Giving & Unconditional Love

"The ability to share and to give yield greater pleasure than to receive."

"Giving is an act that comes naturally from the heart and goes in harmony with your heart; just like a heartbeat. When you are truly giving, the thought of compensation never comes into the picture.
However, the universe works in a magical way; the more you give without the thought of compensation, the more you receive from the universe.", says Boon Kiat Chua

“Blessed are those that can give without remembering and take without forgetting.”
-— Liz Bebesco

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
-— Erin Majors

An extract from Peter Granger's article, "Unconditional Love - A Vital Aspect Of Successful Relationships":

"Think about all the conditions you have set yourself for happiness - make a list of them. Notice how we can spend our whole life waiting for these things to be fulfilled. Even if we fulfil one, we then create a new one! All of these conditions have one thing in common, and ironically it is a flaw that prevents us ever finding lasting happiness. Each of these conditions is about bringing something from the outside, to make us happy. Each of these conditions is designed to meet a need - to fill an emptiness we have inside. These conditions fail because ultimately we cannot ask anybody else or any situation to heal our insecurities and sense of lack - we must do that ourselves.

...

To be able to love somebody unconditionally we need to be able to see through the surface behaviour to the beautiful, innocent, perfect person underneath. If you find this hard to do today - think back to the time you fell in love with them. Those amazing feelings came about because you were loving them unconditionally - faults and all! It was only later those faults became more obvious as you settled down to a longer-term relationship. So think back to those heady times and visualise yourselves back in that situation of falling in love. Re-live those feelings and then take a long, compassionate look at your partner - see their beauty and grace and imagine yourself melting into them. Forgive them for failing your conditions and forgive yourself for doing the same. If you can, tell them how much you appreciate and love them and remind them of those original wonderful times together - those feelings are still available as soon as you stop judging them and placing conditions on your love.

Conditional love is a viscous circle because if we withdraw our love as a form of punishment, our partner does exactly the same to us. Unconditional love has the opposite effect - it reinforces itself because the forgiveness and acceptance is felt as pure love by our partners and they then naturally return it. Practice unconditional love at every opportunity with your partners, family, friends and colleagues - it is the key to sustained happiness."

Last but not least, this following "Forgiveness: Acceptance And Letting Go" - by Margaret Paul article, really does speak to me... I was going to extract pieces from it, but it seems inappropriate to rob you off the chance to read through it yourself. It begins with ...
"Have you ever noticed the difference in people who are able to easily let go of resentment and forgive, and those who stay in anger and blame?"

Taken from various articles in Articles Garage to remind myself of the importance of giving and unconditional love, in case I forgot in the future :P.