#190 Unconditional Love is NOT the Highest Form of Love; Deep, Meaningful Love is CONDITIONAL

Rachel Denning (00:10.67)
Many of us have been taught or have grown up believing that unconditional love is the highest of virtues. And in many ways it makes sense. Loving others without conditions seems to be the highest level of love possible, partly because it sometimes seems so unrealistic, especially when it comes to our family members. It's even difficult to get clear on exactly what we're talking about because in English we only have one word for love. In Latin there are at least three, eros, agape, and philia.

But as we've thought about it and discussed it and researched it over the past decades, we've come to believe that unconditional love is a lower, widespread, shallower type of love that is the foundation for higher, deeper levels of love. And those more meaningful types of love are actually conditional. In reality, our closest relationships are and should be based on this conditional love. For example,

I can have unconditional acceptance and love for my neighbor despite what he does or how he treats me. But I can't have a deep, meaningful relationship with my husband unless our love is conditional, meaning that we treat each other with respect, loyalty, and fidelity. Otherwise, is there any difference between our relationship and the one I have with the neighbor? It's only because of these conditions that our marriage relationship exists. In this episode...

We dive into what this conditional love actually looks like and how it works so that it doesn't become toxic or manipulative, which is the risk if it's not built on a foundation of unconditional love for self and others. We explain how spousal, parental, and even God's love has conditions. And when unconditional love, non -judgment, and tolerance actually become vices instead of virtues, and that can lead in extreme circumstances to things such as school shootings.

Listen to this fascinating episode discussing the pros and cons of unconditional love as well as the depths and levels of love and loving others and how to reach greater heights of love. This episode is sponsored by our extraordinary family life formula. Discover simple tools for creating more order, peace, prosperity, and love in your mind, emotions, finances, and relationships. Plus gain the ability to persuade and influence your family with

Rachel Denning (02:36.782)
Click the link in the show notes to become a member of the formula today and meet live with Greg and me every month for workshops covering every area of family life.

Rachel Denning (02:51.214)
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Today we are addressing kind of a touchy subject. Well, I don't know, I think people will get reactive to it. Yeah, I think it's complex. It is complex. And there's a lot of nuance and there's a lot of definition. So the way we define it might be different from what you define it. So I guess we'll have to get on the same page of definitions here. So when we say, hey, this is what we're talking about.

you're not defining something totally different and being like, what are you crazy? So we kind of get on the same page and then make some points here. And as we go into this, I want you just to chew on it. I guess this is... Consider it. Yeah, consider it, think about it, let it percolate and marinate and just sit with it for a little bit and think about it and do some exploring, do some meditations on it.

some thinking, some writing sessions, some free writing sessions about it would be really awesome. And examine it. Examine it in your own life with your children. Examine it with your neighbors and the people you interact with. And see how this fits in because whenever we've brought it up, it can actually become really sensitive and people can get fired up about it and have very, very strong like,

black and white opinions about it. And you can understand why because if it's off, it feels extremely threatening. And...

If it's off, it feels wrong. Right, it does feel wrong. And this is why it's a complex subject because it's easy to be misunderstood. Everything we're about to say could be easily misunderstood because there is almost this underlying foundation that has to be in place in order for what we're about to talk about to be true. Yes, and so not only misunderstood, but misused. Totally misused, abused.

Rachel Denning (05:01.262)
misapplied, like you take it, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, and then you apply it, but you apply it wrong because you don't have the base or the foundation or the philosophy, the concept behind it. So this can go really wrong. So I guess I'd also like to share a warning, like, hey, with what we're about to say and the way we're about to present this, be extremely cautious because if you take what we talk about today and you misuse it, man, it can backfire.

