Passion Struck with John R. Miles - What Is Unconditional Love and the 8 Ways to Create It w/John R. Miles EP 154

Starting point is 00:00:00 coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. Could you imagine what the world could become? If we stopped looking to get something in return and just genuinely loved without any attached condition, how beautiful would it be if we all just practiced this unconditional love towards each other? Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, Jon Ar Armyles and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.

Starting point is 00:00:46 We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 154 of PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to momentum Friday an episode 154 of PassionStruck. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show

Starting point is 00:01:16 or you would just like to share this with a friend or family member, we now have episode stutter packs, both unsponify and on the PassionStruck website. These are collections of your favorite episodes that we organized by topic to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed our episodes from earlier this week, I interviewed

Starting point is 00:01:41 David Yaden, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, and we discuss self-transcendence psychedelics in behavioral science. And I also had a really fun conversation with Aaron Deal, the CEO of Improvitt, and she helps leaders and teams perform better through play, improv, and experiential learning. My solo episode this past week was on the importance of patience in six ways that you can build more patience in your own life. Please check all those episodes out if you haven't. I also wanted to acknowledge the fan of the week,

Starting point is 00:02:15 Rebecca Marshall from the United Kingdom, who writes, Ben Jing, got hooked on the show after hearing John's interview with Susan Cain. Since then, I've been powering through the episodes, love the stories of women at the top of their game, the most excited for whatever story or insights might come next.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Thank you, Rebecca, for your review of the show. These reviews go such a long way in helping us improve the popularity of the podcast. Now, let's talk about today's episode. Unconditional love is, frankly, a term that most of us fundamentally don't understand. We live in a transactional world where people offer their love contingent

Starting point is 00:02:51 upon certain conditions, not because they genuinely care about those who they're giving it to, but instead, so they can get something in return. So you may ask yourself, what exactly is unconditional love? The term unconditional love doesn't mean downless or limitless love. It means I offer to love you freely without constraint. This means that when we give love, we provide

Starting point is 00:03:15 it without the expectation of anything in return. Unconditional love isn't just about love. That's an arom romantic relationship, and it also applies to how we treat people in general. It means loving people through missteps, hardships, and frustrations. It means we see beyond people's idiosyncrasies and imperfections and challenges. And we also expose our own weaknesses, quirks, and flaws. One of the most meaningful experiences about being intentional with our love is learning to lean into the uncertainty of those challenges by offering empathy, love, and compassion, accepting them for who they are and moving forward without any attached conditions. In order to do this, it requires us to realize that the most precious and important things

Starting point is 00:04:04 in life are by their very definition non-transactional. You simply can't put a price on unconditional love. And although unconditional love doesn't come easy, it is something that we can all learn and practice. In this episode, we are going to unpack what it means to live and love unconditionally. How to break free from the mindset of transactional love and the need to show and spread unconditional love wherever we go. The focus here is not only the love we feel

Starting point is 00:04:34 between our spouses, partners or family members, but on love for all mankind. To drive home this point, let's now look at the inspirational story in life, a former South African president Nelson Mandela, who throughout his life proved that it is possible to love without any conditions or boundaries. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey

Starting point is 00:04:59 to creating an intentional life now. Let the journey begin. Nelson Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in Mavezzo, South Africa. His father was a chief and counselor to the village Monarch at that time, and that gave Mandela lots of privileges. Unfortunately, his father died when he was only nine years old, and his mom had to send him to live with a family friend. This family that took him in was very kind and treated him as if he was their own son, helping him to experience a deep and unconditional love.

Starting point is 00:05:36 In his early 20s, he moved to Chajanasburg, where he first encountered the racial discrimination that would later become entrenched in law by the apartheid government. This encounter stirred something deep inside of him, making him vow to spend the rest of his life fighting for inequality, injustice, and unfairness for the sake of his people. In 1939, he began work on his bachelor's degree, studying at the University of Fort Hare, where he first became involved in a student protest.

