Unconditional Self Love vs. Transactional Self Love

What is unconditional self-love? Simply put, it means loving yourself without any conditions.

You may love yourself, but only when it feels “convenient.”

So, you may love yourself only when you are doing well in life, are at peace, have clarity about your life path, have a loving partner, or have your passion as your profession.

But life isn’t always great. Mostly, life is tough and challenges you every moment.

What do you do when faced with difficulties? Give up loving yourself? No.

Remove all the conditions you have placed on loving yourself and love yourself unconditionally.

Unconditional self-love makes one’s life eternally great. When you love yourself limitlessly, you start enjoying even the steepest challenges.

But if you love yourself only when the going is easy, you will mostly not like, if not hate yourself.

Thus, you must transform your conditional or transactional self-love into unconditional self-love.

How can we do this?

How To Love Yourself Unconditionally

To love yourself unconditionally, you don’t need to become a monk. The key is to keep things simple. 

You need to figure out all the major conditions you have placed on self-love and then remove them individually.

Here are some of the most common conditions we place on self-love and how to remove them.

Loving Yourself Only When You Remember

Life has become fast-paced and stressful. And in this work overload and constant pressure, you may overlook your need for love.

You need to put yourself first and remind yourself to love yourself.

You can do this by placing simple reminders in key places. You can set a wallpaper on your phone or laptop that asks you to be mindful of loving yourself every moment.

Similarly, You can paste one such note on your work table. You can also get creative and place your customized self-love symbols, such as your favorite flower, in places where you spend most of your time. If you are a tattoo person, you can also get a body tattoo that reminds you to love yourself.

Learning self-love becomes easier when you are reminded of it every moment.

Loving Yourself Only When The Situation Gets Desperate

There comes a time in everybody’s life when they desperately need love. This may be when they are feeling lonely after a breakup or when they have fallen very ill.

Such situations are the starting point of many people’s self-love journey. Although self-love helps them regain their feet, they feel guilty for not loving themselves earlier.

Desperate situations would not have occurred had they not waited so long to love themselves.

Thus, it’s better to love yourself before life teaches you painful lessons.

Shortage of Time

Many people give the excuse of not having enough time to love themselves. In other words, they say they will love themselves when they have time.

It’s a famous saying, “Time is never scarce for the things that are your priority.” So, the problem is that self-love is still not your priority.

We must remind ourselves that everything else exists because we exist—not vice versa.

Thus, self-love should be your topmost priority. Remember, if you stall your supply of self-love, it might endanger everything else in your life.

If you prioritize your professional life over self-love, ask yourself, “Will my professional life be the same if I get sick?”

To love yourself when you have little time, you must rebalance your life and shift your focus to self-love and care.

Time will no longer be an obstacle in loving yourself. 

Waiting For The Workload To Recede

Sometimes, there might be an actual shortage of time that prevents you from loving yourself.

You may not be a workaholic, but your job might be hectic. You may be in a high position in your office, which creates the pressure of working overtime. Also, many self-employed people, like business people, do not get enough time for themselves.

But it is still a condition placed on loving yourself because you have a choice. The truth is that the workload never recedes; it only gets bigger with time.

The question is – Are you willing to sacrifice some professional success and money for loving yourself?

If you want to spend some quality time with yourself, you should be willing to make that choice.

It will help you overcome the time constraints of loving yourself.

Loving Yourself Only When Happy

Someone has rightly said, “Life becomes hard when you do the easy things.”

Loving yourself when you are happy is easy. What matters is what you do to yourself when you are sad.

Moreover, when sadness “locks” your life, only the “key of self-love” can free you. Thus, to lead a happy life, you must learn to love yourself when life gets hard.

So, whenever you feel sad, make it a point to use the ‘self-love jar.’ Write down your favorite self-love activities on a small paper and put them in the jar.

Whenever you feel sad, pick a random self-love activity from this jar and do it. And in no time, your mood will get better. 

Loving Yourself Only When Other People Love You

External validation does make you feel vindicated and nice. But if you depend too much on it, it can stifle love and happiness in your life.