Absolutely. It can be ugly. So here we go. Ready? What is all, what is this thing? They were so fired up about. It's unconditional love. And as I have thought about it. Over decades. Yeah, decades. Exactly. I have been thinking about it for decades, reading about it, researching it, studying it. I've studied it in sacred texts and in scripture and in other books and talked about it with.

people all over the place and thought through it. Psychology, philosophy. Yeah, the whole thing, right? It's part of the great debate in life. And not just sacred texts like sacred texts that you've grown up with, but we've read the Dhammapada, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran. All through these. And you're looking for these ideas and really, really searching because it's so easy for us to come up with a...

kind of a coating, like a coat. Oh, my God. You take something, you put a little coating over it, right? OK. And so we come up with a little coating for something because we're like, oh, I like that. A candy coating, like an emerald? Yeah, like a little candy coating you put on something. But it's amazing. We see it in religion. You see it in politics. You see it in sports. You see it in families, in church. You see it all over the place. You see it in religion, where people grab hold of something, and they put a little candy coating on it because it feels more comfortable to them that way.

And so they begin to define it that way and see it that way and talk about it and teach it that way. But when you dig deep into it, you're like, well, it's not really that. It's not really there. And, you know, I know you want the candy coating because it feels good and looks good and it's pretty. It's pretty and it tastes nice, but it's not always accurate. And this is one of those things where you think, oh, yeah, well, unconditional love.

Rachel Denning (07:28.878)
God is unconditional love. And as a parent, we need to have unconditional love. And as a good, loving person, or as a Christian, as a spouse, unconditional love. And that's the candy coating that we've put on this. And it feels good. So I did a whole podcast on what I call half -truth, where, yeah, it's true to a point. And unconditional love?

I think fits in this category. That's true to a point. And then there is a point. And so if there's a point, then it's not by definition, it's no longer unconditional. And so, but where on the spectrum of conditions do you draw the line for love? And there are levels of love and there are different kinds of love. Unfortunately, we have that one word in English, love.

It's like love between a spouse and I want to make love to you and then I love my dog. Or I love my car. And I love mountain biking. Right? We use the same word so it's all replaced. There's more missing out. I know, I think especially, I guess it was Latin or Greek, they had at least three different types of words for love. So yeah, we are limited literally in our vocabulary because we only have one word for love essentially. All those things. And we use it a lot. We overuse it. We overuse it.

I'd love to have you on the show. I'd love to meet up for lunch. Oh my goodness, we use it a ton. But when you dive back into this essence of unconditional love.

Rachel Denning (09:08.462)
does that even exist? That there is a love literally without conditions. And I'm going to throw this out here. I'm just thinking out loud. I'm going to say, and I know this isn't going to be popular, I'm going to say it doesn't exist. What? What?

What are you talking about, Greg Denney? And the first thing people will say is like, but God loves us unconditionally. And that, my friends, is one of the biggest candy coatings out there. Because if you actually start digging into sacred text and scriptures especially, there are many instances where he declares that his love does have conditions. And I don't pretend to understand it all. I don't pretend to speak for God.

But the scriptures are clear. There's conditions. And there's examples in there where he's like, he loveth those who love him, who keep his word. God loves those who keep his word. Now, please do not misunderstand me here, because people will. Especially this early in. Give me a minute before you misunderstand me, because this is where we get in trouble, because then people start, I knew it. I knew God didn't love me. That's why I've been cursed my whole life. You're like, no.

You've been cursed because you've been cursing yourself. You've been going along, making your own daggum mistakes and blaming it on him. This is where I get ranting, right? So there's a couple things here because right away, yeah, a lot of people are like, whoa, what? First of all, that just fills off. That fills not true. Right. It's unsettling. It's uncomfortable. It is unsettling. The other thing is, too, we're not just talking about.

just to be clear, we're not just talking about in religious context here. Like we're using that as an example, but also we're going to talk about marriages, parent -child relationships, when and where unconditional love actually exists, and when and where unconditional love becomes a vice. Yes. So it's - That's where, you're right, and I want to point that out and emphasize this. These things that can be virtues initially can actually become a terrible vice.

Rachel Denning (11:32.27)
and really destructive in certain instances. Exactly. So we are going to talk about the religious aspect of this for a minute, but we're going to dive into all these other areas too. And yeah, this seems like a crazy radical idea. And again, it's not something we just came up with. We've been talking and discussing this idea for at least a decade, if not more.