Starting point is 00:06:05 At the end of the first year, he became involved in a student's representative, counsel boycott against the poor quality of food, for which he was suspended from the university. But that was only the beginning, as his love for people and his fight for their rights continued to drive him in situations where he had to face harsh conditions and suffer incredible personal losses. With time he obtained his law degree and in August 1953, Mandela and his friend Tambu opened up their own law firm in downtown Johannesburg. It was the only black African run law firm in the entire country. It provided free or affordable representation to black people who defied apartheid laws and often suffered from police brutality. These apartheid laws segregated and

Starting point is 00:06:52 relegated black South Africans to the very bottom, denying them many fundamental human rights within their country. His passion for people drove him to join the political movement ANC, the action-allied Congress, where he quickly rose up the ranks and led people in the fight against apartheid. This led to several arrests and imprisonments at different times, including the final one in 1964, which sent him to the maximum security prison on Robin Island, where he would spend the next 27 years of his life as a prisoner. Mandela was imprisoned in a small damp concrete cell with a straw mat on which to sleep, conditions that ended up exuberating his tuberculosis.

Starting point is 00:07:32 Black prisoners were verbally and physically harassed, assaulted, and tortured by the white guards, and eight meals consisting of cold porridge and an occasional piece of vegetable or meat. They were forced to wear shorts and sandals, even when it was freezing cold outside. Mandela was subjected to hard labor. Most of the days breaking rocks into gravel. Then in 1965 Mandela was reassigned to work in a limestone quarry, where he spent nearly 10 hours a day digging out rocks. He was initially not allowed to wear sunglasses, causing the glare from the line to adversely impact his eyesight.

Starting point is 00:08:09 However, despite all these conditions, he was still driven by love and passion for his fellow prisoners and their rights. Together with some of them, he advocated for improved conditions and rights for all prisoners regardless of their race. He was able to get a few of the requests met. These including securing the rights to wear long pants instead of shorts,

Starting point is 00:08:30 the right to read and study, the right to play soccer, tennis, and volleyball, and the right to perform music together. Mandela was refused the right to attend his mother's funeral in 1968 and of one of his sons who died in a car accident in 1969. Members of his family also weren't allowed access to him. Nelson Mandela wasn't perfect and he had well-known marital issues. He married three times,

Starting point is 00:08:56 but was genuine with his love for each of his wives. During his time in prison, Mandela thrived on the love and support of Winnie, his second wife from Mandelaela thrived on the love and support of Winnie, his second wife. From Mandela's prison cell on Robin Island, he regularly wrote with Winnie, and in one letter he said, Whenever I write you, I feel inside physical warmth that makes me forget all my problems. I become full of love.

Starting point is 00:09:18 Even in this harsh condition, their love for each other continued to thrive. Eventually, calls were made for Mandela's release, and in February 1990, he was discharged, having spent the past 27 years in prison. After his release, Mandela helped to negotiate an end to apartheid and became the first democratically elected president of South Africa. Mandela chose to love not only when his opposers were friendly or kind to him. He made a conscious decision to do so despite all the cruel treatment that he had received. He faced harsh conditions meant to break his resolve, but Mandela refused to give up his efforts to achieve equality for all people in South Africa. As president, he emphasized personal forgiveness, civility, and reconciliation. His vision was one of inclusion and hope.

Starting point is 00:10:08 He said, peace is not just the absence of conflict. Peace is the creation of an environment where we all can flourish, regardless of race, creed, religion, gender, class, caste, or any other social markers of difference. Through his actions, Mandela created an era of hope and inclusion. Throughout his life, Mandela advocated that love is the best antidote to ending racism. He said, people must learn to hate.

Starting point is 00:10:36 And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than it's opposite. Mandela died in 2013 and was celebrated globally with the media awash, with tributes and reminiscent of the remarkable and exceptional impacts that he made during his lifetime. Mandela is a symbol of the power that one individual has to make a difference and left an enduring legacy through the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund, the Institute for Education and World Development, and many more.

