Book summary: Love yourself like ...

The secret to a successful life is in loving yourself According to Kamal Ravikant, some moments and events led him to believe that the secret to life was indeed “loving oneself”. He was in a sad place, dealing with heartbreak, loss of a friend, health issues, business problems — life just wasn’t good to him at that point. He had reached his tipping point, and just when he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided that he was done living that way. He got up, opened his note, and wrote that he was vowing to love himself and treat himself as someone he truly loves deeply. This will reflect in his thoughts, actions, choices, and decisions. So, Kamal Ravikant decided to consciously love himself daily. How to love himself, he didn’t know. All he did know was that he started telling himself, “I love myself” over and over again. Everywhere he was, whatever he was doing, the thought kept going on and on in his mind. Of course, his mind would wander off, and he would forget his resolve, but he would always work his way back to where he was, and that is the road to loving himself. Surprisingly, not only did his health get better, even his state of mind changed for the better. Light shone on his life, people came into his life, doors of opportunities opened, he became naturally happy. Through it all, he realized that all he was doing differently was telling himself, “I love myself”, so many times that it was more on his mind than not. In this summary, you will learn that the best way to appreciate yourself is self-love. You will also discover practical ways to consciously love yourself daily.

Only in loving yourself will life love you back You’re probably thinking: why not “I accept myself” or “I like myself”? It has to be love. It goes as far back as when you were a baby. The mind and body know that love nurtures, love is gentle, and love is accepting. So, using the word “love” taps right into your subconscious, right where you want it to be — where the magic happens. In your simplicity truth is revealed, and in truth lies power. Share your truth. Whatever your truth is, live it. It's okay if you don’t believe you love yourself. Your job is to love yourself, truly and deeply, and remind the neurons in your brain of the feeling. Do this again and again. Be focused. Your mind and body will respond automatically. You’ll find that, as you love yourself, life will love you back. You will find things working out the way they should. Soon, you’ll find yourself using words like “magical” and “amazing” to describe your life. Picture yourself in a dark room, with a cloudy window and the outside world being bright. What do you do? You get up, pull out a rag, go to the window and start cleaning. Darkness is the absence of light. Let the light in so the darkness can fade away. In this case, darkness is any negative thought. How do you discard this feeling? Do you fight it or worry? Or do you let it overwhelm and push you into sadness and pain? No, you do not. Clean the window and let the light in. So find that window, that thing that is stopping you from reaching the light, and fix it. Kamal Ravikant fixed his unclear window using these three ways: • Mental loop: thinking about something repeatedly until it starts gaining control over his life • Meditation: he gave himself positive things to ponder and allowed his subconscious mind to take care of itself • One question: when he was in a tricky situation, he asked himself if that was where he wanted to be

The mental loop is undoubtedly one of the keys to self-love Kamal Ravikant once heard someone explain thoughts like this: we, as humans, think we are thinking. Not true; most of the time, we’re reminiscing. We are reliving memories. We’re running common patterns and loops in our heads. For happiness, for procrastination, for sadness, fears, hopes, dreams, or desires. We have loops for everything. That is quite true. We keep replaying loops, which in turn trigger feelings, and we think we have no choice but to feel that way. “Self–love is like a groove in a rock created by water. When you give it enough time, density will become a river; this is how the mind works. Thinking about something just once doesn’t have any power over you. However, if you deliberately begin to think about the thing repeatedly, it eventually creates a groove in your mind, which leads to the river that can’t control you. This theory explains why the practice of focused mental loops is one of the keys to self-love. Tell yourself, “I love myself” again and again. Then, add emotional intensity, if you can, to deepen the groove faster. Now, you may have had experiences that have created a groove in your mind. But your goal is to create a groove that is way deeper than any other previous emotions that could have been registered in your subconscious. Be patient. Nothing good comes easy; it may take weeks or months, but you will definitely notice a change in your life. This change will have you loving yourself, loving life, feeling good, and life will love you too.”