I remember specifically reading a discourse and then diving in deeply in 2003. Really like what? Because it was disruptive to my reality. But then what happened and sure maybe you guys were thinking the same thing. You thought well no we need to have that but then you thought like well maybe not. And maybe you've wrestled with this idea and I know I've wrestled with it but I kind of settle on the oh let's be unconditional and then I read this discourse 2003 and I was like okay.

Whoa. And I went deep and dug and searched and like, oh yeah, yep, it's not there. Well, and just to touch on the other side, because again, we have explored this in depth and there is certainly, there's certainly even sacred texts out there that teach this. I would say probably Buddhism, maybe Hinduism. I guess I don't know a ton about Hinduism as much, but they, and metaphysics.

New Age, you know, Wayne Dyer. Wayne Dyer was a major, we could say, mentor of ours early on in our journey of learning and growth and that's something he teaches and believes. And over time I've come to question that because I feel that in a way this idea that is put forth in Buddhism of this unconditional love, it's almost, it's a complete lack of judgment and absolute tolerance.

which has started to become... Sounds good, babe. We should not be judgmental and we should be tolerant. But those are two more things that are only half truths. Right, because on the surface that does sound good. That sounds right. But as you dig deeper, you realize that actually non -judgment and absolute tolerance is nihilism, which leads to things like school shootings. And you think, wow, that's kind of extreme. Well, no.

Rachel Denning (13:55.118)
If you're completely non -judgmental, you have no hierarchy of values, all values are equal. And all beings are equal. And all beings are equal, then killing an ant or killing a child is not really that much different. Right. And if the local forest might be damaged by the people, then maybe the people should die to save the forest. Exactly. Because there's no hierarchy of value. Right. Exactly. Human life is no more valuable than a plant life.

Ultimately, that's where those ideas lead and we've seen it act out in the world. So while on the surface, it seems like, oh yeah, that's a great philosophy to live by non -judgment, to live by tolerance. You're like, yeah, it does, to a point. Because at a point, you do need to judge and you do need to be intolerant because otherwise you're going to tolerate two boys taking up guns and going in to shoot.

I'm specifically talking about Columbine. But of course it's happened multiple times since then. Almost every day this year in this country. Exactly. There's been an active shooter. And I'm going to say right here, I think that that is a major consequence, a direct consequence to the increase in tolerance that we've had in this country. Because we're now tolerating anything and everything. Anything and everything goes.

Why not school shootings? We don't want to be judgmental. Right. Well, no, but they know nobody would. I don't think anyone would would take away the line of like, it's OK to shoot. They wouldn't do that because they don't think it's going to get that far. But what they tolerate is all kinds of literally psychotic behavior, psychosis all the way up to that point of like, well, don't judge and be tolerant. And then what happens with that is it goes crazy. It literally goes mad.

People aren't realizing that this is directly connected. When you remove all boundaries and you accept everything, then that's where it leads, especially the people on the fringe, the people who are already on the edges, the boundaries and intolerance of society keep them in reign and in check. You begin to loosen those and now you get the problems we have. Exactly. That kind of structure keeps people...

Rachel Denning (16:17.134)
in a psychological, emotional, and social framework and boundary. And if they don't have those boundaries or frameworks, then it runs wild. It goes out of control and shoots off to just wretched, terrible things. That's what we see happening. And so as we think through this, and we think about these ideas of unconditional love and tolerance and non -judgment, well, if those play out in the world, that's when you get...

some of the things that we're seeing. And so that's why we're having this discussion now. I think it's also playing into just in general, the mass problem with anxiety, depression, just mental illness. Mass mental illness comes from kind of a social framework of this unconditional love and tolerance. I have a sincere love for humanity, just for people. And...

There aren't many conditions on that. I've worked with people in maximum security prisons. You've literally worked with and talked to murderers. Yeah. And honestly, I felt so much love. And compassion. And compassion. And understanding. And acceptance for these individuals. And I hear their stories. And I think, oh man, I'm just filled with empathy. A love, a form of love for that person.

Now that's different from the love I feel for my children. It's different from the love I feel for Rachel. So there are levels of love. Back to this idea though, I want to go through these different areas and cover this, but if we go back to even the idea of God, pretty much from what I've studied, nearly every religion has some sort of hierarchy.

values and included in that is some idea of heaven or paradise or Valhalla or you know whatever it is except for maybe like well I mean Buddhism has Nirvana which interestingly enough I mean Nirvana is almost a complete disillusion of self so you're trying in order to eliminate suffering you're trying to just eliminate yourself in a way which is ultimately nihilism.