Starting point is 00:11:12 Mandela taught the world that his struggle was his peoples and the struggle of his peoples was his. But he opened up his struggle and his message to the world by acknowledging that through unconditional love and humanity in all people, we can achieve lasting peace. We'll be right back to the Passion Struck podcast. Finding a doctor, that has to be one of the most inconvenient things that we have to do. And recently, I was searching for a new dermatologist when I stumbled upon Zock-Dock.

Starting point is 00:11:41 And no one's better at giving you the tools to find the perfect doctor than Zock-Dock. There are some amazing doctors out there, but let's face it, the only ones that matter are the ones who actually take your insurance and who wants to waste time hunting down Antlandas cash-only chiropractor anyhow. Zock-Dock is a free app that shows you doctors who are not only patient-reviewed,

Starting point is 00:12:04 they also take your insurance and are available when you need them. Go to zokdok.com slash passion struck and download the zokdok app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours at zocdoc.com slash passion struck, zop doc dot com slash passion struck, and please support those who support our show now back to the passion struck podcast. So now that we've talked about Nelson Vendela's story, let's talk about how to love unconditionally.

Starting point is 00:12:36 Sometimes we want a question, is it even possible to love unconditionally? Times when we want to reciprocate the hurts done to us, allowing ourselves to be conditioned by the current circumstances and situation in these moments. We find ourselves putting provisions on love, connecting it to how others act, and whether or not they return the love that we give them. But what if we looked beyond all these and just loved? We can discover new and profound ways of loving through even the most challenging times,

Starting point is 00:13:06 the happiest times in even over any obstacle that we encounter in life. If you've ever wondered what that type of love looks like in practice, here are eight ways that you can improve the capacity to love unconditionally. First, love yourself. It's simply impossible to give what you don't have. Hence, the ability to love others unconditionally first comes from a place of self-love. When you love and accept yourself, you will be able to extend the same to others. Love simply cannot thrive without self-awareness and self-honesty. Second, practice forgiveness and acceptance. Nelson Mandela's suffering at the hands of the apartheid government could have made him vengeful and bitter, but instead he chose forgiveness. And because of that choice, he was able to heal from his past wounds and it allowed him to express unconditional love.

Starting point is 00:13:58 Now forgiving and accepting doesn't mean dismissing bad behavior. You can always chastise and correct when you're in a position to. This itself can be an expression of genuine love and concern for another person's interest. Third, realize that love is not always easy or comfortable. You can't love others only when it's convenient for you. There will be times when it feels difficult to because of their actions or inactions,

Starting point is 00:14:23 but it's during these moments that you make the conscious decision to love them anyway. No, that love is not about how you feel, but what you do in the actions that you take. When we start loving and treating others with the utmost care, the little things that bother us will become far less overwhelming. Fourth, practice patience. And last week's episode, I spoke extensively about the importance of patience in our life. In like manner, being patient with others, you will be able to understand their situations and respond accordingly instead of reacting rashly to them. So to love people, make sure that you do so with patience. Fifth, care genuinely,

Starting point is 00:15:04 and listen without interrupting. When you genuinely care for people and give them the chance to explain themselves, without cutting them off, you will be able to better understand what they're going through, overlook their shortcomings and love them. More so by doing this, they will be more open with you and more confident in the love that you're providing them. Six, don't judge. Judging people based on our assumptions about them could cause you to withdraw from expressing love to them. Often, these assumptions may be false and unnecessary.

