Beyond “Love Because”: Toward True, Unconditional Care

We explore how birthdays reveal our beliefs about love, why receiving care can feel hard, and where appreciation ends and love begins. We test the idea that love is allowed rather than earned, and ask whether actions prove love or simply express it.

• birthdays as thresholds and mirrors for love
• resisting love versus opening to it
• difference between appreciation and love
• friendship memory as a felt sense of love
• self-love, boundaries, and common myths
• love without action and the role of intention
• expectations, love languages, and proof-seeking
• “love because” versus true, unconditional love
• language limits and many words for love
• business and service as expressions of love
• practical steps to receive “I love you”

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:10

We are on the line. Beautiful Friday. I was kind of overcast. Oh, wait, I'll let Les do.

SPEAKER_05 0:21

We are on the line. And uh I was getting coffee. Yeah. Because it can't be coffee with Hillary and Walks without coffee. And it is an overcast day. The sun is saving itself up for later to celebrate Hillary's birthday. Okay. It's Hillary's birthday today. It's a funny thing, birthdays, right? When you're little, you see birthdays one way. As you get older, birthdays have different meanings, almost like little thresholds that we cross. And then you get a little bit older and you start to become a little resistant to them. And what happens is we start to, I think, we start to resist the love. We get reflective. And we start to resist the love. And then we cross another threshold where we start counting them again, like they're badges, survival badges.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Counting birthdays, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Look at me, I'm still here.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

And and birthdays have a lot of meanings for a lot of people because they're really emotionally packed days. And they're really a lot, a lot about love.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

In the chat. And we think we have to be mature and pretend it's just another day. Not me.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

I have a friend, she might even be listening. She she celebrates a whole week.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

That's me. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Well, you do. You you you treat the whole month as yours, you know. But I have this friend that does the this is my international week, and she she plans it and she does a great job of celebrating herself and giving herself lots of good times. Yeah, yeah. We've always treated this time of year as as special because we've always gone away.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Yeah, that's right. We didn't go away this year.

SPEAKER_05 2:23

No. Out of all these years, I think there's only two years we didn't go away.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:31

We still might. What's this house sells?

Birthdays As Thresholds Of Meaning

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:35

But anyway, I think that birthdays are a really good reason to get us talking about love. Because I think love is one of those wonderful, powerful topics, and that we all, you know, not dissimilar from money, which is tomorrow. We all have a lot of bad programs around love, especially love when it comes to loving oneself. So on this wonderful celebration of Hillary, and I I've already told her this, so let's make this the beginning of our talk. There's a funny thing about love that I think a lot of people miss.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah.

Letting Love In Versus Resisting It

SPEAKER_05 3:24

And that is love has to be allowed. Love has to be accepted. Like we have to open to love because we all know it's really easy to close ourselves to love. And that's one of those, I think, lessons that we learn young, that we yeah, that we carry with us. And it's it's often, you know, complicated and and and sort of compounded by a sense of worth that somehow one has to deserve love. And I think that's because we mix up love with appreciation.

SPEAKER_04 4:10

Can you give an example of the like uh well?

SPEAKER_05 4:14

I think absolutely every person that I would tell you that I love, I have a reason to appreciate. They they represent something in my life that's good. Yeah, that I feel lucky to have them in my life, that I appreciate them, that this is somebody who cares about me and I care about them, and we we see things in each other that are valuable, and we as a result sort of cling to each other. But I'm not sure that that appreciation is best called love, because I think love can be so much bigger, so much more, so much, so much more essential, so much more essence. Anyway, so some some big, big thoughts about love before we even get started, right? I think that love has to be accepted. Yeah, you gotta open yourself to it.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

So, how does it feel to know that there are people all around the world celebrating your birthday right now?

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Kind of fun, I guess. Yeah, that's neat. That's neat.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Yeah, you're letting it in.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

Oh what do I let in?

SPEAKER_05 5:29

Ah, the love.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

But what is it?

SPEAKER_05 5:32

Ah, that's a great question. What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 5:35

Just mean that the thought? I don't know. Thinking about the person. I'm trying to think of like when my friend is having a birthday and I think I think about them and I I wish them, even if I'm not with them on their birthday, I wish them happiness. And so I suppose it's it's it's just the thought, maybe it's new, it's a new thought to me.

