Hi,<\/p>\n
You know, we hear a lot about feelings these days, and how we need to respect each other\u2019s feelings. One of the most intense feelings is LOVE. And of love, there are two kinds:<\/p>\n
Conditional love and unconditional love. Of course, conditional love is NOT the kind of love you want to have. It means that you have to live up to some kind of standard before someone will love you. Like you have to jump through hoops or something. Or be someone you\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
Like be someone they expect you to be, whether you\u2019re that person or not. And if you\u2019re not, well\u2026They\u2019re just not going to love you. See\u2026That\u2019s a love based on conditions. It\u2019s a IF ONLY kind of love. So if you\u2019re wondering whether your love for your loved one is conditional or unconditional\u2026Look at whether you have the words IF\u2026THEN attached to it. In other words\u2026If you think in terms of, say: IF you wouldn\u2019t act that way\u2026THEN I would love you more. Or something like that, that would be conditional love.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m not saying that you would WANT to be that way, of course. Nobody wants to love conditionally. It\u2019s just that that\u2019s the way our nature naturally goes. It\u2019s hard for us to naturally love someone else unconditionally. But think in terms of a newborn baby. That baby is easy to love unconditionally. Why? Because it doesn\u2019t ask anything of us. And it offers so much unconditional love in return. And it is so perfect, isn\u2019t it? But your loved one isn\u2019t like that.<\/p>\n
Your loved one isn\u2019t so easy to love. Not like that newborn baby. Your loved one is imperfect.<\/p>\n
Your loved one has a mental illness. Your loved one has bipolar disorder. Your loved one makes mistakes. Your loved one sometimes acts in ways that make it hard to love them. Your loved one may even sometimes hurt you by the way that they act when they\u2019re in a bipolar episode, for example. Your loved one may say things sometimes that you wish they wouldn\u2019t say. Your loved one may do things that you need to forgive them for because of their disorder.<\/p>\n
But they still need you to love them unconditionally. That\u2019s one thing you can do to help them get better. Because most (if not all) of these things they say or do they\u2019re not saying or doing on purpose or to make you feel bad or to hurt you. They\u2019re acting this way because of their bipolar<\/p>\n
disorder.<\/p>\n
And if you keep thinking things like: IF ONLY you didn\u2019t have bipolar disorder\u2026THEN I would love you more\u2026You\u2019re not going to be the best bipolar supporter you can be to them.<\/p>\n
Because using IF\u2026THEN type of thinking means that you\u2019re still using conditional love.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m not saying that it\u2019s easy to love someone unconditionally. In fact, it\u2019s just the opposite.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to love someone unconditionally. And it\u2019s especially hard when someone has a mental illness like bipolar disorder. It\u2019s especially hard with bipolar disorder, because sometimes they can get so caught up in themselves and their own head (their disorder and the things it makes them do) that they push you away, and don\u2019t let you help them. So sometimes, even if you do try to show unconditional love towards them, they may push you away anyway. But the thing is\u2026the way unconditional love works is that even if they do that\u2026You still need to keep trying to show them that unconditional love anyway. You still show them unconditional love, whether<\/p>\n
it is returned or not. And eventually, hopefully, it will be.<\/p>\n
Well, I have to go!<\/p>\n
Your Friend,<\/p>\n
Dave<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi,<\/p>\n
You know, we hear a lot about feelings these days, and how we need to respect each other\u2019s feelings. One of the most intense feelings is LOVE. And of love, there are two kinds:<\/p>\n
Conditional love and unconditional love. Of course, conditional love is NOT the kind of love you want to have. It means that you have to live up to some kind of standard before someone will love you.<\/p>\n