Unlearning Conditional Love: A Yogic Perspective
Love is pure and unconditional. Yet, in today’s world, we often mix love with expectations, attachment, and dependency. Just listen to the lyrics of many love songs on the radio. Take “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago — “If you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me…” Or Taylor Swift’s “Tolerate It” — “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky… Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life.” Even Lauren Daigle’s “You Say” sings, “The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me. In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity.”
These lyrics, whether poetic, perpetuate a longing for reassurance, validation, or reciprocation. This is the essence of conditional love. It implies love must be earned, proven, or returned. But love in its truest form is freedom and expansive.
Through my study of yoga philosophy, I revisited my understanding of love by exploring the concept of detachment. It helped me untangle myself from the grip of conditional love and brought more ease and depth into my relationships with my husband, family, friends, and especially my children.
In yoga philosophy, detachment, or vairagya, is the conscious ability to step back from emotional entanglement. It’s the art of giving without a reward and acting without being attached to outcomes. When we let go of needing our love to be returned in a specific way, we free ourselves from the pain of unmet expectations. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita both expand beautifully on this idea. One of my teachers summed it up perfectly:
“Enjoy what you have as if you’re borrowing it from the Universe.”
This idea of borrowing reminds us of impermanence. Everything, our partners, children, homes, possessions, can disappear at any moment. When we believe we own something or someone, we open the door to suffering as we identify ourselves with something outside of ourselves, something we cannot control. This truth often feels unsettling, unless we understand non-attachment in its proper form.
Detachment doesn’t mean apathy or indifference. It means letting go of expectations, assumptions, and emotional attachments. We can still give, whether it’s through a gift, a kind act, or love, but without needing something in return. Attachment to outcomes breeds disappointment. But when we give from the heart, unattached to results, we plant the seeds of peace and freedom.
Have you ever held a door open for someone at the grocery store, paid for the person behind you in line at a coffee shop, or simply been present to support a friend in pain? These small gestures, done without calculation of a result, are acts of pure love. When we stop grasping and start giving from the heart, we shift from a state of scarcity to one of abundance. And abundance is always present when we love authentically.
The truth is, many of us are raised in systems that condition us to love with strings attached. A mother might think, “After everything I’ve done for my children, they owe me.” A child might feel guilty for not calling their parents often enough. Lovers may silently think, “If you love me, prove it.” In each case, we surrender our power and chain our happiness to others. The more we seek validation from outside ourselves, the more dependent we become. And what we call “love” becomes entangled with guilt, obligation, or fear.
But yoga teaches us a different path. Through detachment, we begin to reclaim our center. We stop asking others to complete us. Everything we want, love, worth, and truth already exists within.
Learning non-attachment begins with self-inquiry and mindfulness. Ask yourself:
– Why am I giving this gift?
– Am I raising my child to be free, or to meet my future needs?
– Am I offering love freely, or do I expect something in return?
When we recognize patterns of attachment in our thinking, we can shift them through practices like self-reflection, forgiveness, and cultivating self-love. We stop needing others to make us whole. We stop using love as currency. We begin to love more deeply and allow others to be fully themselves, without feeling obligated to us.
It may sound paradoxical, but detachment leads to deeper connection. When we no longer pressure others to prove their love, we create space for honest, heartfelt relationships with them, ourselves, and the universe.
When I first began practicing yoga, I learned to offer my full presence to my breath, to the postures, to the process, without focusing on the final shape of a pose. The pose was not a goal; the journey was the practice. It’s the same in life. Whether you’re cooking, writing, creating, or helping, give your heart fully, without craving praise. If it’s appreciated, receive it with humility. If it’s not, stay rooted in the joy of giving. Their opinion does not define your worth and doesn’t diminish their love for you.
You can also create a personal guiding question for daily life, like:
“Do I expect something in return for what I’m doing?”
This simple inquiry can shift your entire day, whether you’re sipping coffee or navigating love.
And yes, in life there are transactions — jobs, purchases, exchanges. But even within those, we can live with detachment. I work not just to earn, but to live in integrity with my values. I buy a piece of clothing to enjoy it, knowing full well that one day it may no longer be mine. My identity does not live in what I own.
Detachment also allows us to set boundaries. When we act from a place of being rather than obligation, we free ourselves from guilt and resentment. We stop performing for love and start living it. And everyone, including ourselves, feels more at ease in our presence.
Love is not a transaction. It’s not a prize to be earned: it’s our nature. It flows through all things, always available, never scarce.
When we turn inward and reconnect with who we truly are, whole, free, and already complete, we stop chasing love and begin to embody it. And in that presence, we offer others the space to do the same.