SPEAKER_05 6:02

Isn't it? Yeah, I mean, really, like it's it's amazing, you know, how we think about love and don't think about love. And yeah, when we try to think about love, sometimes it's it's like I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Yeah, I know what self-love is, I think.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

I think so you can know self-love and not understand love.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Well, I know self-love, but I'm not sure I know what it feels. So this is really putting me out that's okay, but I'm not sure if I know what love from other people feels like. Besides like, oh, they're being nice. Oh boy, I just opened a can of work.

SPEAKER_05 6:53

Oh, and you use the word love and you did, and that's why most people don't even want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, eh?

SPEAKER_05 7:01

Just try a little exercise and see if it helps. I, you know, you know me, I'm goofy. I I think about this stuff, right? I have been, you know, asking this question now for months and months, you know. What what is love? What does love mean? That what does that word really mean? So think of somebody that you really know that you love. Now, just be aware that there's a lot more of them than you thought there were, and that some of them are very special to you, and some of them are not so very special to you, but you definitely love them. So, what is that? What is that? There are people that we appreciate, they do things for us, they bring us things, they give us things, they offer things, they offer themselves, and there's an appreciation for that. And there are others who really don't offer you much, yeah. Not much in your life, but you know to your bones that you love them. So now you're starting to see the difference between appreciation and love. You're starting to see the difference between behavior and love.

What Does Love Feel Like

SPEAKER_04 8:29

Yeah, I I think my mind is bringing me back to last night I went out with a a girlfriend of mine, and we've been friends since like grade nine. And I can still remember the moment I uh made friends with her, right? And I it crossed my mind for the first time last night. I mean, I know we've been friends a long time, but it crossed my mind last night. Like, isn't it just wonderful? It's almost like eating a nice chocolate cake or something. Like, isn't it just so scrumptious to have a friend that you you've known and who's grown with you and who knows you and who's gonna know you for the rest of their life, you know? And that I saw as as uh if I look back, it was a moment of oh, awareness. It wasn't it is a thought that I hadn't really thought about before. And it was a moment of maybe love, appreciation. I don't know. There you go, maybe both for that one.

SPEAKER_05 9:41

Yeah, you examine it and you tell us.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

I would say it was love. I would say it was love. I think I felt it in my body. Isn't this weird?

SPEAKER_05 9:55

Well, it it is weird, and and this is you know, again, this is to me our calling. You know, it's not to reveal science or to break people down, but to reveal how the mind works and how things that are very much essential to who we are are often constructed programs and that we benefit by breaking down the program and trying to find the truth and the value. And I think that love is worth its own podcast to understand some of the characteristics of love, right, and to find ways to embody them right in a really sort of healthy, but I'm gonna say more natural or more true way. So when you talk about your friend, like, do you love her? It's obvious to me you love her, yeah. Right. As the outsider, you know, that there's there's such a clear affinity between the two of you, a real appreciation for each other, a real appreciation for having someone like that in my life, yeah. And that's almost impersonal, isn't it? And it's almost and uh please forgive me, I have the same things, but you know, to say to yourself, I have a very good friend, and I love them very much, and they matter a lot to me. But to say that they matter to me is that kind of selfish.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Why would that be selfish?

SPEAKER_05 11:53

Well, because it's all about you, it's all about me when I say that person matters to me a lot.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_05 12:03

Explain.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

I want to know your side. Why would that be selfish?

SPEAKER_05 12:11

Um and selfish doesn't have to be a negative word.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

No, no, right?

