Unconditional Love and the Space Between Me and You
I remember the romantic musings of my childhood self. Oh, what a magical, unconditional love it would be. Oh, what a load of crap that actually was. It certainly doesn’t help that in movies, intense romance is often the reward for surviving some apocalypse-sized unhealthy betrayal or behavior on behalf of one or both people which ultimately “proves” to one or the other how they want to behave and who they want to be et VIOLA! They’re that!
I realized that I did something that is often done, and that is that I conflated unconditional love with unconditional relationship.
I conflated unconditional love with unconditional relationship.
What I now understand, is that I do value unconditional love. It is one of my super powers as a therapist. Unconditional positive regard, this idea that we meet clients where they are with no judgement, is the best thing about therapy. It’s a place where you can say whatever it is that you are thinking, or feeling, or have done, and be met right where you are with the warmth and safety required in any good therapeutic relationship.
But personal relationships are not therapy. And even therapy has its’ limits.
And as the weather changes, and the holidays approach, I find that I am having more and more conversations about folk’s normal mounting holiday anxiety, combined with COVID anxiety, has resulted in many conversations about unconditional love. And I always land here:
Unconditional love is something I afford everyone. Unconditional relationship and proximity, I do not.
Take for example a client. I absolutely love and value every single person that crosses this threshold (or Doxy link). But one of the things that we talk about when we first meet is the conditions of our remaining in relationship and us remaining in proximity to each other. We sign in a contract even.
So what are my deal breakers?
If you don’t show up for your appointment, there’s a fee.
If you are a danger to yourself or someone else, I will break confidentiality to try to keep you safe.
If you behave in an unsafe manner, you will be asked to leave.
And I will still love you and value you.
But if I have to choose my mental, emotional, or physical safety or yours, even as a therapist, I will choose mine. Every time. I owe me that. I owe you that.
That doesn’t make it easy. That doesn’t make it fun. But it’s right.
What if you started thinking about the relationships in your life the same way. There’s so much rhetoric surrounding the idea that, “They’re your (mother, father, sister, brother, best friend, in-laws…fill in the blank).”
They may be. And you can love them. And you can value them. But you are ultimately responsible for your safety and well-being in all of the ways you possibly can be (and I honor and give space to the fact that is indeed not everywhere), and your relationship and proximity to them will be dependent upon your health, your willingness to get, stay, and be well, your willingness to do the hard, muddy, uphill work of doing so together.
Or I will love you. And value you.
From a distance.
What are some of the things you consider when you think about unconditional love? What are some of the messages you have received about what it means to love someone and what it means to keep yourself safe? How do you think those things might be impacted if different people in your life and responding differently to COVID?