Unconditional Love

The supreme happiness of life
is the conviction of being loved
for yourself,
​or more correctly,
being loved in spite of yourself.
~ Victor Hugo​

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Everyone craves the sense of safety and well-being that comes from feeling loved and accepted; yet frequently love (for others, from others and for ourselves) seems to be given or withdrawn according to perceptions of good or bad behavior, strengths or weaknesses, flaws or abilities, body image and age. Love is too often conditional, or perceived as being so. 
It is often hard to imagine or believe ( I hear this from my therapy clients all the time) that you are lovable or deserving of love because of ______ ( fill in the blank!). Maybe you will feel worthy of love when you_________( again fill in the blank), sometime in the future, a future that never arrives.
Often this sense of shame about who you are will cause you to perform all kinds of (usually unconscious) strategic  maneuvers to keep people from getting close enough to see your flaws. The fact that the term "impostor syndrome" resonates widely in our culture today, speaks to how many people feel they are hiding  and fooling people about who they really are. And that it's absolutely necessary to do so, or risk being rejected.
Imagine how free you would feel if you felt inherently lovable, just as you are (despite whatever you feel to be your flaws)! Imagine how you might do things differently, feel differently, take more risks, feel more open, more satisfied and less inhibited. Imagine how it would alter your relationships if you could be more authentically you, no longer needing to hide all the time behind a social persona. Relationships of all kinds would feel profoundly different, whether friendships, intimate or family relationships, co-workers. and community relationships. I realize that this is more easily said than done. However, maybe it would be worthwhile to sit down and write about this, meditate on it or enter therapy to find ways to truly embody a sense of your inherent lovable-ness.