November 18, 2025 • 25 mins
I share why you can’t make someone feel your love...and why that’s liberating. When you offer presence and kindness, their body has to feel safe enough to receive it; your job is to love without controlling their response. This is where boundaries get stronger, not softer: limits set without resentment are clearer, kinder, and more effective. We talk about body image, marriage, parenting, and the everyday moments when conditional love sneaks in....and what it takes to shift toward abundance rather than exhaustion.
For high‑functioning Muslim women, this conversation lands close to home. Achievement often masquerades as self‑love. We practice returning to the baseline, “I love myself because I exist,” and reflect on faith: moving from loving Allah only for blessings to loving because we were created capable of love. The mind will try to rationalize even this; we learn to notice, soften, and return to experience over analysis. By the end, you’ll have language, examples, and a repeatable practice to make unconditional love your default, rooted, spacious, and deeply alive.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us one condition you’re ready to drop today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:04):
Welcome to Islamic Life Code School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, Dr.
Domal Utler.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Today we're gonna talk about theidea of unconditionality of
love.
Love just because you can.
It sounds radical because itshifts the entire direction of
love.
From something you give outwardsto something you generate
inside.
We often assume that when welove someone, the main benefit
(00:38):
is for them, that our affection,attention, and the care we
provide somehow fills theiremotional tank.
But what's actually happening isthat love fills you.
When you love, your nervoussystem releases oxytocin.
Your mind expands.
When you feel love towardssomeone, it's actually giving
(01:00):
you nourishment that you feelfirst.
It's only nourishment forsomeone else if they decide to
accept your love.
When you allow yourself to lovefreely without waiting for the
other person to earn it orreciprocate it, you give your
body permission to live in themost abundant fuel there is.
(01:21):
While you might have beenenculturated and programmed to
believe that you love someonebecause it's a reward that you
hand out in your ownrelationships, especially in the
relationships that you think aredeserving.
When really love is adeclaration of your own
aliveness and your ownevolution.
It's when your nervous systemsays that I'm safe enough to
(01:44):
feel love even here andanywhere.
Whether you're loving yourspouse through his moodiness or
if you're loving your childthrough their rebellion, and
especially even if you're lovingyourself through your
imperfections.
Every time you choose love, youexpand your own capacity for
peace.
So when you love, don't think ofit as a transaction that
(02:06):
improves the relationship.
Think of it as an exercise thatimproves you.
Love that way becomes an act ofworship.
Your way of saying to Allah, YaAllah, you gave me a heart
capable of love, and I use itfully and completely.
So my son recently got babychicks.
Now they're very big now, butthey came from a hatchery and
(02:29):
they were just so cute andfuzzy.
I could just squeeze them, theywere so cute.
I mean I wouldn't actuallysqueeze them because that would
be bad, but they're just sosqueezable and cute.
These loving, happy feelingsthat I'm feeling towards these
baby chicks while they have noidea what's going on.
I feel the love for these babychicks and I enjoy the feeling.
(02:50):
I get to experience it.
I get to be happy about them,with them, around them, and I
get to enjoy the wholeexperience.
I get to enjoy my kids havingfun with them, taking care of
them, being responsible,learning responsibility.
I just love the whole situation.
I am enjoying the feeling oflove in my body.
(03:12):
This way, love is not asubstance that travels between
two people, like pouring waterfrom one cup into the other.
Love is an experience thathappens inside each individual
nervous system.
When someone feels loved by you,what they're actually feeling is
their own body's response to thesafety, kindness, and the
(03:33):
presence you provide.
Their brain is releasing theoxytocin and the serotonin and
any other concoction of hormonesof love, and that entire
physiological and psychologicalexperience belongs to them.
Your love doesn't physicallymove into their body.
It just creates an environmentwhere their own capacity to feel
(03:55):
love is awakened.
And the same is true in reverse.
When someone loves you, what youfeel is your nervous system's
response to their tone, theirattention, their affection,
their energy.
It's your own inner chemistrythat lights up through your own
thoughts.
And understanding this dynamicchanges everything.
(04:15):
It frees you from trying tocontrol whether someone feels
your love.
You offer love generously, andat the same time you can't make
another person's body or heartreceive your love.
You can speak softly, kindly,and wholeheartedly, and they may
still not be loved because intheir own nervous system
something else might be true.
(04:37):
Their own mind might not yet beopen or regulated enough to
register your love.
And all of that is fine.
Your responsibility is nottowards ensuring that they feel
your love at all cost or tryingto manipulate them so that they
know that they're loved.
Your responsibility is onlytowards loving them
(04:59):
unconditionally, regardless ofif they feel it or not.