Rachel Denning (18:46.733)
And when acted out in the world, you know, isn't always positive. The Buddha was a positive influence in the world, but you know, other people who have followed the philosophy, like say Kurt Cobain, end up committing suicide because they're trying to, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do. There's no judgment. I'm trying to eliminate myself. So I eliminate suffering. Might as well just kill myself, right? Like that is nihilism acted out in the world.

But other than that, almost all other religions have this idea of heaven or this idea of, I'm studying Viking mythology right now and Norse mythology and Viking history, and they have Valhalla, you know? Now, obviously the Vikings had a totally different value system. In order to get into Valhalla, you need to be a warrior. You need to die in battle. And their idea of heaven, which is Valhalla, is nonstop fighting. Like, that's what they wanted.

But they had this hierarchy, these values that they gave more importance to over others, loyalty, bravery, in order so that they could get into heaven. That right there is a form of conditions if you're looking at it that way. Same idea with even the Christian view of heaven. In order to get into heaven, you have to qualify for it.

in and of itself, that is conditional love. If love was completely unconditional, then why wouldn't everyone just go to heaven? Why not Hitler? Why not Stalin? Why not, you know, the devil? Why doesn't everyone get to go to heaven if love is unconditional? So this is one aspect of what we're talking about here, is that there are these hierarchy of values that exist in religion, exist in society, exist in...

parent -child relationships exist in, marriage relationships, where in a way, and again, we don't want to be misunderstood in using the limited vocabulary we have, but love is earned, or at least, if love is not the right word in this term, in this case, rewards are earned, or acceptance is earned, or heaven is earned, or...

Rachel Denning (21:12.493)
And we could argue to the other side of that is, well, OK, yeah, maybe acceptance, maybe reward, but love can just be given without condition. And that's true. And so that we're not misunderstood here, we are advocates of being loving, loving people. And in fact, I've been writing about this, and I'm writing for my book, and I've been including a section on love that we ought to deliberately, intentionally,

increase our capacity to love. We have to love more. I'm 100 % an advocate for that. In fact, I'm writing a book about becoming a more dangerous man, and there's a section on loving more. Exactly. Because you have to have a big heart. You've got to love more. Right. But that doesn't mean it's unconditional. Well, because here's the thing. Even in those ideas that I was just talking about, that doesn't...

preclude the fact that God still loves all human beings. I still believe that. He absolutely loves all humanity. And we should love all humanity. One of our favorite stories is Cory Tinboom, after she got out of... Was she in Auschwitz? No, she was in the concentration camp. Okay, she was in the concentration camp, so I can't remember which one.

After the war was over, she got out, her entire family was killed, and she went around, this was many years later, went around speaking, and she was speaking at an event and saw one of the guards who was in the concentration camp. And she, she'd been speaking on forgiveness. And afterwards, he didn't recognize her because she obviously looked very different while she was in the concentration camp, but she recognized him.

and he came up to her and put out his hand and said, thank you so much for your speech. Please forgive me. Please. Well, I don't even think he said, please forgive me because he didn't remember her, but I, he might've said something like that, like as in forgive me in general, cause I was one of the Nazi guards, but she recognized him and she said she felt frozen. She couldn't lift up her hand to shake him, to shake his, because she was obviously disturbed by this man.

Rachel Denning (23:35.181)
And she prayed and just asked, like, help me to forgive this man. And, you know, she was able to put out her hand and shake his and forgive him in that moment. And heal this, right, of love. And so, yeah, we need to be able to do that, to forgive, to accept, to understand. But there is still, I think again, using the idea of levels is powerful here because that's the basic level.

That's the foundational level. And back at the beginning, we were talking about there's a foundation here. That's the foundation. You need to be starting from that point of having this unconditional love for all humanity. That's where you start. But then as you start to get into the levels, higher levels or maybe deeper levels, whatever, there are some conditions there. Because then the type of love you have,

changes and deepens and matures. But it is based on conditions and maybe this would be a good place to talk about like spousal love. That's what I was thinking. I think the perfect way to illustrate this is the love between a spouse. There absolutely are conditions. And people might say, well, no, there's not. I love my spouse unconditionally. I love them just the way they are. And the reality is that's not true. You're full of crap. Because and Greg and I know this.

This is one thing that I think makes our marriage great, is that we know this about each other. If I was to betray him, if I was to do something horrible to him, if I was to do something horrible to myself. Or to the kids. Or to the kids. The love you have for me would not be the same as the love you have for me when I am my best self. Now that doesn't mean we don't give each other some grace or understand that we're not human and we make mistakes. That's a part of it.

But for me to go out and betray you, you're not gonna love me the same and I don't expect you to love me the same. Because I've literally betrayed the love and relationship we have. So in fact, in order for me to give my whole self to you and the highest and deepest love that I'm capable of and you for me, it demands boundaries. It demands these conditions. Conditions, yeah. It can't happen otherwise.

Rachel Denning (25:57.869)
which is why a lot of people don't experience that type of love because their love is unconditional. So they allow each other. Yeah, it is more shallow. That's a good way of thinking about it. Unconditional love is more shallow because you can't go deep if you're not sharing shared conditions. It's like this river that's a mile wide, but only a foot deep versus the ocean. This just real true depth. There's a love that you're not experiencing by just.

accepting and tolerating anything. Which seems the opposite because you're sitting here saying this like, what? No! It's unconditional love is the highest and best and holiest. But it's not. I think it's the shallowest. You can't give everything into this marriage without conditions. Because it lacks the security, the certainty, the foundation for building something stronger and greater on. You have to have

those conditions in place, like you were saying, so that we can give more of ourselves. Because we know doing so, you're vulnerable when you do that. But you can only be truly vulnerable when you know that the other person isn't going to betray you or hurt you or destroy you in your moments of vulnerability. And inside a marriage, we have this agreement.

sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, that we're gonna be by choice, yoked together in this pursuit for life. And it's this big commitment. And especially for our marriage, perhaps most marriages aren't like this, but in our marriage, man, before we even were getting engaged, we're like, hey, look, I don't expect you to love me as I am. You literally told me that. Early on.

I'm like, and I'm not gonna love you as you are because I fully expect to be better and to get better. And I commit to you to be better, to keep improving and keep growing. And if I digress, I don't expect you to keep loving me the same if I'm stupid or negligent, right? If I just completely let myself go.

Rachel Denning (28:25.261)
and expect you to love me the same if I let myself go or yeah, I don't become irresponsible or fool or whatever. Like pick anything and I expect you to keep loving me the same you were. That's insane. Yeah. And that's not to say, you know, worst case scenario, you know, something happens and you become this vegetable. It's not, that's totally different. That's not me saying like, well, I'm not going to love you anymore because now you're a vegetable. That's a totally different story.

That's something that happened to you outside of your control. But if you chose actions that led to you becoming a vegetable, so to say, like a couch potato or something, that's different because it's of your own volition. It's of your own choice that you have become that person. Now, even in the worst case scenario, I still know through experience that I would love you, but I would love you in a different way.

Because the way I love you now is because I look up to you and you're my strength, my protection, you're all of these things to me that you would not be if you were in a vegetable state. So it would be a different kind of love. Well, even in a matter of choices and habits, you're right. So much of my love is because how much I respect you and admire you. And I love who you are and how you do life and how we do it together. I love who you are as a wife, as a...

as a partner in business, as a mother, as an educator of our children. I love all of that and makes me love you more. Right. Right? Even our sexual relationship, the way that works. I love that. And so I love you more. It's like all these things that add and add and grow. That add depth to it. But if you're just like, no, I'm done having sex and I'm going to beat the kids and scream at them and I'm just going to let myself go and or I just become a totally negligent father and alcoholic, whatever, just...

lame. Yeah, the love's not going to be the same. It's just not. It can't be the same. And so that's why, yes, there's still a love there that is unconditional, but the depth and breadth of love that we experience otherwise cannot be the same because of those things. Exactly. So now let's go into parenting. This is where it gets even trickier because you're like, you have a kid and you're like, we should love our children unconditionally.