Setting a pattern for meditation increases self-awareness “It doesn't take much to meditate, you just need to add it to your daily routine. The duration of your meditation will depend on how long your music lasts. You don’t need anything spectacular to do this.” Follow these steps to do your meditation correctly: • With your headset on, put on music that boosts positive feelings. • Sit with your back against a wall or window. Cross your legs or straighten them out, whatever works for you. • Close your eyes, imagine a beam of light shining onto your head from above, and smile slowly. • Breathe in and say to yourself: “I love myself”, say it slowly and be gentle. • Breathe out and push anything that comes out. It could be any thought, emotion, feelings, memory, fear, hope, or desire. Or nothing. Breathe it out. No judgment, no attachment to anything. • Repeat steps four and five until the music stops. • When the music stops, open your eyes slowly. Smile genuinely. This moment is yours, so own it. The light is creating a sense of healing and positive vibes in your subconscious and conscious state. Inhale and exhale as naturally as possible, following the rhythm of the musicals as you do so. This intense practice requires your complete focus. It is peaceful, soothing, and will give you a sense of love and growth. With consistency, the magic will pop up.

Always ask yourself questions to check your self–love and do not dwell on painful memories “It is easier to stay in your apartment and repeat the words “I love myself” and practice self–love than to have to deal with loads of people on the outside. When dealing with these people with their negative emotions and mindset, one question you need to ask yourself to keep you on track is: “If I loved myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this?” Of course, the answer is no! When you find yourself surrounded by anger, pain, or fear, you should remind yourself that if you truly love yourself, you wouldn’t let yourself experience the negative feeling. Then return to loving yourself by replaying the “I love myself” song in your head. By doing this, your mind will respond, and you’ll be back where you want to be. It works beautifully, and you won’t go through the stress of dealing with or feeling the negative stress. Ask a neuroscientist, and they will tell you that memory isn’t set in stone. The more you remember something, especially if it’s emotionally driven, the more you will reinforce the pathways connecting the neurons. What this simply means is that the more you think about something, the more you feel it, and the stronger the memory. Think about it: For example, in your previous relationship that ended years ago. If you recall it when you’re feeling miserable, you’ll find that you only remember the negative parts, and those moments will grow stronger in memory. On the other hand, if you recall the relationship when you’re happy, your mind would only be focused on the pleasant highlights. It’s the same memory, but your state of mind changes the manifestation of consciousness. And more importantly, it affects how the memory controls you. Instead of letting that painful memory control you, go to love. Trace your steps back to the love you feel for yourself. “Fake it” till it becomes real. Do it over and over. Love and rewire your mind again. When the changes happen, rather than feel nervous, you’ll feel good. You’ll start to accept that life, truly, can be magical, that fantastic things you never thought possible would happen.

Find your light switch and turn on the lights because that's the only way to keep in touch with reality “Richard Bandler, the co-creator of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), got famous early in his career as someone who could cure schizophrenia within hours. He got calls from many doctors and specialists in mental clinics. One of the fascinating cases he faced was that of an executive who was hallucinating snakes. The hospital had tried everything to help manage his condition, but they all failed. It got to the point that he was chained to his hospital bed — the man saw snakes everywhere. That must have been terrifying. So, Bandler went for a walk in town, trying to figure out what to do with the executive. He strolled by a pet store and asked to rent a barrel full of rubber snakes. The store owner refused, saying, “They’re for sale. I don’t rent the whole barrel”. However, Bandler swept the owner off his feet by telling him he wanted to rent the snakes so he could cure schizophrenia.” It turned out the man even had three well–trained snakes — two cobras and a giant python. Bandler collected those as well, and the two men left for the hospital. Bandler went into the shower where the patients had bathed and scattered all the rubber snakes around, taking care to put the real snakes close to where the targeted patient’s wheelchair would be. The doctor and the snake owner stood behind the one–way to the shower, watching while Bandler wheeled the man into the shower and left him there. The man screamed and screamed, “Snakes, snakes, snakes”. When Bandler finally went in, he told the patient that he would have to tell which ones were real and which weren’t. Much to everyone’s surprise, the patient pointed towards the rubber snakes and said,” rubber snakes,” motioned around and said “hallucinated snakes”, and looked at the python and said, “real snake.” Bandler was shocked to find that the man could not only identify reality from hallucination. He could also distinguish rubber from real ones. Wheeling him out, Bandler asked the patient how he could identify the hallucinated ones, and he said, “Easy, the hallucinated snakes were see-through”. The man knew this all along, but his fear of snakes was so intense that he lost touch with reality. Bandler then taught him how to focus on reality, and the power the hallucinations had over him vanished. “A light switch really does exist. Just like this patient got back in touch with his reality, when you feel negative thoughts, stop yourself. The majority of what we fear is not real or useful. But when fear appears, your job is to remind yourself that it’s not real and move on. That can be your light switch. Find what works for you.”