SPEAKER_05 12:18

I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I don't have to label that which is self-oriented, you know, like self-love. And I think that's where a lot of people jump off the jump off the wagon when they they use the word self-love. Like that's inappropriate, that's obsession, that's narcissism, that's conceit, that's you know, a lack of humility, you know. Like this is why to me, you know, love is a very complicated topic filled with all kinds of goofy ideas and a real lack of understanding of what it is truly.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:03

And I think a lot of times a lot of these things, like appreciation, like affinity, right? They've got love inside them somewhere, but they've also got self-interest in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

I think I think that there's the words that come to mind is like a healthy self-interest. I think it's important to have boundaries. And I say this, and I know that a lot of my clients, we work on boundaries. And even I'm working on boundaries, you know, for things. But I and I know that I have said to clients, you know, self-love is not selfish. It is, and it's not just putting sticky notes on a mirror saying I love you and seeing them every day. It's it's things like, and again, I'm no guru over here, but like it's things like treating yourself. It's things like taking care of your health, it's things like not saying yes to everything. It's uh it's lots of different things. Giving yourself time to do your hobbies and do things that you love instead of working so much.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

And you know me, I'm just gonna keep making trouble here. Those are all demonstrations that could be demonstrations of love. But one of the things that I try to remind my clients of is that love does not require you do anything. I can love you and do nothing.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

Oh, yeah. If we're talking about like not self-love, but love from another.

SPEAKER_05 14:48

Same with self-love. I mean, why would self-love be different from love, other than all our programming?

unknown 14:55

Right?

SPEAKER_05 14:57

Like sometimes we feel compelled when we say we love somebody, we feel compelled we need to do something about that, right? Yeah, you know, it's it's a silly thing, but I feel like I have to give you a birthday card, right? It's got nothing to do with my love for you.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

Right. Is it about appreciation at that point? Like you just want me to feel appreciated, or I guess that you know, I uh that's what I feel like with my friends when it's their birthday. I want them to feel like showered with gifts. You know, I want them to feel appreciated.

SPEAKER_05 15:31

But love doesn't require that you do anything to be loved.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

No, that's true, yeah.

Self-Love, Boundaries, And Mislabels

SPEAKER_05 15:37

But we know that, don't we? Yeah, like I can say that to my clients, and my clients will pause and they'll they'll stare off in the distance because the truth of it is real, right? The truth of it is real. I can love somebody, yeah, and never tell them. Yeah, I can love somebody and never do anything about it.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

So then that brings me back to well, what is that? What is that then? Yeah, and I struggle with it like everybody else. I've got a million ideas and none of them seem precisely correct. And I think it's worth thinking about. Yeah, I think it's worth digging up our own beliefs and interpretations of love and reconsider them. Because how many times in our lives have we heard or even used the phrase, if you really loved me, you would.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 16:39

Or I'm not feeling very loved right now. And does that have anything to do with love and only to do with expectations of behavior? And that we talk about love languages, right? Love languages. What are the things that make me feel like I'm loved?

SPEAKER_04 17:01

In the chat, it says so our actions are the demonstration of love, but they are not actually love in themselves.

SPEAKER_05 17:07

Is that a statement or a question?

SPEAKER_04 17:09

I'm not sure. Is it is that a statement or a question?

SPEAKER_05 17:12

Either way.

SPEAKER_04 17:13

I think I think it could be both.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

It's a question.

SPEAKER_05 17:16

Yeah, well, it's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Yeah, like what does love feel like? I know, I know there's a feeling in me when I know the truth about something. Like if I'm talking to a client or if we're talking together, and there's something really just lovingly truthful that that pours forward. You know, you get welled up in the eyes. Like I do feel it sometimes when people meet with me and they say, I really, you know, I'm really thankful I I'm connected with your energy. And, you know, I say thank you and everything, but it does make me tear up. So I feel something there. But what does love really feel like? Maybe different. Maybe it's different across the board.

Love Without Action: Is It Still Love

SPEAKER_05 18:10

Well, it's, you know, I do believe that it's very easy to block love. I think it's very easy to see yourself as unlovable. I think it's very easy to see yourself as unworthy of love. I think it's very easy to associate love with relationship. And when relationship is absent, to see yourself as unlovable. I see it really easy for us as human beings to go out of our way to inhibit and block love and stop our own ability to receive love. And I think that that's one of the critical things we all need to learn is that love needs to be allowed in. I it's we're really good at keeping it out, we're really good at doubting it, we're really good at challenging it, we're really good at limiting our acceptance of it. But love has to be accepted and allowed in if it's going to have the intended effect.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

What's the intended effect?