Rachel Denning (30:49.645)
And I would say like hands down the time I have felt unconditional love was for sure when our children were small, when they were infants. And in fact, I was just telling you like, you know, I remember when our two youngest were very small and I'm just sitting there totally in love with this little baby and he's literally farting and like a snot coming down, dripping into his mouth and like just a mess, you know. You have to understand Rachel here and know her like.

Disgust sensitivity. And I'm like, I am just so in love with you. And it was just, I remember being amazed by it that despite all of these disgusting things, I was just in love. And I think that that is the right time and place for unconditional love. When an infant is small, I would say for sure until they're one, two, three, it's completely unconditional love.

But as they get older, and I don't think parents like to admit this, if they don't grow and mature in the way that they're supposed to, we tend to be a little annoyed by that. We like them to develop and to take on the responsibility as they get to the right age. And if they don't and they become a nuisance and a burden and they're throwing tantrums when they're seven, and they should have outgrown that, then...

they start to become burdensome to us and we start to resent them. And we don't like to say this out loud. We don't like to admit it because that feels wrong. We're supposed to love our children unconditionally. But the truth is we have conditions. We have expectations. There are these expectations of growth and development. And if they're not living up to those,

then we feel like there's something wrong with us or there's something wrong with them or there's something wrong with the relationship, which in truth is likely the case. There is something off there. And it's kind of this warnings, I think maybe our annoyance with them or our frustration is a sign that something's off here that I need to fix. I need to be paying attention to this because it's not as it should be. And here's where I think...

Rachel Denning (33:07.117)
we could be misunderstood in a lot of different ways. This topic could be misunderstood. Yes, you should love your children. Always. If they make horrible mistakes and do terrible things, you should still love them. So there should be maybe a layer of love we could call it. You're trying to see it. It's that surface layer of unconditional love. Like that's whatever they do. It's always there. It's there. You just accept them. I but then.

Like we were talking about with marriage, there's deeper and deeper and deeper and broader love, more capability to love as you and they both grow and develop. But where things could get off here, and I often see them get off, is what Rachel is describing as they're growing up, they're not doing those things. Sometimes you stop loving them as much, let's be frank, because you're being petty.

and you're too easily annoyed and you're too underdeveloped and you're letting silly frivolous things get in the way and it's your own limited capacity to love that's in the way, not them. So this is where we get to say, well no, it's my kid, I don't love him much because of this. No, that's you, you gotta own that. That's your smallness that keeps you from loving more. On the other hand, if you suck as a parent and your kids grow up,

just to be little terrors, that's on you, man. And I see that all the time too, where it's like, yeah, you're so ineffective as a parent, or you didn't cultivate a relationship with your kid. You have more of a relationship with your phone than you do with your own children. So you can't be like, well, like the Denning said, you know. My love's conditional. My love's conditional. Like, oh my gosh, yeah, you love your phone more than you love your kids, because your kids make choices.

They don't listen to you. Well, and plus another place this can get off is when you start acting this out in the world and saying things like this to your kids, we're like, well, I would love you more if you did this. That's sick manipulation right there. That is so wrong. And so yeah, this is where it becomes very tricky because it can be completely misunderstood, completely misused. And so in a lot of ways, we're just

Rachel Denning (35:34.637)
like philosophizing about this really, that if you dig deeper, yeah, there is this level of unconditional love that you have for your children and you're gonna love them and accept them. If they grow up to be idiots, you're still gonna just be like, you're my son, I love you. That's there. But at the same time, if they grow up and they do something great with their lives, your love is deep because not only do you love them unconditionally, but you respect them.

You admire them. And that's something greater and deeper than just unconditional love. And you love being around them. And they love being around you. And you've invested in a relationship. And they've invested in a relationship. And it grows and grows and grows. And so your love grows and grows and grows. I guess that's what I'm saying. So love may be one way to see it. Another way to see it is that love attaches to certain aspects of a relationship. And multiplies. Yeah, it multiplies and magnifies and compounds.

