Unconditional love is that ideal love we crave from others.  We want to be loved and accepted for who we are.  I suspect for some, that need for unconditional love comes from not fully loving themselves.  They can’t validate themselves so they seek it from others.  The only problem is having someone love you , flaws and all doesn’t remove the flaws you see that make you not love yourself.

Life is gonna be an awful long ride if you don’t like the company.

Most of us, in my experience anyway, are fed lines of programming making us believe we aren’t worth our own effort.  Conditioned by our parents, friends and society that our dreams aren’t worth having, sharing or chasing, we simply don’t measure up.  We will never amount to what we see ourselves becoming.  That’s a tragedy.

The truth is, you’re not the miserable mess you think you are.  Nor are you the only one who thinks these destructive thoughts.  Here are a few rules that help me navigate the waters of personal uncertainty.  While I can’t yet say I’m full of unconditional love for myself, I am at the point where I can take myself to the movies and for coffee afterward.

Unconditional Rule 1. Everyone is broken. 

Remember this for it has served me well over the years: everyone is broken.  In some way, blatantly large or barely perceptible small, everyone, all of us are broken.

Ever go into someone’s house and everything you see is immaculate?  The furniture is perfect, the walls are just the right color, everything is laid out beautifully in some perfect order. Then you think about your stuff: the scuffs on the floor, the furniture is torn because you have a maniacal cat and nothing is ever put away where it should be.  You feel like all your stuff sucks by comparison.

Your stuff is broken while their stuff is perfect.  It makes you feel worse about yourself.

Well, you don’t really know the whole story.  You only see what your host wants you to see.   Sure, okay, maybe it is perfect. Maybe they do live in a museum where no one cooks or eats off the plates or sits on the couch.   Maybe what you see is really how this person lives.  Or maybe it’s staged to give you that impression because no one, nothing is perfect.  So here’s the second rule:

Unconditional Rule 2. Don’t Compare. 

Realize no one is perfect, period.  We are all broken in different ways and no one really truly has all their stuff together all the time.  We’re all fumbling around doing the best we can.  Do not compare your trip to theirs.  Same road, different vehicle.

On a good day we get lucky and everyone sees us at our best.  I know, you’re thinking in your case everyone sees you at your worst.  However, that’s only in your head.  You really have no idea what people think of you.  While you’re convinced everyone sees a fraud it’s quite possible that most people around you secretly envy you. Yes you.  Because you do something amazing they see and you don’t.  That’s the third rule:

Unconditional Rule 3. Never assume you know how you are seen by others.   

I can’t tell you how many times I think I screwed something up in a very loud and public way only to have people tell me that the opposite happened.  I did something amazing.  Of course, I’ve had it the other way around, too.  I thought I pulled off something astonishing only to learn later that every one cringed in sympathetic embarrassment for me.  Guess what happened next, I lived through it.  It didn’t kill me and I’ve never been uninvited back to a party because I wasn’t the comedic hit I thought I was.  Which brings us to the fourth rule:

Unconditional Rule 4. Never hand the keys to your self-worth to anyone. 

Being dependent upon what others think of you is the fastest way to your own ruin.  Live up to your own expectations because you will screw things up and you will shine.  Own all of it for yourself.  They are part of the miracle, yes, miracle that is you.  Embrace the process and the journey.  Every bit of it, wrong or right, provides something valuable.  You will never stop making mistakes.  You will never get all of it right all the time.  It has nothing to do with your worth as a person.   Accept that and this will all be easier.

If you’ve done stupid things, maybe screwed over a friend or made a bad decision or twelve, welcome to the club.  If you feel at this moment that it was the wrong thing to do and you know better now, congratulations, you learned the valuable lesson which brings us to:

Unconditional Rule 5. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made. 

Consider them lessons learned.  Let them go.

