Unconditional love is a basic human need.

But as much as well all crave it, it often eludes us.

Love is love, but sometimes that love seems attached to all sorts of rules: you need to do X,Y or Z in order to make someone happy and vice versa.

That means that, in one way or anther, our relationships become transactional.

In fact, many of us don’t actually know what unconditional love even feels like.

We’ve been taught to only give out love when it’s reciprocated. But in turn that only limits how we will receive love ourselves.

Those expectations, contracts, and invisible strings attached actually make unconditional love more difficult to find.

It becomes a repeating pattern through our own life, through generations, through society.

So if you want to break the cycle and receive more love (which most of us do), it’s time to start giving.

If that sounds crazy to you, rest assured I don’t mean you need to run out and start hugging random people on the street. 🙂

Sending out unconditional love is simply an energetic practice. You don’t need tools or permission. You have the power to do it anytime and anywhere. And it has the power to transform your life and your relationships.

That love energy is real and the more you practice the stronger it will get. You will probably find that people react differently towards you or that you can suddenly handle situations that used to frustrate you. You might even find that it improves your relationships across the board (not just with those who you are sending love to).

The only requirement is to focus on the unconditional part: give without attachment, judgement or expectation.

So if you’re feeling ready to dive into an unconditional love practice, I’ve got some tips to get you started:

How To Start An Unconditional Love Practice

How To Practice Unconditional Love Step #1:

Pick Your Target

This can be anyone you like: your mom, your current crush a celebrity, whoever. Sending love is a powerful practice but it benefits you both. That person will receive the positive benefits from your energy, whether they realize it or not.

While the list of people you want to send your energy to will hopefully be quite long but I do suggest picking an unusual target from time to time. That coworker who gets under your nerves, your permanently grumpy bus driver or your ex-boyfriend are all perfectly wonderful and deserving candidates. (No judgements, right?)

How To Practice Unconditional Love Step #2:

Send Out Your Love

There are many ways to send love: practicing a mantra, envisioning white light or even just imagining giving out a long beautiful hug. The important thing is to operate from your heart. Don’t let your monkey brain fool you or distract you! This is not the time to future trip or dream about what could be. Just focus on passing on your love, right now in the present moment. Stay in this loving state as long as you like.

How To Practice Unconditional Love Step #3:

Release Your Expectations

Although I talk about lots of different ways to manipulate the world around you, in this exercise we’re focusing on giving. We’re sending out love only and asking for nothing in return. It might sound kind of crazy but this is actually an extremely liberating exercise. You get to pick your target and gift them with your energy. It’s a beautiful thing and it actually feels wonderful to do it.You remain sovereign in your own power; you decide to share your energy with, how much energy and how long.

How To Practice Unconditional Love Step #4:

Start Small

You can practice unconditional love, even in the smallest most mundane moments of your day. You can practice while you’re in traffic or in line at the bank. You can practice while in a meeting at work! The only real variable is how long you spend sending love.

Start by choosing loving thoughts over agitated or stressed ones. Or if that feels too challenging, kick things off by using a mantra such as “I am Divine Love”. It’s always a challenge to retrain the way we think but it’s well worth the effort. Your thoughts always trickle down into your words and actions (and relationships) over time.

How To Practice Unconditional Love Step #5:

Stay Regular

Giving away love and energy in such a free way might feel strange or even wrong at first. Again, if you’ve never experienced it then you probably haven’t practiced it either. But even if it feels weird, try to incorporate unconditional love as a regular practice. It gets easier the more often you do it and the more often you do it, the faster you will attract that same unconditional love right back into your own life.

The more often you do it, the more that you’ll begin to see that love isn’t something you need to worry about running out of. Love is an endless well and the only thing that controls the flow is you.

This practice has greatly served me and I hope it serves you too! Remember, the only way to create a more loving world is to begin the process within ourselves. So please test out your new unconditional love skills this week and let me know how it goes.

PS Looking for more? You might also want to check out this post about stop being a love zombie or this one about 10 uncomfortable feelings.

Like This Post? Then Save It To Your Personal Growth Board: