Ayurveda teaches that you don’t have to wait for an idyllic moment sometime in the future to experience the healing power of unconditional love. It is available to you right now, wherever you are and whatever you may be doing.

Please try this exercise: Take a paper and write a letter to someone you love fully, completely, someone you trust with all your heart. Tell them all the ways that you love and appreciate them–really go for it. While writing this letter, know that they will never read this letter. It is for your eyes only. As you write it, become aware of how you feel. You will see that as you write this letter, you will actually feel loved, you will feel appreciated and you will feel cared for and even important. All the things we so desperately think we need from someone else to make us feel good, we actually experience all by ourselves when we give love freely, without any concern that the other person will love us back.

This is the game the mind has been playing on us for all these years. To win this game, we have to taste the vulnerability of true love by allowing ourselves to love others unconditionally. “I love you, but it is no concern of yours” means, “I now know that what I really seek is to love rather than be loved.”

* This post was excerpted from an article called, “The Healing Powers of Unconditional Love,” originally published in Nirvana Magazine. You can read the full article here.