So my invite to you in thispodcast is love anyways, not
because you can guarantee thatit will be felt, but because the
act of loving keeps you alive,keeps you in spiritual
abundance.
The purpose of love is not tomake someone else feel
(05:21):
something, it's to keep youconnected to the best part of
your humanity.
And it so happens that when youunconditionally love like that,
they for sure will be attractedto that energy, and they will
come on board.
As humans, we are experts atattaching conditions to our
love.
We're trained to measure worthbefore giving any affection.
(05:43):
We say things like I love mybody because it's healthy, or
because I can still run after mykids, or because I look good
today.
Notice how fragile that lovebecomes.
It depends on continuedperformance of your body for you
to be able to love it.
And the moment it aches, gainsweight, or it can't do what
(06:05):
you're used to it doing, thenthe conditional love starts to
fade.
Compare that to unconditionallove for your body, where you
don't wait for your body tobehave perfectly.
Your love towards your body isnot a reward for good function.
It's a simple, truthfulacknowledgement of the divine
design.
Your body deserves love simplybecause it exists, because Allah
(06:30):
chose to breathe life into it.
You can love your body when it'sstrong and when it's tired, when
it's energized and when it's inpain.
Even if you say, I love youbecause you're the vessel that
lets me experience life, it letsme learn, it lets me worship.
All of these sound so amazing.
They're all amazing reasons, butthey are still conditions.
(06:54):
Conditions of you loving yourbody because it performs,
otherwise you don't.
Again, the invite here is foryou to love your body because
you can, for you to loveanything and anyone because you
can.
Especially your love towardsyourself because you can.
I myself love the baby chicksbecause I can.
(07:16):
I love them because they are.
When I love them because they'recute and fuzzy, I am attaching
conditions.
Loving yourself just because youcan is the highest act of mercy.
It releases you from thelifelong negotiation of I will
love myself when dot dot dot.
(07:36):
And it invites you into thepresent moment of I love myself
now.
All conditionalities are lifted.
This really is the main andmaybe the only ingredient to
release shame, releasinggenerational patterns of
self-blame.
This type of love creates a lotof softening and healing for
(07:57):
your nervous system.
It rewires entire patterns ofself-criticism, and it roots you
into gratitude of the now ratherthan the performance.
And it's all based on just onerecognition that love is not
something you earn.
You don't earn it from yourselfor anyone else.
It's just something you allow.
(08:19):
That level of unconditional loveis the most abundant and
extremely freeing.
When love is conditional, itbecomes exhausting.
It depends on outcomes, on otherpeople behaving a certain way,
on your own performance, onaging perfectly or staying
flawless or getting married atthe right time, or getting
(08:39):
divorced at the right time,having the right amount of
children at the right time.
When you love yourself without areason, you step into the
deepest form of abundance,lifting all of these conditions,
because nothing outside of youcan increase or decrease it.
And when that happens you stopwaiting for validation or
(09:00):
reciprocation.
You love because your loveitself is expansive.
It multiplies simply by beingfelt.
You no longer love to control,fix, or possess, you love just
for the sake of it, for the sakeof your own wholeness.
While transactional love has itstime and place, and I recognize
(09:21):
that, that place is rathernarrow.
It still feels good, but it isnot anywhere close to being as
abundant as non-transactionallove.
Unconditional love is thehighest form.
That is the kind of love thatlets you self-correct much
easier when you fall short ofyour expectations, that lets you
(09:42):
give without depletion, thatlets you forgive when other
people make a mistake, whichthey invariably will.
Other people are human beings,they're designed to make
mistakes, and your forgivenessthrough unconditional love for
yourself only benefits you.
This kind of love mirrors divinemercy, Allah subhanahu wa
(10:03):
ta'ala's Rahmah, which is acharacteristic it is also
present in you as a human.
This is what flows through younot because it's deserved, but
because it simply exists.
Even a smallest drop of thatkind of love will free you.
So I came across this idea manyyears ago in the book by Dr.
(10:23):
Shirzad Shameen PositiveIntelligence, and since then
I've turned this into a littleritual with my kids, where every
now and then I ask them, why doyou think I love you?
In the beginning, their answerswould be because we keep our
rooms clean, because we do ourhomework, because we don't fight
with each other.
All adorable and very validreasons, technically true
(10:45):
reasons for me to love them, butalso completely missing the
point of non-transactionalunconditional love.
Multiple times I've had toremind myself and them that my
love isn't tied to any of theseconditions.
I love them even when theirrooms are messy and they forget
their homework and they get intoa fight.
So then as a part of thispractice, I would remind them
(11:09):
that I love them because theyare them, not because they're my
children, not because I'msupposed to love them.
I love them because just becausethey exist.
Okay, and then afterwards, ofcourse, the evolution and growth
focused self that I am,Alhamdulillah, I started to take
it a step further.
