What if Love isn’t What We Think It Is?

I used to think unconditional love was the highest expression of love, reserved for those who mean the most to us, like spouses or children. It had almost a “saintly” feel to it, something to aspire to, but never actually achieve. I had to learn the hard way that unconditional love is less about loving without condition, and more about loving regardless of our conditions.

I found that instead of being mystical, it can be practical. Instead of unachievable, it is attainable by everyone. I found that love itself is the key to transforming the most excruciating circumstances into extraordinary meaning. This article explores how we can all nurture that type of love in our lives.

Love can Exist Anywhere

I have a close male friend who occasionally tells me that he loves me. At first glance, it might seem strange to an outside observer. Why is one straight man telling another that he loves him?

The first time, it caught me off guard, but I do feel love for him and all he has provided. He is an incredible presence and support in my life and does so much for the people around him. So I replied, telling him I love him too… Because I do, just not in a way that I had wrapped my head around quite yet. It was a form of love that was starting to come to fruition in my mind.

As I looked a bit deeper, a few questions came to mind. Why did I feel a little awkward expressing love in this way? Why does love feel reserved for intimate partners and family? How is my understanding of love evolving after all I had gone through in life?

That experience got me thinking more about love and the role it has played in my life.

Love in a Warzone

During my combat deployment to Afghanistan in 2008, we experienced the worst that humanity has to offer: hate, suffering, and death. Love became a struggle for survival, not a beacon of hope.

Love in a warzone is a game of sharp contrast, where the love for your comrades protects you against the shroud of fear, pain, and hatred. But that form of love is a survival mechanism, us against them, forged in intensity and tragedy. It’s easy to love your friends when your life depends on it, but what about the other forms of love?

What about love for self among pain, trauma, and hardship?

Because when you are forced to commit actions (or hold back in acting) that cause deep moral injuries, or suffer from survivor’s guilt and mental trauma, it can be very hard to love yourself.

What about love for others when you are facing down people trying to kill you?

When you are conditioned to hate another group, look down on them, or establish a moral high ground that makes it easier for you to commit violence against them, it can be very hard to hold love for the very people you are fighting against.

What about love for life when you see the miserable conditions that people are trying to survive in?

When you see the deplorable conditions that others live in, and the circumstances that can provide such wealth and comfort for a small percentage of people, while the majority are living in poverty and hardship, it can be difficult to have love for a life that holds such disparity.  

As our deployment neared its end, I wasn’t thinking of love. I was quite bitter. I had lost so many friends to combat, witnessed death and suffering, and I was sick of the violence. I was disillusioned about the mission, and I just wanted us to survive so we could make it home. And when you are solely focused on survival, love sometimes takes a back seat.

One day later in our tour, my platoon was on a road move through a narrow mountain pass. The cliff walls were next to the road, and it was a choke point for improvised explosive devices. I was standing with my head above the vehicle hatch to look for indicators of IEDs when I saw spray paint on the side of the cliff. It was a phrase in English, so it stood out. And the phrase was three words that have stuck with me ever since:

“Love is Life.”

As I read that, I didn’t feel much love at that moment. I was hurting, I was tired, and I felt hollow. I loved the phrase, but the meaning was lost on me. It took me way too long to realize what it meant.

Love When Your World is Ending

I had heard of unconditional love before, whether it was from religion or other sources. It sounded like a nice notion, but how is one supposed to truly love unconditionally? What does that really mean? It unfortunately took my world ending to understand how to love without condition.

I had a 16-year relationship with my late wife, and it ended because of cancer. In the months before she was terminally diagnosed, our relationship and lives were incredible. We had two amazing kids, had rewarding careers, and were fully enjoying life, with plans for how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.

But cancer took everything from us. Less than seven months after diagnosis, it stole our present and robbed us of our future.

Near the end, I was her full-time caregiver. Our quality time together shrank from golfing, bike rides, and travel to quietly sitting next to each other on the couch, appreciating the chance to steal a few minutes when we could pretend our world wasn’t ending. The moments that we didn’t have to do or say anything to feel the love that was present.

That was my first moment of really knowing what unconditional love involved, outside of my children. I didn’t need anything from her to trust our love. It wasn’t conditional upon what she could provide; it was just present and burning deeply.

Love can Coexist with Pain

I feel we are conditioned to believe that love is meant to be this wholesome, pleasurable feeling that exists with little friction. Not just in romantic relationships, but in every aspect of life.

