Surrendering controlling behaviors surrounding a distorted prior understanding about love for myself and for my family of origin. In this surrender I clearly see that love cannot be taught or forced, and thereby controlled.

It occurs to me just now that in surrendering all, finally, what we really are doing is giving up control.

I can barely believe that for how much I despise controlling behavior, this may have been what I was doing when working so hard and loving so deeply to show my narcissistic mother "how to love unconditionally."

The lifetime of immeasurable offenses this woman has done to me and my father and siblings were for decades instantly either dismissed or forgiven, which I'm realizing now was a form of control.

I was trying to control myself from seeing reality, and working diligently to fix her offenses - forcing her to look unconditional love in the face.

For years I thought that loving the narcissist no matter her behavior was unconditional love, but in dismissing her behaviors and thereby dismissing my own self worth and well being, this love had a two-fold purpose.

You can do whatever you want to me and I'll still love you. I will force you to learn what love is, but this is not healthy. Being void of self love, it cannot be love. This is control, and as we know by now, control is based in fear.

I made myself FINALLY understand what LOVE is.  There is no such a thing as unconditional love because there is only LOVE. There are not different kinds of love.  Love with condition of any kind is not love. It's confusing because in forcing the NM to see what I thought was unconditional love, which she rejected, I still loved her. I thought this was unconditional love and it was.  But there is no such thing.  Love is love ... it has no condition and or uncondition.

So all those decades of exhausting work trying to show the family of origin loved ones how to love ends up a learning experience for myself.

This realization is worth every ounce of effort, and all it has cost my mind, body, and soul.

So what if no matter how I turned myself inside and out, into a pretzel, jumping through hoop after hoop for my family of origin, all to be accepted, validated, loved - it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter because in the very end, when there wasn't an iota of energy left to continue, I found that it wasn't all for nothing. It was for ME.

I surrender all, including the controlling behaviors surrounding a distorted prior understanding about love for myself and for my family of origin.  In this surrender I clearly see that love cannot be taught or forced, and thereby controlled.

Love just is. Love is love - there aren't conditions or unconditions - there is only love.

With my husband and children this has been a nobrainer. Love just always has been - LOVE.  Very easy.  No conditions, no eggshells, no pain what so ever where love is concerned. The question always was .. Why for goodness sake, couldn't it be so beautiful and natural with my family of origin?  Today, I have my answer.

We all have a choice.  When love presents, we can take it or leave it - They made their choice and I've made mine.  Period.

Wow.  I wanted acceptance, but here I find myself accepting their choices.

Surrender.