I would then intentionally askthem misleading questions.
(11:31):
I would deliberately attachpositive conditions to my
questions and ask them if thatis the reason I love them.
I would say things like, is itbecause you learn to swim so
fast?
Is it because you're kind toyour friends?
Because you say salam to all ofthe adults at parties?
Is it because that you put aprayer mat in your room so you
(11:52):
can remind yourself to pray ontime?
And of course initially theywould trip up and say yes,
because these are all amazingqualities.
Why wouldn't their mother lovethem because of these qualities?
And technically, yes, I do lovethem because of all of this,
because of everything that theydo.
But the answer to my originalquestion, which implies
unconditionality, my trickquestion asking them if these
(12:16):
were the reasons I love them,the answer would still be no.
Because that is not the answerI'm looking for, and I want to
teach them this about theunconditionality of love I have
towards them.
I want to teach them this skillso that they are able to produce
it for themselves when they'readults.
So I keep doing this exercisebecause I want to remind them I
(12:39):
love them just because I can,because they exist, because they
are who they are.
And I would have to remind themof this over and over again.
Now they're at the stage thateven if I ask them, do I love
you because you listen to yourparents, because you're
memorizing Quran, or because youget straight A's, they know the
(12:59):
answer is no.
I do not love them because ofit, I love them despite of these
qualities.
They know the answer is that Ilove them because they are, they
exist, and the fact that I canlove them.
And for sure after enoughrepetition they finally got it.
Now if I ask them why do youthink I love you?
They roll their eyes and theysay because I am me.
(13:23):
And this is the practice Ilearned from this book that may
seem small and even silly, butit is deeply transformative.
Once you expand it beyond yourchildren, towards your spouse,
your friends, your body,especially yourself, it becomes
one of the most healing thingsyou can ever do.
All of this is not an invite foryou to start unconditionally
(13:47):
loving everyone.
If you're trying to forgivesomeone and have not been able
to do so, then maybeunconditionality of love is not
an option here.
I don't want you to forceyourself into loving somebody
unconditionally because that'sthe examples I give you here.
I want you to be creative andapply it to your own unique
(14:07):
situation.
All I'm saying is when you dodecide to love someone like
this, unconditionality starts tomean that you stop making
somebody's flaws the price ofyour affection.
Then some of the objections Ihear is that I can't do that.
That's carelessness.
And I'm not asking you to becareless with it.
(14:28):
You can definitely deliberatelychoose the people you want to
love.
You can choose themintentionally, but when you have
a list in mind, unconditionallove is not carelessness.
It's not blindness, it'schoosing to see the whole
picture, the good, the messy,the inconvenient, and still
(14:50):
saying that yes, I choose tolove this person in my life.
When you know your husband has ahabit of interrupting you mid
sentence or forgetting importantthings, you know in your mind
that you still have the optionto love him because you value
connection over his perfection.
Your child might not listen toyou, speak abruptly or slam the
(15:12):
door, you still have the optionof loving them.
Even your parents who might havecarried generational rigidity
and emotional distance, you canstill love them without waiting
for them to become self-aware.
Now, loving someone despitetheir shortcomings does not mean
you stop holding boundaries.
It means your boundaries are nolonger coated with resentment.
(15:36):
When you create boundariesoutside of resentment and
judgment, they are much moreeffective and stronger.
All along, what I'm trying toteach you here is that love is
not a contract for goodbehavior.
It's a reflection of your ownmaturity, your ability to let
other person be a human withoutneeding them to meet your
(15:57):
requirements, and you evolvingto that level.
Unconditionality towards yourspouse might sound like your
brain always attaching some sortof precondition to the love for
him because let's say heprovides, he brings home a
paycheck, or you say I love himbecause he loves me, or because
(16:20):
he comes home to me, I love himbecause he's a great father.
Again, these are all excellentreasons for you to love
somebody.
But then loving him just becauseyou can, just because when he
falls short of any of theseexpectations, loving them not
because they did everything inyour checklist to deserve it,
not even because they're doingeverything societally or
(16:43):
religiously correct, but becauseyou can, you have the capacity,
and at this level you're onlyexpanding your capacity for
abundance, not his.
This level of rewiring does taketime because as Muslim women we
are otherwise deeply conditionedto love specially because of
someone's positive attributes,when they meet our preconceived
(17:07):
notions.
Again, not a bad thing.
I do love my husband for all ofthese qualities, but loving
somebody unconditionally is awhole new level of love.
So it is my sincere hope andprayer for you to experience
unconditionality in your loveand whoever and to whoever
you're giving it to, even ifit's baby tricks.