If you do your own personal accounting you will find you don’t like things about yourself. They hold you back.  They make you feel embarrassed or angry.  You don’t speak up for yourself or you make the wrong choice because you don’t want to offend anyone.  You regret all this because you know you aren’t making the best choices for yourself.   Here’s the rule;

Unconditional Rule 6. Stand for yourself because as you’ve learned, no one else will. 

You are your primary responsibility.  You are your primary benefactor.  No one else.  There’s no one coming to rescue you.  You must be that cavalry.

Unconditional Rule 6 restated: You are in control of your life. You make the choices.  Choose well.  Stop hating yourself because you think you always make the wrong decision.  How is anyone else going to love you for the amazing person you are if you hate you?  Believe me, you aren’t fooling anyone.  It’s very transparent in how you regard yourself.  As a writer I’d often say to anyone who’d listen, “Why would anyone buy my book?”  Pretty soon I ran out of people to say that to.

If you speak in negatives about yourself to yourself you’re empowering your own failure.  If you say it out loud you’re empowering everyone else to agree with you.

Unconditional Rule 7. No negative self talk.  Ever. 

Yes, it’s difficult to love you and accept you every single moment of every single day.  Try.  Don’t broadcast when you’re down on yourself.  People will pick up on it. You know the expression, “Everyone loves a winner”?  Let’s rework that, “Everyone loves to hang out with someone they believe is self-confident and comfortable in their own shoes”.  Learn to be comfortable with yourself.  Here’s the rule:

Unconditional Rule 8.  Love your own company. 

So many people can’t stand to be alone with themselves. I have friends who’d rather eat goop than have to be stuck in a quiet room with their own thoughts.  They have to be constantly distracted because they don’t like themselves that much.  They play with their phones or thumb through magazines or have the TV on constantly.  Does this sound familiar?  Would you rather be stuck in a tiny crowded elevator with 50 strangers or be completely alone on a tropical beach with only your mind for company?

Maybe that’s because you never have anything nice to say about you.  Let’s try an experiment.  I’d like you to list ten things you really don’t like about you.  Then I want you to list five things you really like about you.  I’d bet it took you twice as long to write five good things.  Now that you have, try and write another five.  Try and take those ten good things and branch off each one and write two things associated with each of the ten.  Who cares how long it takes?  The point is if you start the practice of positive self-regard you will suddenly realize you aren’t as awful as you thought you were.  Let’s continue with the ninth rule:

Unconditional Rule 9.  Accept where you are on the road right now because you’re doing your best to change it. 

If you’re not where you want to be yet; you don’t make enough money, you don’t do what you love or you’re stuck and you don’t know what to do, you aren’t alone.  We all make wrong turns.

I love to drive.  But I’m not one of those people who can’t admit he got lost.  I use the map on my phone but there are times I miss the exit at 70MPH and the next one isn’t for another 15 miles.  It totally steams my britches because I have no idea where I’m going and it sets me back on time.  There’s nothing I can do in that moment but correct the course.  It takes as long as it takes.  I have no choice but to accept where I am and take action.  Speaking of which:

Unconditional Rule 10. Take action. Now. 

You are not a mess or a disaster or a failure.  You are a work in progress.  We hear it all the time; “Life is short”.  Compared to the giant redwood trees, which can be over a thousand years old yes, our life is very short but compared to the lifespan a head of lettuce or a honey bee it’s much longer than you realize.

We won’t be here all that long but we will be here long enough to make some serious dents in the world.  If you look at your life and think you can do better; with money, with your career, fitness, relationships, whatever, all you have to do is take an action.  Learn the first step and do it.  Don’t be afraid to learn or grow or change because that’s what it will take to lose the weight, make the career or whatever your aim is.

Unconditional Bonus Rule. You are not a failure, you are a work in progress and remember, time takes time.

We’ve talked in the past about beginning, growing,  striving with a smile and why you need to be fearless.

Today make sure the love you feel for yourself is unconditional.

Tom Serafini is a writer, illustrator, motivator of dreamers and sometime stand-up comedian residing in Brooklyn, New York.  His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign coming soon.  It’s on the list.

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