not knowing that we are lovely and lovable just as we are, while imagining that other people hold the key to this.

We would like, and often expect, relative human love to be absolute, providing a reliable, steady flow of attunement, unconditional acceptance, and understanding. But the imperfect way our parents—or anyone else—loved us has nothing to do with whether love is trustworthy or whether we are lovable. It is simply a sign of ordinary human limitation, and nothing more.

Other people cannot love us any more purely than their character structure allows. Fortunately, the storminess of our relationships in no way diminishes or undermines the unwavering presence of great love, absolute love, which is ever present in the background. Even when the sky is filled with thick, dark clouds, the sun never stops shining. Then we become obsessed with the other as the provider of love, when in truth the warmth we feel comes from the sunlight of great love entering our heart.

If you observe this carefully, you will notice that looking to another for love creates a certain tension or congestion in your body, most noticeably in the chest. It constricts the heart. And as a result you feel your own lovelessness. Imagining others to be the source of love condemns us to wander lost in the desert of hurt, abandonment, and betrayal, where human relationship appears to be hopelessly tragic and flawed.

Increasing Intimacy in Relationships Without Sex

To grow beyond the dependency of a child requires sinking our own taproot into the wellspring of great love. This is the only way to know for certain that we are loved unconditionally. In emphasizing the importance of not looking to others for perfect love, I am not suggesting that you turn away from relationships or belittle their importance. You can stop fighting the shifting tides of relative love and learn to ride them instead. And you come to appreciate more fully the simple, ordinary heroism involved in opening to another person and forging real intimacy.

Although perhaps only saints and buddhas embody absolute love completely, every moment of working with the challenges of relative human love brings a hint of this divine possibility into our life. As the child of heaven and earth, you are a mix of infinite openness and finite limitation. This means that you are both wonderful and difficult at the same time.

You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed, you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure.

The Essence of Romantic Love Is Nothingness

For the core of what you are is fashioned out of love, that potent blend of openness, warmth, and clear, transparent presence. Boundless love always manages somehow to sparkle through your limited form. Bringing absolute love into human form involves learning to hold the impossibility of ourselves and others in the way that the sky holds clouds—with gentle spaciousness and equanimity. Holding our imperfections in this way allows us to see them as trail markers of the work-in-progress that we are, rather than as impediments to love or happiness.

Let us melt down the frozen, fearful places by holding them in the warmth of tenderness and mercy. The same holds true for loving yourself. When you recognize that the absolute beauty within you cannot be tarnished by your flaws, then this beauty you are can begin to care for the beast you sometimes seem to be. Then you begin to discover that the beast and the beauty go hand in hand. The beast is, in fact, nothing other than your wounded beauty.

It is the beauty that has lost faith in itself because it has never been fully recognized. Not trusting that you are loved or lovable has given rise to all the most beastly emotional reactions—anger, arrogance, hatred, jealousy, meanness, depression, insecurity, greedy attachment, fear of loss and abandonment. The first step in freeing the beast from its burden is to acknowledge the hardening around our heart.


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    • Then, peering behind this barrier, we may encounter the wounded, cut-off place in ourselves where the mood of unlove resides. If we can meet this place gently, without judgment or rejection, we will uncover the great tenderness that resides at the very core of our humanness. Our beauty and our beast both arise from one and the same tenderness.

    When we harden against it, the beast is born. Yet when we allow the tenderness, we begin to discern the contours of a long-lost beauty hidden within the belly of the beast. This is, after all, the love we most long for—this embracing of our humanness, which lets us appreciate ourselves as the beautiful, luminous beings we are, housed in a vulnerable, flickering form whose endless calling is to move from chrysalis to butterfly, from seed to new birth. As earthly creatures continually subject to relative disappointment, pain, and loss, we cannot avoid feeling vulnerable. Yet as an open channel through which great love enters this world, the human heart remains invincible.

    Being wholly and genuinely human means standing firmly planted in both dimensions, celebrating that we are both vulnerable and indestructible at the same time.