How to love the unlovable

Humans like to be loved. We like a warm smile, a tender touch, and loving arms to enfold us when we’re feeling weak and vulnerable. You probably envision yourself as a provider of that basic human need. You march happily through life thinking that you are a loving and compassionate person. But are you? The answer to that question is yes and no.

A kitten is stuck in a tree. You go to great lengths to get the kitten to safety. You are proud of yourself for your efforts and you should be.

You are aware of a family struggling to have enough food, so you feed them. You are proud of yourself and you should be.

A tragedy strikes a community and you volunteer or you send money and clothes to help. You’re proud of yourself and you should be.

These efforts support your view of yourself as being a loving and compassionate person. However, the chances are your loving compassion has qualifiers. In other words, certain conditions must be met for your loving compassion to come smiling out at the world.

Maybe those conditions include your judgement of a person based on your beliefs. For instance, say you observe a drunken man passed out in a door stoop. Are you feeling love and compassion for him or are you repulsed?

You might read in the papers that a child molester or murderer has been arrested. Are you feeling love and compassion for that person or do you become angry?

Someone lashes out at you. They are angry and have a string of uncomplimentary names they call you. Do you have love and compassion for that person? Nope. Someone else lies to you or steals something from you. Oops, no love and compassion coming their way from you.

Could it be that your belief that you are truly a loving and compassionate person may be a lie you are telling yourself? No, you are not lying, you just need to redefine your belief. to be: I am a loving and compassionate person for those I deem worthy of my love and compassion.

Now don’t beat yourself up because this new definition does not make you a bad person, it makes you human. However, it’s time to learn how to love the unlovable just a little more. Though, some unlovable people may benefit, it is you who will benefit the most. Think about it just a second. Every time you allow someone to anger you, it is you that suffer physically and emotionally. And that kids is one very good reason for you to learn to love the unlovable. Now, let’s see how to make this happen starting with a couple of definitions.

To begin, we must have a clear idea of what we mean when we use the words love and compassion. That way, your thinking and mine will be aligned as we progress.

What is love?

Webster’s dictionary defines love in the context we are using it as:

“1 : a quality or feeling of strong or constant affection for and dedication to another <motherly love>”
“2 a : attraction based on sexual desire : the strong affection and tenderness felt by lovers b : a beloved person : DARLING”
“3 a : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea> b : the object of attachment or devotion”

The Greeks further define love as having seven categories:

The love you have for your family (Storge)
The love you have for friends (Philia)
Sexual love (Eros)
Playful love like flirting (Ludus)
Long standing love (Pragma)
Love of self (Philautia)
Unconditional love (Agape)

You will probably recognize these various types of love experiences in your life. However, today the discussion in going to be on unconditional love as that is the love which can change the world. That said, it’s important to realize that to come remotely close to achieving unconditional love, you must first love yourself.

Love yourself first

Without self-love, you are not logically capable of unconditional love. So, what do I mean by self-love?

There are two types of self-love.

Self-love is narcissistic and selfish.
It is the recognition that you are a human being fraught with all its frailties and flaws, but that’s okay. You realize that you are as deserving of love as anyone else. You are quick to forgive yourself. You attempt to do your best with awareness that you will succeed sometimes and fail at others. Only when you love yourself in this way, will you be capable of loving unconditionally.

Once you love yourself, you are now able to move toward loving the unlovable unconditionally. Let’s see how this works.

First, go back to the unlovable people you met at the beginning of this post. In the instance of the drunk asleep in the stoop. He is no longer repulsive. You might wonder how he arrived there from being that pure and perfect baby he once was. but you can’t find it in yourself to judge him or be repulsed by him.

Thinking about the child molester or murderer without judgement is not nearly as easy. Child molesters and murderers know they are doing something wrong, but they do it anyway. It’s difficult not to wish only the worst for these people, but it’s possible. It just takes a lot of work.

Let’s face it, neither you nor I know what the driving force is behind these horrendous acts. However, we should realize that all human beings are capable of being driven toward harmful behaviors. If the drive is strong enough, we can become incapable of controlling it. Though we have difficulty understanding, we realize that given the right conditions, we may well be doing far worse horrendous acts.

Now we will take a closer look at unconditional love and the best way to do that is with examples.

Please don’t get your butt in a bubble about this example if you are other than a Christian because this example comes from the Christian Bible. However, it so well demonstrates unconditional love that I’m going to use it.

