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I am certain I am not alone in struggling to put into words what unconditional love is, the kind of love a mother has for a child, as it feels like there simply are no words that do the feeling justice.
However, in my devotion to learning the language of love, I feel I have created something that will serve us all.
It came in response to a question from a client asking me to explain my understanding of a quote by the great Dr Maya Angelou.
“You belong no place, every place, no place at all, the price is high, but the reward is great.”
I wondered for a few days how best to answer with a story that would help the message land more deeply.
The words came following a challenging week. On a high and roiling tide of emotion, I allowed the waves to rise and break. Then, as the emotions ebbed away again, clarity came.
With Love From, The Writing Desk of Edwina Eleanor Sophia
There is a sadness that fills me at times. It sits like lava just beneath the surface, wanting to erupt, but somehow is unable to. It is a deep sadness in my soul that can remain dormant for stretches of time, unseen, unfelt, and easy to imagine it isn't there at all, but it is, like a black hole. Every now and then, when the pressure builds enough, or when I soften enough so that it can crack open just a little, a few tears fall, releasing the pressure just enough so that I can close the seal again and get on with my day.
The only medicine that makes a difference is unconditional love.
Being in the vortex of unconditional love allows the crack to open wide and the black hole of aloneness to be filled with gentle sunlight.
The love we know or imagine a mother's love to be is a compassionate love. It is love that knows that we are all made of strength and struggle and that we are worthy of love exactly as we are.
It is a selfless love that says, “All I want for you is to be healthy and happy and to know that you are unconditionally loved. I will do whatever I can to help you with that?"
The kind of love that says I don't need you to be like me, I just want you to be you.
It is a kind love that says we all make mistakes. Forgive yourself, because I know that until you forgive yourself, the pain will stay. I want you to know I forgive you, and until you can forgive yourself, please know I won't abandon you. I will stay right here with you until you find your way through.
I see YOU—not what you've done, not what you have, not what hurt you, but you—the beautiful soul standing in front of me, wanting to be seen for who you are—not for who you have been, not for how you are perceived, but for who you are.
The kind of love that accepts that we're all a product of our environment, past and present.
From the moment we are born, we begin collecting all that will shape who we become from our environment. Then, we are taught the meaning of those things.
Those around us tell us what is good, bad, safe, dangerous, kind, nasty, right, and wrong. All of it gets wired into our nervous system and subconscious with the endgame of understanding the rulebook that hints at guaranteeing love and belonging.
Those who are loved and belong follow the rules, and those who don't—well, we all know those people.
Those people are those who vote left, unless you vote left, and then those people are those who vote right.
Those people are those who don't vaccinate unless you don't vaccinate, in which case those people are those who do.
Those people are those who eat meat unless you do, in which case those people are those who don't.
Of course, there are those people who have that colour of skin, unless you do, in which case those people are those who don't.
I could go on and on because this list is literally endless.
The them and us divide is the crack that unconditional love falls through.
Fierce, unconditional love is rare, and many never feel its presence.
Even those who talk to a Divine Intelligence can feel they are walking a fine line between rejection and embrace because of the thoughts and beliefs they have absorbed from the world around them.
There isn't a person on earth who doesn't want to be loved for who they are, irrespective of all the stuff that we believe defines us. The house, the car, the bank balance, the job, the children, the clothes, the weight, the friends—that is all the stuff that surrounds you. It isn’t who you are.
If you took it all away, if there was nothing to help me make snap decisions about whether you are one of those or one of them, if it were just us standing in a pitch-black room and I couldn't see you, but we could talk for an hour, that's who I want to know. And I would love you to meet me there too.
Just as my mother first met me in the womb, where I belonged, no place, every place, no place at all.
The price was high because I had to be completely naked, but the reward was great because there was nothing that defined me, which is true freedom.
“I belong no place, every place, no place at all, the price is high, but the reward is great.”
My life has been a journey of understanding that unconditional love starts with knowing you are it. We don’t come into the world believing we have to earn it, nor believing others have to earn it. We naturally receive it and give it.
The world around us takes us on a journey away from it, sooooooo far away from it, until we feel lost and decide to find our way back.
On my journey, I experienced the aching absence of it, repeated rejections that created a distrust and fear of letting any love in, becoming a mother, and finally, becoming the Mother I needed—for myself, for my children, and for the world around me.
As a mentor, it is this love that I bring to the women I work with.
I am the woman women go to when the life they are living no longer fits. When the identity they’ve carried crumbles. When grief is so deep, it rearranges who they are.
And when they’re ready to rise again, not as who they were, but as who they are becoming next, I am the woman in their corner who stays as long as they want me to.
I create this space for women to rebuild themselves after sudden irreversible shifts in reality, whether they occurred years ago or more recently, when what had defined them is no longer there.
I help them blossom and flourish again by providing a sanctuary to regroup and reconnect to the truth of who they are—and by staying with them until they remember who they were born to be.
If you’re living the rupture, the return, or the rise, I'm here for you.
I am an Earth Mother, educated for over five decades in the school of life.
I am Edwina Eleanor Sophia.
Founder of The Eudaimonia Empire – Where Women Blossom + Flourish.
Mentorship places are available by application.Please message me directly to learn more.
Also, you may notice that the Eudaimonia Reading Room is evolving. Due to the expansion underway, it will now be known as the Eudaimonia Library.
