Love Your Self Like Your Life Depends On it is a book written by a previous Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Kamal Ravikant. Kamal starts the book in a fashion that is vulnerable and straight to the point, one that I even could relate to. Kamal writes that he was once a prominent tech figure and finds a struggle in writing the book due to his failure. In his correspondances with James Altucher who says, "I don't do a post now unless I'm worried about what people will think of me."

I really connected with the author in this book. His call for love for one self is so strong and straightforward. I have read dozens of self-help books, but this one tried to cut out the stories and cut straight to the chase - you must love yourself every day or else you will drift away from one self. The type of self love the author refers to here isn't one that is gushy or ego-driven, but one of importance to have mental health in a world that pushes you to be other than you are.

The author boldly states, "When you love yourself, magic begins to happen."

The author outlines some simple meditations and practices one can use:

  • Tell yourself in your mind that you love yourself - correct your inner voices of doubt.
  • Look yourself in the mirror at nose distance and tell yourself you love yourself - this helps enforce thought into reality.
  • Take breathing exercises to inhale the mantra that you love yourself, and exhale gratitude - help keep yourself loving in the meditation of gratitude and self-love.
  • Self-help is like bathing, we must do it daily or suffer the consequences.

I really loved another idea the author shared:

  • "I am a human being, therefore nothing human is foreign to me" - we are all going through the human experience. Pain and suffering are to be expected, we can only have compassion and empathy for others as we may one day go through the same trials.
  • "If you want to see anyone's philosophy, look at their life. We are all living our philosophy, our life is the result."
  • "Distractions feed emptiness and my heart needs to heal." - the idea the author shares when he's grieving and is offered distractions with friends.
  • Change your thinking from "Life happens to me" to "life happens through me". We must be cognizant that life is going through us, not happening to us. We are not victims, rather, participants in the story of life.
  • The author shares a story about an olympic trainer who buys shoes from a Salvation Army. He then goes to correct some peoples lifting forms, which they judge him by his pink shoes. There is a lesson here. 1) Never judge a man by his shoes. 2) If people doubt you, just be excellent.
  • "If you are what you think about, then you have to get real careful about what you think about" - Wayne Dyer. "If you want to attract what's good in your life, but you're talking about what's missing and you're thinking about what's missing, you will continue to expand what's missing". "I never talk about what's missing in my life. I only put my attention on what I intend to create." "Whatever it is you want to attract in your life, say to yourself, 'its on its way'. Four words. Just get them tattooed inside of your eyelids."
  • "Watch your mind sometime and you'll realize that it's always answering questions. Fear is an answer to what could go wrong. Pain is an answer to what's missing. You'll quickly realize that the mind naturally goes for the negative, not the light. So you must consciously ask yourself empowering questions. Ones that result in you making loving choices for yourself. Do this for a while, and you'll need to ask them less. Living the answers will have become habit."

Key takeaways

  • There is a story shared about a man who had hallucinations of snakes - the author tells a story how a psychologist takes the man into a bathroom full of real and fake snakes. The man is able to see the real from the fake. Although he still sees hallucinated snakes, he knows that it is not real. This is the same with our negative thoughts. We need to see the fake snakes.
  • Darkness is a concept that your mind enters when you do not truly love yourself. Take time to become aware of when you are in the darkness and take some self-love routines into play with breathing, mantras, and forgiving yourself.
  • The author shares the idea that you should write a letter forgiving yourself of everything, read it aloud until it becomes full of feelings, then burn/bury/throw the letter away. This releases yourself from the burden of the past and the author notes that it's a powerful exercise for self-love.
  • Ask yourself, 'if I truly loved myself, would I allow myself to experience this?' If the answer is no, you could take action to correct the situations.
  • If you love yourself, you will write a commitment to take care of yourself and devote a few minutes every day to meditation around that practice. You will not get lazy when the going gets tough. Make it a point to write down specific times you will adhere to the practice, by doing so, you enable pathways in your mind to fulfill the commitments.
  • "If it scares me, there is magic on the other side" - go in the direction of your fears.

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