(17:28):
With all of this practice, whatyou will notice is that
eventually you will start to seethe unconditionality in the love
that Allah has for you, and thelove that you have for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
You might have a tendency tothink right now that you love
Allah because of all thecountless blessings He gave you.
(17:50):
You are breathing because ofAllah's mercy.
You have a house to live in, andI can only try to start listing
all of the things that you canbe grateful for.
There's no way I can finish thatlist even if it takes me a
lifetime.
These are all blessings andattributes that you can assign
to him to be able to justifyyour love.
(18:11):
But what about loving Allahbecause you can?
Because you exist?
All of this helps you recognizehis countless mercy towards you,
his abundant and unconditionallove towards you.
Ironically, even if you startpracticing the mindset of I love
because I can, a hyper thinkingbrain can immediately sneak
(18:35):
through the back door with thejustification of yes, I'm loving
because it feels good to love,it feels good in my body because
it benefits me.
And on the surface, that ofcourse itself sounds harmless
and even wholesome, but it isstill a condition.
You're loving because it givesyou something in return, even if
(18:56):
what that gives you is peace orjoy.
And that's how sneaky the humanmind is.
It keeps you trying tointellectualize something that's
just meant to be purelyexperiential.
And if your mind gets trapped inthat, that's okay.
Do not create judgment of thattype of thinking.
Your brain is a meaning makingmachine.
It wants to label, explain,rationalize everything,
(19:20):
including love.
It might feel unsafe in themystery of loving just because.
So when you begin to practicethis unconditionality, you're
gently rewiring one of theoldest programs in human
evolution.
The habit of attaching reasonsrationality to your emotions.
And when you find yourself doingthat, a simple awareness is
(19:42):
gonna correct your path.
And it's all about these smallrecognition.
Over time, loving without reasonbecomes a muscle memory.
Especially in real life, it'svery much needed because when
you don't parent perfectly andyou're still in debt even when
you have goals of financialindependence, or your child
(20:03):
leaves their lunch untouchedwhen you packed it so lovingly,
these moments unconditionalityfeels like the last thing on
your mind.
But with practice, this becomesa part of you.
It becomes the default self.
Unconditionality in your lovewill start to come habitually to
you.
And if you forget it, that'sokay.
(20:25):
It does not mean that you'vefailed, it just means that
you're human.
Your job is to keep rememberingto return to that baseline of
unconditional love over and overagain.
Not because you're doing itperfectly, but because you
choose to do it intentionally.
Rising above loving someonebecause of their positive
(20:45):
attributes is one of the mostliberating and healthy things
you can do for your emotionaland mental life.
And not everyone or everythingin your life deserves that level
of work.
But if you do have someone inyour life that you choose to do
this work on, it's going to beliberating for you.
When you love yourself orsomeone else unconditionally,
(21:07):
you have taken the obligation ofperformance out of the equation,
especially even if it's goodperformance.
People will invariably fallshort of your expectations
because they're not living theirlife to comply with your
expectations.
They're trying to live their ownlife.
And just like any other humanbeing, sometimes they have a
(21:27):
hard time, sometimes easy.
The most powerful concept I wantyou to take away from this
episode is the unconditionalityof love towards yourself.
And this is especially importantreminder for high functioning
Muslim women.
Self love sneaks in throughachievement, through checklists
and the doing and theperformance.
(21:48):
You will start to respectyourself because you managed
your schedule, because youfollowed your prayer routine,
because you kept the houserunning, or because you are able
to remember everyone else'sneeds before your own.
And while all of these are greatqualities, something you can
strive for, signs of discipline,responsibility, care, affection,
(22:09):
empathy, even these positivequalities are conditions.
They keep your worth and yourability to love yourself
tethered to your performance.
Unconditional self love meansthat you're rising above that.
Loving yourself on the days thatyou forget, where you're falling
short or when you're losingcontrol.
(22:31):
Loving yourself when you'rereactive, when your faith is not
the highest, when your house ismessy.
Loving to love yourself andbecoming comfortable by saying I
love myself because I exist.
All of this is a reminder thatyou were worthy before you
earned your degree, before youlearned your emotional
(22:51):
intelligence skills.
You were worthy on the day youwere created simply because
Allah subhanahu wa ta'aladecided you were worth creating.
This is the most sacred form ofself-love.
It is not a reward for gettingit right.
You have complete freedom inthis.
Freedom to choose who and whatyou want to love at this level.
(23:14):
It could be people closest toyou, it could be pets that you
love, it could be the communitythat you belong to, it could
even be the entire humanity.
The choice is yours.
Practicing that choice is yourbasic right as a human being.
With that I pray to AllahSubhanahu wa Ta'ala.
Ya Allah, teach my heart to lovewithout conditions, let my heart
(23:38):
see me through your mercy, notjust through my strengths and
mistakes.
