Loving Without Expectations Means Loving Yourself First

To love unconditionally, without any expectations… you have to love yourself first.

You have to stop letting others dictate your life and focus on doing what matters to you. You have to stop rearranging your schedule for people who may bail at the last moment. You have to stop giving yourself to everyone and stop letting people tell you what’s right and wrong for you. You have to start listening to your heart and follow your inner voice. No matter how different or wrong it may sound to others.

To be able to love without expectations, you need to feel free to rely on someone and that someone must be you. You have to learn to accept yourself as this imperfect, flawed and messy person who sometimes makes mistakes. You have to learn to love yourself just the way you are. You have to forgive yourself, embrace your insecurities and strive to become a better person. Someone you would be proud of.

To love without expectations, you have to choose honesty as your core value. You have to show people that you are not here to play games. You have to be true to yourself and to others. You have to show up. You have to be there for the people who love you. In a world full of hypocrites, you have to be the one who stands out of the crowd and proves to everyone that there are exceptions.

To love without expectations, you have to accept that everything is not in your control.  You have to understand that every person has its own struggles and its own demons. But you also need to understand that it is not up to you to fight them. The only choice you can make is to accept them just the way they are or leave them.

To love without expectations, you have to learn to appreciate every experience that life gives you. You have to accept the fact that other people are not yours to own, change, or mold the way you want to, no matter how much their traits bother you. You have to appreciate what you have when you have them in your life, learn from them and let them go when they need to move on with their lives. You have to understand that the only thing you can do is offer your heart as a shelter to them. But whatever you do, you cannot force them to stay.

Most importantly, to love without expectations, you have to be brave to cope with every consequence of your actions. You have to be fine with opening doors, allowing people in your life and accepting the fact that doing that might not always end up good for you. If that is what you want to do of course. In other words, you have to learn to be responsible for yourself.

Because at the root of your expectations is your need. Your need to be accepted, loved, validated, cared for and heard. If you manage to do that for yourself without anyone’s help, that need will vanish and you will no longer need others to validate your existence.

You will finally be free from the chains of expectations.  

So, what are you waiting for?