According to the New Testament, Jesus is in the process of being crucified. As he’s hanging on the cross in unimaginable pain, he looks out over the crowd of onlookers and says, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”

In 2007, a young man in Iran was sentenced to hang for killing another young man. On the day of the hanging the mother of the victim saved the young man’s life. You can read the full story here.

I think you get the idea of what unconditional love is. With unconditional love comes compassion. Though love and compassion often go together, there is a distinction. Now let’s take a closer look compassion.

What is compassion?

Many people confuse compassion with empathy, but they are words with different meanings. You can have compassion without empathy and you can have empathy without compassion, but it’s common for both to go hand in hand.

Empathy is when you physically or emotionally feel the other persons pain. Sometimes empathy is so strong that one person can physically experience the pain of another. For instance, a husband experiences cramps when his wife goes into labor. You cry in grief with a friend who has lost a loved one.

Compassion is, according to Webster, “..: sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.“ You become aware of suffering, you feel sympathy, and you want to do something about it.

Various charitable organizations attempt to evoke compassion in you and money from you by showing powerful images. An image of an abused dog rescued from an abusive environment encourages you to donate to the work of the ASPCA. An image of a starving child with a bloated belly is another example. Charitable organizations do this because it works. We see, we sympathize, and we act (donate).

It’s rare that we see powerful images of convicted felons, thieves, and murderers that have designs on our compassion triggers. We are instead sold on the idea that these are bad people getting exactly what they deserve. They are the unlovable.

There are only two ways to change this cultural flummox. One way is to attempt to change the unlovable person into someone you can love. The other way, and in my opinion, the only way to make this change is by changing us as a society starting with you and me.

To love the unlovable is not to condone the behavior, but to love them despite their behavior. We can begin by realizing that few people will behave in ways that will destroy their life. That begs the question: why do they do these things that lead to incarceration or a cell on death row?

Mental illness – Roughly half the people inhabiting our prisons are mentally ill. Maybe instead of building more prisons, we should invest in more mental health facilities.
Poverty – Poverty is clearly a factor in becoming one of the unloved. Instead of the useless war on drugs, perhaps a war on poverty would be more beneficial.
Thrills – Unlovable people commit crimes because there is the thrill to the risk. When little boys throw rocks through your window, it gives them a thrill. When the affluent teenager shoplifts, she gets a thrill. It’s exciting to run the risk of getting caught. Some people even enjoy the thrill and risk of killing you.
Power – When a kid is holding a gun to your head and demanding you give him your wallet, he’s feeling powerful and in control. When a cop is holding a gun on you, that too might sometimes be born out of the drive for power and control. Ponzi schemes are done for the same reason. Here in the U.S. money is associated with power therefore those with the drive for power will do whatever is necessary to get it. They might even kill you or order you to be killed.
Fear – Hate has its basis in fear. ‘Immigrants will take our jobs,’ ‘Muslims are terrorists who will blow me up,’ ‘The white race will become extinct,’ We must do whatever it takes to stop that from happening,’ ‘We are at war with Japan, therefore all Japanese people are spies who must be jailed.’
Prejudice – Prejudice is based on genetics and belief. Genetics is the basis for the idea that anyone that is different than us may be a threat (monkey brain). The belief that your religion is the only right one and all other forms of belief should be thwarted at all cost. The belief that all human beings should have your specific code of ethics.

As a human being, your ability to love the unlovable will depend on your beliefs which in large part are determined by your culture. Another factor is what information you consume and, to a lesser extent, your genetics.

It may be easier for you to love those that commit heinous acts because they are mentally ill or are born into poverty. However, people who commit crimes out of prejudice, for thrills, or to gain power you will find way more difficult to love. If you have trouble loving these people, you are not alone. I’m right there with you.

To find that love, we must dig deep into those times when we have reveled that someone finally got “justice” at the hands of an executioner or life in prison. When you find yourself doing this, examine those times when you have been cruel or were perhaps motivated to kill someone. Why did you feel the way you did? Now take it a step further and you can to see how, if circumstances were different, you too may have committed a crime. It may even have been a heinous crime that would have made you one of the unlovable.

One last thing, I wish I could tell you that I’ve managed to acquire the ability to always love the unlovable, but I can’t do that. There are times when I experience such rage by someone’s cruel behavior that I know they wouldn’t be safe if left alone in a room with me. But hey, I’m working on it. Every day I try harder to increase my level of unconditional love and compassion for the unlovable. Every fucking one of them.

References and resources

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply