Beautiful and true ... just like you.

Dracona, I have been studying the concepts of Love for a very long time...a student of sorts. There is a book you might find helpful in your quest to understand unconditional love... you are right it is not the same as romantic love but it can effect the quality of your relationships.

In "Love for No Reason", transformational expert Marci Shimoff offers a breakthrough approach to experiencing a lasting state of unconditional love—the kind of love that doesn't depend on another person, situation, or romantic partner, and that you can access at any time and in any circumstance. This is the deepest and truest form of love and is the key to lasting joy and fulfillment in life.

Like her New York Times bestselling book Happy for No Reason, this compelling and life-changing book draws on cutting-edge scientific research, ancient, time-tested wisdom from cultures across the globe, interviews with 150 experts (Love Luminaries), and practical, proven tools and techniques. Love for No Reason provides a revolutionary 7-step program that will open your heart, make you a magnet for love, and transform your life.

You'll learn how to:
Open your heart fully and experience a profound and lasting love from the inside rather than needing to get it from the outside
Bring more love to your family, friends, community and the world without overgiving and burning out
Feel unconditional love for yourself and stop beating yourself up, criticizing and condemning yourself.
Turn off your body's stress response and activate the physiology of love to improve your health and well-being.
Make your romantic relationships more fulfilling.
Experience more success and satisfaction at work.
Respond with love even to the things that you find most challenging in your life.
Break through the boundaries that block love's flow—including past negative experiences, limiting beliefs about love, judgments and self-doubt.
Connect to that state of unconditional love inside that will make you naturally more loving and draw more love into your life.

This is love at its highest and best – it's what people want most deeply and it's what the world needs most urgently. Whatever your experience of love is right now—whether you're in pain or feeling great—you can learn to love at a higher level starting today!

Much love to you !!!

Amen. Nice post. And I appreciate the book suggestions mentioned above. I want what you're talking about in the above post! Thanks.

Thanks guys. thanks for the book rayvyn ill check that one out. i wrote this more in relation to the specific N relationship, where they demand, and need unconditional love.... and manipulate it out of us.
i believe there are many kinds and variations and levels of love, but truly healthy people, do not expect unconditional love out of a relationship... they expect to be respected, and they do they same and understand there are consequences for actions within the relationship.

an N expects you to love him anyway. to sacrifice yourself for him. even to die, for your love, for him. to love him even when he refuses to change and belittles you. this is where he is triumphant, to have another person, sacrificing themselves at his feet, professing undying unconditional love. then when you try to leave, he throws this in your face, how you said you loved him. this used to get me... as i never wanted to be seen as "one of those girls" and i wanted him to see my love as true. so... i would give more, and more.

Life should be lived in love... not fear and anger. sometimes loving someone means letting them go. and sometimes love isnt enough to see through imposed conditions. unhealthy love... is based on fear, and fear is a negative emotion... that triggers neural responses for the fight or flight aspect of your brain. The chemical reaction that occurs in an abusive relationship, even just emotionally abusive, over time causes physical sickness. I think, and this is just my theory, that we develop a tolerance to our own body chemicals when there is too much or too little of a thing. and prolonged exposure to an abusive relationship, maybe could make us chemically immune to the normal doses of endorphines our brains put out to try to make us feel better... and that is why we become addicted to him, or the circle of the relationship. why when in the relationship, we need the severe ups and downs to now feel ok... and the harder the fall, the better it feels when he comes around to tell us its ok. its like an alcoholic having to take extra shots to feel better and function. then when we finally try to break the cycle, the withdrawal symptoms are so bad because our brains have been at work for so long trying to fix the imbalance in the relationship and within ourselves, that the normal things it would do to make us feel better just arent enough. im really tired so bear with me if i jump around, but i think yall get the jist.

WOW, thanks for the inspiration! I love myself more after reading this! Will look for that book! I'm co-dependent getting divorced from a narcissist! Learning to be co-dependent NO-MORE!!

Ladies...what a wonderful post. I love all of it. It is very inspiring and heart warming. Dracona, I agree, we here on this site, need to learn to keep our boundaries (I'm still trying to find some lol), and Rayvyn, I love the book suggestion. I will have to keep that one in mind. thank you ladies and many hugs to all of you

I love this post. It was a god-send tonight for me. Thank you.

I think this is a really important subject matter. For me I think this is what I struggle with the most. Sometimes I feel like a baby...for heaven's sake! I want unconditional acceptance/love which obviously in the real world or in my partiuclar life HAS NOT EVER happened! and I mean NEVER....there is no such thing! That would be perfect love...

Food loves you no matter what...your dog loves you no matter what....that is about it.

I feel like a lunatic somedays...today is one of them. Today I feel and have these damn thoughts running rampant...you will never be attractive enough to find a man that you find attractive. Your stretched out stomach skin is so disgusting no man will ever want you. tha tis really all I have to say to myself. I beat myself up and I don't even realize when its happening. I realize afterwards when I am so depressed, but I am so tired of getting depressed before I realize what I've been telling myself...it's almost like a wicked manipulating mind that hides it from me...I know, I sound like a lunatic!

Anyway, it all comes back to this wanting to be accepted and loved just the way I am, but the truth is I don't love me just the way I am...so obviously THAT is the problem! I don't know how to get over it...any books to get over this particular issue??

there were the couple books rayvyn suggested, i havent checked them out yet... but i posted this too, because ive had it thrown in my face... you are suposed to love me... if you dont give me another chance then you never really love me... where i love you unconditionally, its sad that you would make this choice and throw away everything we worked for... and this used to be a phrase that would make me stay, thinking ya know, he's right... i have my flaws too... how can i judge him for his? and i got to thinking.. unconditional love is reserved for family, kids, and most importantly yourself... if i can love myself this way, how can i love him? i deserve to give myself the same chance he is asking for, by running away.

Blueshoes... alot of men actually think the stomach skin is attractive... and honestly.... men are gross.... and most really dont care if they love you you are beautiful no matter what. its the damn N's that take focus on our insecurities... so they can use them to manipulate us. when you believe you are beautiful... so will everyone else... because it will shine through anything. and i know you know all this, and hearing it doesnt always help. but think of it this way, when you are feeling down in the dumps like nothing matters and you arent good enough... you are already proving that you are. you are here. you are doing whatever you can at the moment to make it the best it can, even if the best it can at the moment sucks.
but you havent given up. and that means there is always hope. we all want to be loved and accepted. how many times have i curled in a ball and cried why wont someone love me when those assholes left me on the floor. i didnt know that wasnt it... i was trying to fill the emptiness inside me... with love, but the wrong kind of love. i cant say i totally love and accept myself yet, but im on a better road... and that gaping hole is no longer gaping. its still there, but its full of something now... i can only hope in the future it will be gone comepletely, or just be a scar.
hang in there love... you got this... and you will learn to ignore your mind, or replace those thoughts with good ones.

This was my inspiration for today. Thank you ALL!

Blue, we go out of our way to NOT take care of ourselves in the form of self sabotage. The dictionary definition of sabotage is "an act or process tending to hamper or hurt" or "deliberate subversion". Hmmm. Why on earth would we sabotage ourselves? That's a complicated answer. And yet a simple one. We choose to.

Sometimes it's so frightening to imagine changing, growing or making conscious choices that we deliberately hamper our own efforts. “I make choices every minute of every day”. “My life is up to me”. Those are intimidating thoughts. And doing things the way we've always done them feels safe and comforting. So how do you deal with our self-sabotage? The first step is to identify how you're sabotaging yourself.

You stated that food loves you but does it really. The intent of food is to nourish and heal our bodies but just like anything else only in moderation does it help us to achieve the life we desire. Overeating or eating foods that temporarily give us that feeling of ....actually I am not sure what term to use here. It is in its truest definition self sabotage...because later we can be angry at ourselves for the extra calories and the potential for weight can ....and the cycle of self destruction continues.

Food is not the only thing that we use to justify beating ourselves up. The next step is to identify why we feel the need to berate ourselves. We all want to experience healthy authentic love but the bottom line is ...if if is to be , it has to begin with ME.

Here are a few books that have helped me to define what it is that I desire.

Marianne Williamson A Return to Love
A Course in Weight Lose

David Burns Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
The Feeling Good Handbook


Most books on dialectical behavior therapy can help us work past the negative self talk that keeps us trapped in a life that is less than extraordinary. And extraordinary is what we desire and deserve. DBT was originally developed to treat BPD but helped me to learn coping techniques that I did not receive in my invalidated childhood.

We are not our bodies.... Physical beauty is ephemeral (which btw requires much dedication and commitment and unbelievable amount of energy!) Beauty of spirit is eternal and that is what we want not only ourselves but others to fall in love with. Much love to all of you!!!

i forgot about being a self sabateur. actually ive been doing it lately and not noticing it... thanks rayvyn.