SPEAKER_04 19:22

I don't know. I was just gonna ask, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:25

But it's funny how you can feel the truth of that statement, yeah, and not have a clear understanding of it.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Yeah. So I want to go back to the uh question there. So our actions are the demonstration of love, but they are not actually love in themselves. Yeah, it's almost like I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

Can something be infused with love?

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Yeah, so maybe being present is important here. Uh maybe in your actions, try your best not to just do them because, or do them not in a yeah, present moment way. And in that present moment, try to connect to that whatever you're doing. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 20:09

Well, I I think you're trying to offer a solution because that's you. You really let me fix that. You want to help.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Let me fix that. Let me try.

SPEAKER_05 20:18

And and as soon as something doesn't feel adequate, you want to get involved and get right there. And you know, God bless you, that's beautiful. I don't know that you're answering the question though.

SPEAKER_03 20:29

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 20:31

Can something be infused with love? Can an action be infused with love? Can a beautiful action have no love in it at all?

SPEAKER_04 20:40

But you would have to intend to infuse it with love.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

Ah.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

So that's where I come to the present.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

So is is love an intention? Is love a point of focus? Is love an energy?

SPEAKER_04 20:56

I think thoughts are energy. I think that we can connect through our heart and through our, you know, through our thoughts, and maybe try our best to send that energy with the action.

SPEAKER_05 21:12

I don't know. Love is a funny word. I mean, you got stuff going on in the chat there.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

Yeah, I was just reading to see if it tied into what's what's in the chat. So it says it is it something to do with chemistry? Why do we just organically connect to someone and we can feel strong feelings for them almost instantly? And others we feel nothing or apathy. I think the word love is the definition of itself. We have used the word so much that it's kind of overused or misused. Yeah, I can see that. It's kind of greenwashed, isn't it? Yeah.

Love Languages And Expectations

SPEAKER_05 21:51

And in so many ways, it's just not used enough. You know, I used to joke when I taught business. I used to joke and I I used to always Have this one class where I would bring us to the word love. And I used to say, is having the kind of business that pays its employees well so they can have a thriving life and provides a really wonderful product that changes customers' lives at a fair price and is very conscientious about how it impacts people and the world. Is that an act of love? Can business be done with love? Can business be an expression of love? What would the world look like if businesses were conducted as an expression of love for humanity? Just an overall, hey, let me help you. And yeah, I'm gonna do well because of it, but I don't need to have more than I need. I have lots and I want to be comfortable and I want to not worry about money and I want to not concern myself with how to grow my business because it'll just grow because I'm just naturally offering the world something in love. And the world will offer me back beautiful profits, which will make me really comfortable. I mean, people are out there, you know, with all kinds of products that they'll tell you, I love. I love my shaving cream. It's the first shaving cream I ever had that doesn't make my face all irritated. I love it. Like sometimes I think love is just not used enough. It's not sought out, it's it's categorized, it's limited to certain people, it is conditional, you know. I I I once wrote something that uh, you know, I felt like I was given a beautiful poem, right? That you know, love because is not love, it's appreciation, it's loyalty, yeah. Love, but but love because I love you because you treat me so well. I love you because you make me feel so good. I love you because I always laugh when I'm with you. I love you because being around you feels so good. I love you because you're so caring. Yeah, I love you because you're so gentle with me.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

And you're saying that love because is not love because if any of those are taken away, like I don't want to say we laugh anymore.

SPEAKER_05 24:40

I don't want to say that that it isn't love, yeah, yeah, but it sounds a lot more like an exchange, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 24:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

Sounds more like a bargain. And there's people we strike bargains with that we have no love for, yeah, right. I go into law blaz all the time. I'm not feeling a lot of love. I'm in there doing the grocery shopping, I'm picking out products off the shelves, right? Even my favorites.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

But what if you could go into law blaz and say to yourself, Life loves me and provides this food on the shelf.

SPEAKER_05 25:18

There you go. I mean, that's a different intention, isn't it? And we've talked about the importance of intention. But where does that intention come from?

