Unconditional love.

Unconditional love is a term that means to love someone regardless of one's actions or beliefs. It is a concept comparable to true love, a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers. By contrast, unconditional love is frequently used to describe love between family members, comrades in arms and between others in highly committed relationships.

I am not all that familiar with unconditional love. I know what it is to give it out, but I don't know what it is to receive it. Not from my parents, and definitely not from any past lovers or boyfriends.

And because of this, I tend to live with the gnawing fear that if I don't say and do the right things all the time - behaving perfectly, standing strongly, losing weight continually, appearing confident always; the love I do have, will go away.

There. I said it.

This is a deep-rooted, dark, secret fear of mine. I have struggled with it, and against it my whole life. I have worked hard, set my own morals and desires aside, and I have given all that I have to experience unconditional love beyond that which I receive from my closest friends.

Now that I am pondering this, maybe I was hoping to receive this love from unhealthy people who are probably incapable of giving it? Seriously!? This light-bulb moment just occurred to me. I am so unbelievably happy that I didn't just spend $140 for an hours worth of therapy to figure that out!

*breathing a sigh of relief. i had always hoped it wasn't me. i was never really sure.*

My father. My mother. My ex. I wanted their unconditional love. I worked for it. Pleased for it. Longed for it. Did things I am not proud of to earn it.
I hate admitting that. It feels weak. But it is what it is. It is part of who I am was.

And now! Well, I am wading slowly into unconditional territory. Slowly, because it is hard for me to always trust it. Believe it. Hard to always trust and believe him.
Not because of anything he has done, but because of my voices, my limiting beliefs, my past, my sometimes debilitating insecurities.

I finally got the courage to ask him last week if he would still love me if I never lost another pound. A question that had been on my mind for awhile. Knowing that I will never regain all the weight that I lost, and that I may struggle and slide backwards sometimes, but torturing myself with the what if I am never any smaller than I am right now? What then? Will he love me?

My whole life, unconditional love was withheld from me, because of my weight. So when he answered my question with a 'Yes, I will still love you. Because I do love you. All of you.' I tearfully told him that I would work on believing it.

Exposing my darkest fears makes me feel weak, vulnerable, scared and exposed.
I hate (like really HATE) doing it. But if he and I are going to stand the test of time, I have to. Otherwise, he isn't getting to know the real me - scars, skeletons and secrets - as much as he would be sleeping next to a figment of my imagination, really.

And what good would that serve? I'm human. Therefore I am flawed.

But working on it.

Love me, love all my weak spots, too.

I hope that your day is awesome!
xoxox
~J