Let my worth rest in the factthat you created me, not in how
much I accomplish or howperfectly I perform.
Ya Allah, grant me and everyonethe peace that comes from loving
ourselves.
Help me recognize that you havealready loved me, and help me
(24:01):
extend the same love to others.
Not because they earn it, butbecause you made me capable of
it.
Amin Ya Rabul Alamin.
Please keep me in your du'as.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
Welcome to Islamic Life Code School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, Dr.
Domal Utler.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Today we're gonna talk about theidea of unconditionality of
love.
Love just because you can.
It sounds radical because itshifts the entire direction of
love.
From something you give outwardsto something you generate
inside.
We often assume that when welove someone, the main benefit
(00:38):
is for them, that our affection,attention, and the care we
provide somehow fills theiremotional tank.
But what's actually happening isthat love fills you.
When you love, your nervoussystem releases oxytocin.
Your mind expands.
When you feel love towardssomeone, it's actually giving
(01:00):
you nourishment that you feelfirst.
It's only nourishment forsomeone else if they decide to
accept your love.
When you allow yourself to lovefreely without waiting for the
other person to earn it orreciprocate it, you give your
body permission to live in themost abundant fuel there is.
(01:21):
While you might have beenenculturated and programmed to
believe that you love someonebecause it's a reward that you
hand out in your ownrelationships, especially in the
relationships that you think aredeserving.
When really love is adeclaration of your own
aliveness and your ownevolution.
It's when your nervous systemsays that I'm safe enough to
(01:44):
feel love even here andanywhere.
Whether you're loving yourspouse through his moodiness or
if you're loving your childthrough their rebellion, and
especially even if you're lovingyourself through your
imperfections.
Every time you choose love, youexpand your own capacity for
peace.
So when you love, don't think ofit as a transaction that
(02:06):
improves the relationship.
Think of it as an exercise thatimproves you.
Love that way becomes an act ofworship.
Your way of saying to Allah, YaAllah, you gave me a heart
capable of love, and I use itfully and completely.
So my son recently got babychicks.
Now they're very big now, butthey came from a hatchery and
(02:29):
they were just so cute andfuzzy.
I could just squeeze them, theywere so cute.
I mean I wouldn't actuallysqueeze them because that would
be bad, but they're just sosqueezable and cute.
These loving, happy feelingsthat I'm feeling towards these
baby chicks while they have noidea what's going on.
I feel the love for these babychicks and I enjoy the feeling.
(02:50):
I get to experience it.
I get to be happy about them,with them, around them, and I
get to enjoy the wholeexperience.
I get to enjoy my kids havingfun with them, taking care of
them, being responsible,learning responsibility.
I just love the whole situation.
I am enjoying the feeling oflove in my body.
(03:12):
This way, love is not asubstance that travels between
two people, like pouring waterfrom one cup into the other.
Love is an experience thathappens inside each individual
nervous system.
When someone feels loved by you,what they're actually feeling is
their own body's response to thesafety, kindness, and the
(03:33):
presence you provide.
Their brain is releasing theoxytocin and the serotonin and
any other concoction of hormonesof love, and that entire
physiological and psychologicalexperience belongs to them.
Your love doesn't physicallymove into their body.
It just creates an environmentwhere their own capacity to feel
(03:55):
love is awakened.
And the same is true in reverse.
When someone loves you, what youfeel is your nervous system's
response to their tone, theirattention, their affection,
their energy.
It's your own inner chemistrythat lights up through your own
thoughts.
And understanding this dynamicchanges everything.
(04:15):
It frees you from trying tocontrol whether someone feels
your love.
You offer love generously, andat the same time you can't make
another person's body or heartreceive your love.
You can speak softly, kindly,and wholeheartedly, and they may
still not be loved because intheir own nervous system
something else might be true.
(04:37):
Their own mind might not yet beopen or regulated enough to
register your love.
And all of that is fine.
Your responsibility is nottowards ensuring that they feel
your love at all cost or tryingto manipulate them so that they
know that they're loved.
Your responsibility is onlytowards loving them
(04:59):
unconditionally, regardless ofif they feel it or not.
So my invite to you in thispodcast is love anyways, not
because you can guarantee thatit will be felt, but because the
act of loving keeps you alive,keeps you in spiritual
abundance.
The purpose of love is not tomake someone else feel
(05:21):
something, it's to keep youconnected to the best part of
your humanity.
And it so happens that when youunconditionally love like that,
they for sure will be attractedto that energy, and they will
come on board.
As humans, we are experts atattaching conditions to our
love.
We're trained to measure worthbefore giving any affection.
