When we have a fixed idea of what love should be, we can’t see the love that’s actually coming at us. Joe describes a client whose colleague was genuinely compassionate—direct, clear about how to be with someone—but the client couldn’t hear it as love because it didn’t match their template. The colleague kept saying “I know that sounds harsh” because everyone had told her that her directness wasn’t love. But it was.
We’re listening on the wrong channel. This makes life feel loveless when love is actually everywhere—we’re just filtering it out because it doesn’t match what we learned love looks like. Meanwhile, we chase the pattern that matches our conditioning (criticism, avoidance, etc.), mistaking familiarity for love.
“We have this idea of what love should be and therefore we can’t even see the love that’s coming at us.”
When you actually find unconditional love, the experience is that it’s everywhere, all the time—“it almost feels like it’s creating the entire reality.”
Related Concepts
- We push away approval we seek
- You get the love you can accept
- Love conditioning is somatic, not just intellectual