Love With No Expectations
Last Edited By: @ on October 5, 2024
Introduction
Love With No Expectations is a principle that teaches us that true love is given freely, without hidden conditions or unspoken expectations. Often, we believe we are experiencing and giving unconditional love, but in reality, our love is conditional based on the perspective we hold.
In this article, we’ll explore how love changes across different perspectives and what it means to love with no expectations.
Prerequisites
You'll resonate with this principle if you've had any of the following experiences:
- Feeling disappointed and hurt when we don't feel loved by others.
- Realizing that your love for others often depends on their actions or behavior.
Why Love Often Comes With Expectations
We generally perceive love as the extreme of whichever perspective we are in. If we help or are helped to achieve what we want in a perspective, we consider that love.
| Perspective | How We Give Love | Unspoken Expectations |
|---|---|---|
| Survival | N/A | N/A |
| Dependency | Supporting their basic needs. | They will support our basic needs in return. |
| Winning | Help them with what we think they want. | They will help us get what we want in life, as we want it. |
| Belonging | Including them in our community or group. | They must show that they think and act like we do. |
| Systems | Sharing systems we think are useful. | They have to follow, use, and improve our systems. |
| Letting Go | Appreciating their uniqueness. | They should not try to change us or tell us we're not special. |
| Boundaries | Honoring their boundaries. | They should never cross our boundaries. |
| Curiosity | Asking questions to learn how they think. | They should teach us something new. |
| Empathy | Understanding and validating their jouney. | N/A |
How to Love With No Expectations
Here are practical strategies to incorporate this principle into your life:
1. Recognize Our Expectations
Reflect on the situations that may cause us to stop sharing our love to those in our life. Are we loving based on what others provide us, or can we love them even when they don’t fulfill our expectations?
“Am I loving them because of what they provide in my life, and can I love them even when they don’t?”
2. Shift Toward Empathy
No matter which perspective we are at, go up one step at a time. Try to elevate what love means in our relationships, and slowly change your expectations, until you reach the point where we love others for their being, not for what they offer us.
“We change all the time, so let's make the constant love.”
3. Protect Yourself
Remember, loving someone doesn't mean we have to do things for others. If someone challenges our love for them, that means that they are perceiving love in their perspective—and we don't have to conform to that.
The beauty of the Better Life Framework is that as you level up, you automatically expose those around you to your new perspective and will passively grow with you—should they choose to.
“We love each other in our own way, and that's OK.”
Related Programs
This principle is most important for Perspective 9: Empathy, where we learn to love all life and phenomena without conditions.
Explore Programs related to 9: Empathy