(05:43):
We say things like I love mybody because it's healthy, or
because I can still run after mykids, or because I look good
today.
Notice how fragile that lovebecomes.
It depends on continuedperformance of your body for you
to be able to love it.
And the moment it aches, gainsweight, or it can't do what
(06:05):
you're used to it doing, thenthe conditional love starts to
fade.
Compare that to unconditionallove for your body, where you
don't wait for your body tobehave perfectly.
Your love towards your body isnot a reward for good function.
It's a simple, truthfulacknowledgement of the divine
design.
Your body deserves love simplybecause it exists, because Allah
(06:30):
chose to breathe life into it.
You can love your body when it'sstrong and when it's tired, when
it's energized and when it's inpain.
Even if you say, I love youbecause you're the vessel that
lets me experience life, it letsme learn, it lets me worship.
All of these sound so amazing.
They're all amazing reasons, butthey are still conditions.
(06:54):
Conditions of you loving yourbody because it performs,
otherwise you don't.
Again, the invite here is foryou to love your body because
you can, for you to loveanything and anyone because you
can.
Especially your love towardsyourself because you can.
I myself love the baby chicksbecause I can.
(07:16):
I love them because they are.
When I love them because they'recute and fuzzy, I am attaching
conditions.
Loving yourself just because youcan is the highest act of mercy.
It releases you from thelifelong negotiation of I will
love myself when dot dot dot.
(07:36):
And it invites you into thepresent moment of I love myself
now.
All conditionalities are lifted.
This really is the main andmaybe the only ingredient to
release shame, releasinggenerational patterns of
self-blame.
This type of love creates a lotof softening and healing for
(07:57):
your nervous system.
It rewires entire patterns ofself-criticism, and it roots you
into gratitude of the now ratherthan the performance.
And it's all based on just onerecognition that love is not
something you earn.
You don't earn it from yourselfor anyone else.
It's just something you allow.
(08:19):
That level of unconditional loveis the most abundant and
extremely freeing.
When love is conditional, itbecomes exhausting.
It depends on outcomes, on otherpeople behaving a certain way,
on your own performance, onaging perfectly or staying
flawless or getting married atthe right time, or getting
(08:39):
divorced at the right time,having the right amount of
children at the right time.
When you love yourself without areason, you step into the
deepest form of abundance,lifting all of these conditions,
because nothing outside of youcan increase or decrease it.
And when that happens you stopwaiting for validation or
(09:00):
reciprocation.
You love because your loveitself is expansive.
It multiplies simply by beingfelt.
You no longer love to control,fix, or possess, you love just
for the sake of it, for the sakeof your own wholeness.
While transactional love has itstime and place, and I recognize
(09:21):
that, that place is rathernarrow.
It still feels good, but it isnot anywhere close to being as
abundant as non-transactionallove.
Unconditional love is thehighest form.
That is the kind of love thatlets you self-correct much
easier when you fall short ofyour expectations, that lets you
(09:42):
give without depletion, thatlets you forgive when other
people make a mistake, whichthey invariably will.
Other people are human beings,they're designed to make
mistakes, and your forgivenessthrough unconditional love for
yourself only benefits you.
This kind of love mirrors divinemercy, Allah subhanahu wa
(10:03):
ta'ala's Rahmah, which is acharacteristic it is also
present in you as a human.
This is what flows through younot because it's deserved, but
because it simply exists.
Even a smallest drop of thatkind of love will free you.
So I came across this idea manyyears ago in the book by Dr.
(10:23):
Shirzad Shameen PositiveIntelligence, and since then
I've turned this into a littleritual with my kids, where every
now and then I ask them, why doyou think I love you?
In the beginning, their answerswould be because we keep our
rooms clean, because we do ourhomework, because we don't fight
with each other.
All adorable and very validreasons, technically true
(10:45):
reasons for me to love them, butalso completely missing the
point of non-transactionalunconditional love.
Multiple times I've had toremind myself and them that my
love isn't tied to any of theseconditions.
I love them even when theirrooms are messy and they forget
their homework and they get intoa fight.
So then as a part of thispractice, I would remind them
(11:09):
that I love them because theyare them, not because they're my
children, not because I'msupposed to love them.
I love them because just becausethey exist.
Okay, and then afterwards, ofcourse, the evolution and growth
focused self that I am,Alhamdulillah, I started to take
it a step further.
I would then intentionally askthem misleading questions.
(11:31):
I would deliberately attachpositive conditions to my
questions and ask them if thatis the reason I love them.
I would say things like, is itbecause you learn to swim so
fast?
Is it because you're kind toyour friends?
Because you say salam to all ofthe adults at parties?
Is it because that you put aprayer mat in your room so you
(11:52):
can remind yourself to pray ontime?
