Most families shower their infants with love, unconditionally.  Clearly human beings are capable of loving unconditionally.  What happens between infancy and adulthood to stop the flow of this most important nourishment?

When we shower infants with unconditional love they respond in kind.  The infant is totally dependent and we feel totally in control.  Adults rarely think an infant’s behavior is willful and so do not judge them. The change comes starting with the terrible twos, when children begin to express their free will.  As parents we slowly lose our control, we feel threatened and do not know how to respond lovingly.  The way that we have been brought up has typically been based in conditional love therefore that is the only love we can offer. We do not understand that love is nourishment and therefore withholding it is painful, anxiety producing and thwarts development.  If we understood the principle that love is nourishment, we would do everything in our power to learn how NOT to withhold it.