And so it gets deeper and deeper and deeper. So if it meets conditions, it's fantastic. The challenge is you got to make sure your conditions are good and clear and not... Manipulative. Some of you have silly, irrational, completely warped rules in your head. Well, if my child does this, then I'll love them. And if they don't, I won't love them. And you'll say things like that. I'm having a hard time loving you. Like, don't ever.

ever say that to a child. I would be tempted to slap you if I ever heard you say that to a child. Like, did that just come out of your mouth? Somebody grab me some soap or something. That's insane. And yet I hear examples of that all the time. People reach out to us every week. Like, well, hey, how can I help? This came up last week. How can I help these friends of ours? They're really, they do this kind of manipulative thing with their oldest daughter.

Who's like eight? And they're just, they're so, well, I'm not, I'm not gonna love you as much and blah, blah, blah. And it just, this poor little girl is already kind of a psychological train wreck, emotional train wreck at eight years old because the parents have, they just have, they haven't solved their own crap. And so they're just doing a horrible.

Rachel Denning (38:02.285)
parenting this little girl. And so she's just doing anything for love and attention. And finally she confided in these people I know to ask for help. And they're like, oh my gosh, what do we do? Do we say something to the parents? How do we help her? What do we do? And it just breaks my heart that these parents are having a hard time genuinely loving this child and doing.

I mean, I'm being judgmental here. I'm gonna pass some judgment, because I see it all the time. You do a poor job parenting, the results come out in the child, and now you blame it on the child, and you say you have a hard time loving that kid. And oh man, that gets me so fired up. And we know from experience that it's likely because of their own lack of self -love that this is an issue. Which is again, part of the problem, and I understand why.

For a lot of people, they need this message of unconditional love because they don't have that foundation. In fact, in one of the conversations, if you can call it that, I had on Instagram and in comments was related to this, that Eric Erickson talked about this. He was a psychologist and he talked about how some adults just, they don't have these foundational psychological, this foundational psychological development in place.

for them to be healthy and strong, to build on. And so they didn't have that unconditional love growing up, and they don't feel that security. And so they do need that. They need to get that sense of security in order to build on and be able to be healthy and responsible and mature. So it is challenging because not everyone has that. It's astounding to me how many adults struggle.

With their own self -worth. Yeah, to love and to be loved. Right. That may be one of the most common things in society. That there are many full -grown adults who they have a hard time feeling love. They definitely have a hard time expressing love, showing love. They have a hard time being loved. Maybe because their own insecurities, their own fears, or whatever situation they grew up in, all those things, right? I know this was something I had to work through.

Rachel Denning (40:32.365)
Because I was out on my own at 16 trying to figure out life and it was lonely and it was hard and I was afraid and I was scared and I built this huge wall, this fortress around my feelings because if I opened up and let people in I was just going to be betrayed again. If I'm vulnerable, I let people in my life, I'm just going to get hurt. That was my thinking, that was my psychology. Luckily, I realized like, wait a minute, all I've done here is built...

this elaborate solitary confinement. And that sucks worse. Loneliness is worse than the chance of being hurt. And so I tore down those walls to let love in. This all happened before I met you, right? So that I chose, consciously chose to love more. To just have a huge heart and just be open and loving. And actually when I fortified my love and strengthened it, it...

it made me less vulnerable. I'm past this place of having a weak loving heart to strong and like, no, I can love and people can make mistakes and do things, whatever, and I can still love and be protected and strong in that. So you're absolutely right. All of this, this entire conversation has to be built on there's my reminder alarm that I'm recording another podcast here in a second.

But it's this incredible reminder that we have to be in a good place. We have to have that foundation in place. Everything we've just talked about is completely irrelevant if we don't already have that foundation in place of self -love, of unconditional love for all of humanity.

Unconditional love for our children. Massive capacity to love our children, our spouse, ourselves, people. So in a way, yes, unconditional love is the greatest love in that it is the foundational love for everything else. But the deeper love, the broader love, the more meaningful love in a way, is built on that. But it is conditional because you can't have those levels of trust and certainty and...