And of course initially theywould trip up and say yes,
because these are all amazingqualities.
Why wouldn't their mother lovethem because of these qualities?
And technically, yes, I do lovethem because of all of this,
because of everything that theydo.
But the answer to my originalquestion, which implies
unconditionality, my trickquestion asking them if these
(12:16):
were the reasons I love them,the answer would still be no.
Because that is not the answerI'm looking for, and I want to
teach them this about theunconditionality of love I have
towards them.
I want to teach them this skillso that they are able to produce
it for themselves when they'readults.
So I keep doing this exercisebecause I want to remind them I
(12:39):
love them just because I can,because they exist, because they
are who they are.
And I would have to remind themof this over and over again.
Now they're at the stage thateven if I ask them, do I love
you because you listen to yourparents, because you're
memorizing Quran, or because youget straight A's, they know the
(12:59):
answer is no.
I do not love them because ofit, I love them despite of these
qualities.
They know the answer is that Ilove them because they are, they
exist, and the fact that I canlove them.
And for sure after enoughrepetition they finally got it.
Now if I ask them why do youthink I love you?
They roll their eyes and theysay because I am me.
(13:23):
And this is the practice Ilearned from this book that may
seem small and even silly, butit is deeply transformative.
Once you expand it beyond yourchildren, towards your spouse,
your friends, your body,especially yourself, it becomes
one of the most healing thingsyou can ever do.
All of this is not an invite foryou to start unconditionally
(13:47):
loving everyone.
If you're trying to forgivesomeone and have not been able
to do so, then maybeunconditionality of love is not
an option here.
I don't want you to forceyourself into loving somebody
unconditionally because that'sthe examples I give you here.
I want you to be creative andapply it to your own unique
(14:07):
situation.
All I'm saying is when you dodecide to love someone like
this, unconditionality starts tomean that you stop making
somebody's flaws the price ofyour affection.
Then some of the objections Ihear is that I can't do that.
That's carelessness.
And I'm not asking you to becareless with it.
(14:28):
You can definitely deliberatelychoose the people you want to
love.
You can choose themintentionally, but when you have
a list in mind, unconditionallove is not carelessness.
It's not blindness, it'schoosing to see the whole
picture, the good, the messy,the inconvenient, and still
(14:50):
saying that yes, I choose tolove this person in my life.
When you know your husband has ahabit of interrupting you mid
sentence or forgetting importantthings, you know in your mind
that you still have the optionto love him because you value
connection over his perfection.
Your child might not listen toyou, speak abruptly or slam the
(15:12):
door, you still have the optionof loving them.
Even your parents who might havecarried generational rigidity
and emotional distance, you canstill love them without waiting
for them to become self-aware.
Now, loving someone despitetheir shortcomings does not mean
you stop holding boundaries.
It means your boundaries are nolonger coated with resentment.
(15:36):
When you create boundariesoutside of resentment and
judgment, they are much moreeffective and stronger.
All along, what I'm trying toteach you here is that love is
not a contract for goodbehavior.
It's a reflection of your ownmaturity, your ability to let
other person be a human withoutneeding them to meet your
(15:57):
requirements, and you evolvingto that level.
Unconditionality towards yourspouse might sound like your
brain always attaching some sortof precondition to the love for
him because let's say heprovides, he brings home a
paycheck, or you say I love himbecause he loves me, or because
(16:20):
he comes home to me, I love himbecause he's a great father.
Again, these are all excellentreasons for you to love
somebody.
But then loving him just becauseyou can, just because when he
falls short of any of theseexpectations, loving them not
because they did everything inyour checklist to deserve it,
not even because they're doingeverything societally or
(16:43):
religiously correct, but becauseyou can, you have the capacity,
and at this level you're onlyexpanding your capacity for
abundance, not his.
This level of rewiring does taketime because as Muslim women we
are otherwise deeply conditionedto love specially because of
someone's positive attributes,when they meet our preconceived
(17:07):
notions.
Again, not a bad thing.
I do love my husband for all ofthese qualities, but loving
somebody unconditionally is awhole new level of love.
So it is my sincere hope andprayer for you to experience
unconditionality in your loveand whoever and to whoever
you're giving it to, even ifit's baby tricks.
(17:28):
With all of this practice, whatyou will notice is that
eventually you will start to seethe unconditionality in the love
that Allah has for you, and thelove that you have for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
You might have a tendency tothink right now that you love
Allah because of all thecountless blessings He gave you.
(17:50):
You are breathing because ofAllah's mercy.
You have a house to live in, andI can only try to start listing
all of the things that you canbe grateful for.
There's no way I can finish thatlist even if it takes me a
lifetime.
These are all blessings andattributes that you can assign
to him to be able to justifyyour love.