If you wait for other people to love you before you can love yourself, the wait might be longer than you think. It’s because attracting love from external sources, like your partner, depends on self-love. You cannot pour from an empty cup, remember?

Only if you have “Excess love” to share with your partner will they share theirs. To start a positive “love loop,” you must take the initiative and love yourself first.

So, do not wait for others to love you; start loving yourself now.

Waiting To Become Perfect

Perfection is only a myth, and it exists only in theory.

In the material world, imperfection and mistakes are the only norms.

If you find it difficult to accept and love yourself because you are not perfect, please do not do this grave injustice to yourself. You need to develop self-compassion, learn to forgive yourself, and start seeing mistakes as a normal part of life.

If you wait to become perfect before you can love yourself, you might be taking the risk of going loveless your whole life.

Accept yourself as you are and start loving yourself for who you are.

A magical self-love affirmation that will work wonders for you is – “I am enough just as I am.” This affirmation will help you overcome the condition of ‘perfection’ you have placed on loving yourself.

Loving Yourself When Your Past Trauma Fades Away

Since life is a journey, the past will always be inferior to the present. In addition, only when you keep moving ahead will your past get fainter. But if you tie your self-love and happiness to your past, it will disappoint you. 

So, you must love yourself to make any painful past disappear. Please find a way to let go of the past, be it a toxic relationship or a troubled childhood. Take expert help if you need it.

It will help you start loving yourself and set you free from any past trauma.

Waiting To Become Peaceful

A common problem is a chattering mind. Negative thoughts, in particular, prevent people from loving themselves unconditionally.

When your mind generates thoughts against you, it’s natural to feel uncomfortable. However, negativity can be overcome with the right strategy.

Here are some things you can do to counter negative thoughts:

1) Do not believe them.

2) Find a positive and convincing counterstatement.

3) Use positive affirmations.

4) Leverage positive self-talk.

5) Try meditation to calm your mind down.

6) Track their source and work towards eliminating it.

7) Get physically active regularly, e.g., walk, run, go to the gym, etc.

8) Learn to let go of them.

9) Use a smile or laughter as a tool.

10) Take them positively and challenge them.

Overcoming negative thoughts will help you love yourself unconditionally.

Loving Yourself When You Get Healthy

Being sick takes a massive toll on self-love. Any sickness reduces self-love and also harms the will to love yourself.

But the truth is that you need self-love more than ever when you are sick. Only self-love and care can help you in getting healthy quickly.

So, you cannot wait to get healthy to love yourself again. You have to find a way out of all the negativity and complaints. You must drop the ‘Why me?’ attitude and start believing more in the ‘Try me!’ version.

So, do whatever it takes to get healthy, see a good doctor, take your medicines on time, and most importantly, do not lose hope.

Sometimes, staying positive, patient, and not giving up are the only ways to love yourself. Play your part, and then the waiting game.

Coming out of illness by working through it will lead you to eternal, unconditional self-love.

Loving Yourself Only During Easier Times

It’s harder to love yourself when the times are tough for two reasons.

First, during hard times, you tend to become negative. Secondly, when confronted with difficulties, we try too hard to overcome them and inflict pain on ourselves.

It’s why the value of self-love multiplies manifolds during challenging times. 

You must not use difficulties as an excuse not to love yourself but use them to make your self-love eternal. You must find the right balance between self-care and working on a solution.

Doing this will help you earn self-respect and love yourself unconditionally forever.

Loving Yourself Only When You Are Successful

Having dreams is a good thing. 

But when you become too attached to them, you start sabotaging your good. If you can love yourself only when you succeed, you are being too hard on yourself.

Remember, loving yourself might help you succeed, but you should not try to force it the other way around.

You should love yourself even during failures to become a genuine and natural candidate for success.

Unleash Unconditional Self Love

Loving yourself with conditions is as good as not loving yourself. Conditions weaken self-love and make it look transactional. True self-love is unconditional and boundless. So, remove all the conditions you have placed on your self-love and see it blossom magically.