Rachel Denning (42:48.557)
respect and admiration and all these other good things. You can't have those unless you have conditions around them. And I know there are people out there that would disagree with us. That would say the highest love is without conditions. And if you, and they would listen and say, oh, poor little dennings. They're still lower level beings. And we are lower level beings. We're seeking enlightenment and growth and progress constantly. And I would love, I like,

Quite honestly, I would love to hear that argument. I want to hear that side because as I try to think about it, and again, we've been thinking about it for years, it's not like it's just been today, I just can't find that other side of the argument except for when it leads to nihilism. And I know that's not the answer. And there are wonderful examples of people who are trying to practice this unconditional love. Even when I think about Jesus.

The Dalai Lama, yeah, but again, he is Buddhist, not that I'm holding that against him, but... He's amazing. He is an amazing person. But even then, I know that he has conditions or expectations of things that are acceptable for human behavior and happiness and peace. Not that that erases love, it doesn't, but it's a condition for...

happiness. And there's, I guess there's aspects of this because he tells that story in the book of joy about that friend of his who was in a torture camp for 19 years. Yes. And was in risk every day of losing his compassion for his torturers. Right? That's high level. That's a high level. Awesomeness right there. But on a variation of what we're talking about. Right. Maybe a different aspect.

of still having compassion for their low state. Well, because here's the thing. Having compassion for a guard that's torturing you in no way is the same as having a relationship with a spouse. Or a relationship with that guard. Or even having a relationship with the guard. Just because you have compassion on someone who's torturing you doesn't mean you would trust them.

Rachel Denning (45:12.557)
or have a relationship with them. So it's still that shallow level of unconditional love. It's still that underlying love that is the foundation for building on, but you're not gonna build something with that guy because you don't trust him. You don't respect him. There's a lot of things. And so I think, again, that still ties into this.

argument, this perspective that we're presenting, I can't find the other side yet. And maybe we just haven't found it yet. We've read a lot. We've read a lot of books about it. In fact, we're both going through one right now, but this is kind of what brought it up is because he's talking about it again. So we've heard those perspectives and I still want to be involved in the great conversation around love and still, you know, we have things to learn, but we wanted to just record this and kind of, this is just us thinking and discussing out loud so that you can start.

Having this dialogue inside your head. So you can start having conditional love. No, that's not why. And don't, please, please, please don't misunderstand this and don't misuse it like we warned in the beginning. Well, think about it and go through it and again the whole point here is to love more, not to love less. Yes, and I think again coming back to the point because like why are we having a conversation about conditional love?

and that unconditional love isn't true, quote unquote. And the point being is we have found in our own lives and we found in studying that when you have conditional love, you actually are able to experience more love. You're actually able to go deeper in life. And as...

Part of another reason that this came up is because of something I posted on Instagram and some comments that ensued. To love yourself more. You have to have more conditions. You love yourself when you set conditions around what's acceptable and what's unacceptable and how you're going to behave and how you're going to act when unfortunately I think like you're talking about with the mental health crisis, when you have unconditional love for yourself and anything goes, you actually start to loathe yourself.

Rachel Denning (47:31.725)
and you're living this lie, and yet that's the message being spread in society right now. Just love yourself, stop. It's OK. Stop having conditions for yourself. Right. Everything you do, anything you do, is OK. Body shaming, all of that is related to these ideas. And the truth is... It doesn't work. It doesn't work. That's why people are still suffering. Because the reality is your body is telling you, I need to be in my ideal body state. And when I am, you'll actually feel better about me.

using the body shaming as one example. But it's because in order to love yourself more, you actually need to have conditions that you live up to. Because they're your conditions, they don't have to be anyone else's. You know intuitively inside your soul knows what those conditions are and when you live up to them, you love yourself more. And the same in marriage like we talked about. Absolutely. And it feels threatening. You're like, oh babe, you have some...

high expectations for me. And you're not manipulative about it. You're not critical or cynical or rude about it. But I know you have high standards for me and I have high standards for you. And that allows us to love each other even more. Right. OK, you guys, think about this. Write about it. Message us about it. Get in the dialogue. But I want you to just think about it and consider it and see how you can have more love in your life. We love you guys.

Thanks for listening everybody.

Rachel Denning (49:08.525)
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