(18:11):
But what about loving Allahbecause you can?
Because you exist?
All of this helps you recognizehis countless mercy towards you,
his abundant and unconditionallove towards you.
Ironically, even if you startpracticing the mindset of I love
because I can, a hyper thinkingbrain can immediately sneak
(18:35):
through the back door with thejustification of yes, I'm loving
because it feels good to love,it feels good in my body because
it benefits me.
And on the surface, that ofcourse itself sounds harmless
and even wholesome, but it isstill a condition.
You're loving because it givesyou something in return, even if
(18:56):
what that gives you is peace orjoy.
And that's how sneaky the humanmind is.
It keeps you trying tointellectualize something that's
just meant to be purelyexperiential.
And if your mind gets trapped inthat, that's okay.
Do not create judgment of thattype of thinking.
Your brain is a meaning makingmachine.
It wants to label, explain,rationalize everything,
(19:20):
including love.
It might feel unsafe in themystery of loving just because.
So when you begin to practicethis unconditionality, you're
gently rewiring one of theoldest programs in human
evolution.
The habit of attaching reasonsrationality to your emotions.
And when you find yourself doingthat, a simple awareness is
(19:42):
gonna correct your path.
And it's all about these smallrecognition.
Over time, loving without reasonbecomes a muscle memory.
Especially in real life, it'svery much needed because when
you don't parent perfectly andyou're still in debt even when
you have goals of financialindependence, or your child
(20:03):
leaves their lunch untouchedwhen you packed it so lovingly,
these moments unconditionalityfeels like the last thing on
your mind.
But with practice, this becomesa part of you.
It becomes the default self.
Unconditionality in your lovewill start to come habitually to
you.
And if you forget it, that'sokay.
(20:25):
It does not mean that you'vefailed, it just means that
you're human.
Your job is to keep rememberingto return to that baseline of
unconditional love over and overagain.
Not because you're doing itperfectly, but because you
choose to do it intentionally.
Rising above loving someonebecause of their positive
(20:45):
attributes is one of the mostliberating and healthy things
you can do for your emotionaland mental life.
And not everyone or everythingin your life deserves that level
of work.
But if you do have someone inyour life that you choose to do
this work on, it's going to beliberating for you.
When you love yourself orsomeone else unconditionally,
(21:07):
you have taken the obligation ofperformance out of the equation,
especially even if it's goodperformance.
People will invariably fallshort of your expectations
because they're not living theirlife to comply with your
expectations.
They're trying to live their ownlife.
And just like any other humanbeing, sometimes they have a
(21:27):
hard time, sometimes easy.
The most powerful concept I wantyou to take away from this
episode is the unconditionalityof love towards yourself.
And this is especially importantreminder for high functioning
Muslim women.
Self love sneaks in throughachievement, through checklists
and the doing and theperformance.
(21:48):
You will start to respectyourself because you managed
your schedule, because youfollowed your prayer routine,
because you kept the houserunning, or because you are able
to remember everyone else'sneeds before your own.
And while all of these are greatqualities, something you can
strive for, signs of discipline,responsibility, care, affection,
(22:09):
empathy, even these positivequalities are conditions.
They keep your worth and yourability to love yourself
tethered to your performance.
Unconditional self love meansthat you're rising above that.
Loving yourself on the days thatyou forget, where you're falling
short or when you're losingcontrol.
(22:31):
Loving yourself when you'rereactive, when your faith is not
the highest, when your house ismessy.
Loving to love yourself andbecoming comfortable by saying I
love myself because I exist.
All of this is a reminder thatyou were worthy before you
earned your degree, before youlearned your emotional
(22:51):
intelligence skills.
You were worthy on the day youwere created simply because
Allah subhanahu wa ta'aladecided you were worth creating.
This is the most sacred form ofself-love.
It is not a reward for gettingit right.
You have complete freedom inthis.
Freedom to choose who and whatyou want to love at this level.
(23:14):
It could be people closest toyou, it could be pets that you
love, it could be the communitythat you belong to, it could
even be the entire humanity.
The choice is yours.
Practicing that choice is yourbasic right as a human being.
With that I pray to AllahSubhanahu wa Ta'ala.
Ya Allah, teach my heart to lovewithout conditions, let my heart
(23:38):
see me through your mercy, notjust through my strengths and
mistakes.
Let my worth rest in the factthat you created me, not in how
much I accomplish or howperfectly I perform.
Ya Allah, grant me and everyonethe peace that comes from loving
ourselves.
Help me recognize that you havealready loved me, and help me
(24:01):
extend the same love to others.
Not because they earn it, butbecause you made me capable of
it.
Amin Ya Rabul Alamin.
Please keep me in your du'as.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
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