Of course, you can love your spouse when things are going well, love your comrades in the middle of a war zone, and your kids when they are behaving. But how do we keep loving ourselves, others, and life when the world feels like it is falling apart, conflicts are happening, and we are constantly overwhelmed?

Is it possible to still love yourself when you feel like a failure and are filled with guilt and doubt? Can you hold love when life isn’t going the way you wanted? Can you love the people around you even if you don’t agree or approve of them? Can you still love a life that is filled with such hardship?

What if unconditional love isn’t about absence of frustration, annoyance, or heartbreak? Instead of feeling pure and whole love radiating all the time… What if it’s only through hard conditions that we discover just how unconditional our love really is?

Loving After Loss

This is always a sensitive topic for widows and widowers to discuss. When you lose a spouse, particularly at a young age, you essentially lose your life as well. You lose your closest partner and support, you lose your identity, and you lose your future. It’s a devastating loss, and you are filled with guilt, grief, and pain as you try to put together the broken pieces of your life. There is no road map for how to move forward, let alone how to learn to love again.

Although I will write a dedicated article about this, it belongs here because it is what allowed me to learn how to intentionally love unconditionally.

My journey of learning to love after loss was rocky but also rewarding. I knew I had a lot of love to give, and that my heart had room for more. But I had to find out the hard way that before I could genuinely find love, I had to learn how to BE love.

And that couldn’t happen if I nurtured self-doubt, accepted that I was a failure, and hated what life had served me. I had to love myself, and love life again, to find a healthy and fulfilling partner once more.

In my article, “Holding More of Reality”, I share that “life isn’t asking us to choose between beauty and pain; it’s asking us to become the kind of person who can hold both without denying either.”

I couldn’t wait until I no longer felt like a failure to start loving myself. I couldn’t wait until the pain and devastation subsided before I could love life again. I also couldn’t wait until the grief was fully gone before I could love another. None of those things were going to happen at the pace I wanted. I had to learn how to hold it all and love my life despite the pain.

And once I did, I finally opened the door to find a partner I could not only fully be myself with, but also fully accept for who they are. I could love fully, because I loved myself and my life fully. Even despite the hardship, the pain, and the doubts. And as I carried forward the harsh lessons I learned, I realized I had expanded to experience a much deeper form of love.

This deeper sense of love that was shaped, in part, by those moments on the couch, when all I could have asked for was a little more time with the person I loved. Now, I can appreciate what I have because I know what it is like to have loved and lost, and I try to live in those moments more fully. My love burns brighter because it shines alongside the flame of pain.

I think perhaps one of the most important things I have learned about loving after loss is this: loving myself allowed me to accept love from another instead of feeling inadequate or unworthy of love. And that helps me become the type of partner I can be proud of.

Love Doesn’t Require Approval

I believe that love is the choice to relate to ourselves, others, and life in a way that honors dignity, growth, and truth. I feel we are all capable of an unprecedented level of love if we simply expand our awareness to include how large it can truly be.

I believe we can all love unconditionally, because unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional approval. It means we provide a foundational level of respect, dignity, and compassion for everyone and everything. Unconditional love is what helps us have a hard conversation with someone we care about. It’s what ends relationships when they no longer serve. It’s what inspires us to continue growing. Because it means that we are not trading approval for love but instead allowing love to be the standard for how we treat ourselves, our lives, and the people around us.

Unconditional love is what allows us to be furious about injustice while refusing to dehumanize the people responsible for it. It allows us to hold someone accountable without needing to hate them. It helps us recognize someone’s humanity without giving them access to yours. It is the ultimate form of compassion, accountability, and sovereignty because it allows love to remain unconditional while relationship, access, approval, and trust remain conditional.

After everything I’ve been through, love is what has provided the most meaning.

I can look back and hold love for those who have harmed me, or harmed people I love, without condoning or approving their actions. I can hold love for a life filled with devastating beauty and appreciate the excruciatingly extraordinary moments. And I can also love myself, despite my many failures. Despite all the areas where I could and should improve. I am still worthy of love. We all are.

I now understand why my friend says I love you, and I no longer feel awkward saying it back. And I finally understand the meaning of the out-of-place message I saw spray-painted on a mountain pass in the middle of a war zone:

Love is Life.