Starting point is 00:15:35 So ensure that you remove all negative biases about people so that you can choose to love them for who they are and the better people that they are becoming. Seven, be intentional about showing love to undeserving people. Make an intentional decision to show love to people that you feel don't deserve it. These people could include a demanding boss or coworker, an ungrateful friend, or simply a disrespectful person that you meet on the street. Remember, it is called unconditional for a reason, meaning the people that you

Starting point is 00:16:05 express it towards don't have to do anything to deserve it from you. By doing this, you might also be open in their hearts to change for the better. Eighth, practice unconditional love every day. When you make it a commitment to express love to people daily, without any condition, you will be building a habit and it will become consistently easier to genuinely love other people. So do something special for someone each day. Pay for a stranger's coffee, help an elderly person cross the road, encourage a person who's down

Starting point is 00:16:36 on their luck and so forth. Do you have a topic like today's that you would like to see us cover? You can reach us at momentum Friday at passionstruck.com. Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line. That keeps things easy for us. Reach out to us if there's a topic

Starting point is 00:16:54 you're interested in learning about. There's something that maybe you're going through any big decision that you're wrestling with or perhaps you just want a new perspective on work, love or life. Whatever's got you staying up at night, hit us up at Momentum Friday at PassionStruck.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Now, back to PassionStruck.

Starting point is 00:17:16 Could you imagine what the world could become if we stopped looking to get something in return and just genuinely loved without any attached condition. How beautiful would it be if we all just practiced this unconditional love towards one another? It has been shown that the simple act of loving someone unconditionally may produce positive feelings. As long as you're doing something good to or for someone, you can be assured that you will grow into a much better person in all dimensions of human existence, including spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Loving unconditionally promotes altruism. In a nutshell, the importance of unconditional love cannot be completely quantified as a

Starting point is 00:18:00 straightforward act of love and compassion could have a ripple effect that can extend so far into the future. So think of all the good things that can happen in life and know that they all start from a place of unconditional love. Now, I've covered a ton of information, so let me summarize and provide some last points for you. You may be wondering, is it worth it to give love to people who might not ever reciprocate it to you? You may ask, would if they don't appreciate it or care? Well, what if they do? Even if they don't remember that it is unconditional. It is to be given simply of you and not to get anything in return. At the end of the day, the only thing that you can control is your response,

Starting point is 00:18:41 because that response in any situation is absolutely a choice. Someone may wrong you and you decide to turn the other cheek. That doesn't make you weak. Instead, it makes you a stronger person with incredible self-control. Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't allow yourself to be taken for granted or abused by anyone. For there are times when you need to take a stand against wrong and fight the wrongdoers to protect yourself just as Nelson Mandela did. My point is that you should discern every situation. You may find yourself in and let your actions be driven by love. Then you can express unconditional love to anyone who's around you. Love even when it's challenging. Even when your mind tells you that you shouldn't love by looking beyond people's imperfections.

Starting point is 00:19:27 They're shortcomings and whatever pain and hardships life may bring. This unconditional love can change someone else's life completely when we give it. By expressing this love, your relationship with your spouse, partner, kids, friends, siblings, parents, colleagues, and even strangers will be at their best. And this will spread until someday I hope we have a world wrapped in unconditional love. I hope you all enjoyed the show, and I appreciate everyone who wrote in this week

Starting point is 00:19:56 and for all the reviews that you provided worldwide. And of course, everybody who listened, thank you so much. The show notes will be on passionstruck.com and you can also find the video of today's episode on our YouTube channel at JohnRMiles. Please go there and subscribe and view our over 300 different videos that we have. Avertisers, deals, and discount codes are all at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. You can find me at John R. Miles on both Twitter and Instagram, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast episode with Dr. Katie Milkman,

Starting point is 00:20:36 the James G. Denon and Dow Chair at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Post of Charles Swabs popular behavioral economics podcast, Toysology and the co-founder and co-director of the Better Change for Good initiative. A moment that causes us to step back and think big picture about our lives and to give us a sense that we're new and fresh. And we can say on January 1,

Starting point is 00:20:58 okay, last year I meant to quit smoking, last year I meant to build up all of my productivity at work and I didn't get around to it, but that was the old me who failed. And this is the new me and the new me is going to be different. Remember we all rise by lifting others share the show with those you love. If you found today's episode useful and you want to spread more unconditional love to the world, share it with someone who can use the advice that I gave today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show

Starting point is 00:21:26 so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Go out there and live life hash and struck. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - What Is Unconditional Love and the 8 Ways to Create It w/John R. Miles EP 154

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