SPEAKER_04 25:27

What intention? Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

The intention to go into the store and say life loves me and provides me with this abundance, and I can have everything I want, and I'm so blessed.

Intention, Presence, And “Infusing” Actions

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Well, and maybe you have to believe that life supports you or loves you at least first to be able to go there.

SPEAKER_05 25:47

Yeah. Does believing make it so? Or is it just so? And we may or may not believe it, kind of like you are loved, but you have to let it in.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

In the chat, it says, I don't I don't want to miss anything. Oh, yeah. Okay. So so is the term unconditional love an oxymoron? Because love is by definition unconditional.

unknown 26:12

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 26:13

You might take the word unconditional and replace it with the word true, because I think maybe that's the goal of that term. Unconditional love is true love, complete love, real love. One of the things I always point out when we talk about love is that you know English is a peculiarly weak language when it comes to love, right? My recollection was when I was studying this so many years ago that in ancient Greek there are like 13, 14 different words for different kinds of love. Right. In French, there's multiple words you can use for love, different kinds of love, different vibrations of love, different feelings of love, different relationships of love. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:07

I think that we don't, but keeping that in mind, all these different kinds of love doesn't necessarily reflect love. We're listened to all around the world. So in your native tongue, how many different words are there for love? Yeah, how many different ways of expressing love? And and there's there's, you know, there is an element where all the different loving relationships that I have have a certain vibration that is the same. And then all the different contexts of my love, different types of people in my life, there's a lot of differences in the tone of my love, in the vibration of my love, or in the expression of my love. You know, all of these ideas. You know, I think that one of the most important things when it comes to existing in this world in a healthy way is self-love. And I don't think we can really get there without taking the time to understand love.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

Not that we don't try, not that we don't keep doing it, not that they're not, it's not like we're not already loving. Just because we don't mentally understand it doesn't mean we don't love, doesn't mean the love we feel isn't real, doesn't mean that the love that we have for so many and so much isn't really potent and powerful. All of my jabber here is not in any way to suggest that we don't know how to love or that we're not the perfect expression of love. Just only that we have a lot of thoughts about it that mess with it.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

Yeah, my it definitely expands my my thinking. There's so many levels to it, it's uh almost hard to wrap my brain around, my mind around.

SPEAKER_05 29:20

I think it's a worthwhile struggle. I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to spend some time thinking about love, thinking about the people that you love, thinking about what does it mean to you when you look at someone and say, I love you. To examine yourself and ask yourself, when somebody says I love you, do I let it in? Do I let that in with all its power and all its meaning?

SPEAKER_04 29:51

I think for me, the as we wrap up here really, but like for me, it's when someone says I love you, how do you let it in? Do you just go okay? What is the what what is that to let it in?

SPEAKER_05 30:11

I think the first thing is how do you react?

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:15

I mean, because we say I love you for a lot of reasons. Right? Sometimes, and this is beautiful, sometimes it just overwhelms us and we have to say it. And that's a beautiful moment.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

Sometimes it's the preference the the the the prefix, right? The preface to I love you, but yeah, right. Right. I want you to know I love you, but I gotta I gotta do this thing that's gonna not feel nice. I gotta tell you something, I gotta do something.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:54

We say I love you for a lot of different reasons, and when you hear it, right? And sometimes it's not words, you know, you know, sometimes it's just a touch. Or brownies, or brownies for your birthday, love language. We all have our way of feeling appreciated, feeling special. That's a whole other relax.

SPEAKER_04 31:27

In the chat, great topic. We could dig into this for a week or more. Yeah. Wow, lots to chew on.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

Yeah, we'll we'll we'll keep talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:38

I love talking about it because I love thinking about it, because I love trying to break myself open to more.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

Yeah. It's funny, we tried talking about this. I remember about two years ago. And I was so shut down about it. I was like, no, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, I don't know what to say. And I don't even know if I know what to say right now, but at least we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_05 32:08

Well, I hope that you feel loved today, and I hope that you open yourself to that love.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

I will try. And I do. Okay, thank you for hanging out, everyone. We're gonna get going to the gym. Thank you. Thank you. I will thank you. Have a good weekend, have a good weekend too.

unknown 32:33

Okay.