Commit to the practice of meditation and don’t derail because it helps you increase imagination and creativity “Sometimes, life works well for a while; you get used to it and think it’s going to last forever. Other times, when things suck, you’re deep in it, and it seems like you’re going to be stuck there forever. It’s called recency bias. Or better still, living in the moment. When things were not going smoothly, and it felt like you hit rock bottom, you focused on your mind with high intensity. But now that things are going smoothly, you’ve relaxed and started coasting. You’re letting your mind drift back to the natural state, back to weeks before you started meditating. You’ll skip meditating until you eventually stop. Don’t do this to yourself.” If you love yourself truly, you will commit yourself to the practice. Even when things are going great, don’t get lazy. It is just like wishing for good health when you are sick. Use that same energy to work towards staying healthy when you are not ill. Keep improving yourself. Keep loving yourself. Are we our thoughts? Are we observers of our thoughts? Or are we thoughts observing our thoughts? It’s okay not to have an answer. The mystery itself is fascinating, so it’s okay if we don’t know what role we play in our thoughts. What is most imperative is that we carefully select our thoughts. It is important to always be in control of your thoughts. Choose what you want to think about and ward off everything else. Pick one thought for the moment and practice it again and again. Lay down the synaptic pathways till your mind starts playing it automatically. Keep doing so until the thought you chose becomes the main loop. Choose that thought that transforms you and makes your life zing. It could be “I love you”, like what Kamal Ravikant chose. But, you’re also welcome to make your own choices. It is worth it.

There are so many benefits that accompany self–love It is quite a common misconception that you have to love others first before you can love yourself. It’s the total opposite. How can you give something you don’t have? An example is in the case of pre-flight instructions in a plane when you are told: “In case of emergency if the oxygen mask drops from above, put yours on first, before helping someone else”. Loving yourself will make you drop old patterns, thoughts, and ideas that were preventing you from achieving self–love. There is this change, and it feels amazing. You’ll get to the point where your mind choruses “I love myself, I love myself, I love myself” automatically. When this happens, you’ll see the world through the eyes of someone who is in love with their being. You begin to feel the cool breeze on your skin. You love yourself, you’re happy, you’re beautiful; you love your life and can’t stop thinking about it. You’ve accepted how wonderful you are, and you are welcoming the love the world is throwing right back at you. This feeling is magic. Did you know? Some negative behaviors that can be attributed to a lack of self-love, according to the National Association for Self-Esteem, are earlier sexual ability, alcohol and drug abuse, self-harm, and an eating disorder.

Conclusion Self–love is not just about feeling good; instead, it is an action. It is a choice. Self–love impacts how you see yourself and treat others. It is a way of relating to yourself that involves understanding your mistakes and losses and communicating with yourself about life without harshly judging yourself effectively. It also helps us to set healthy boundaries and choices for ourselves. People who love themselves hardly suffer from anxiety or depression. Before receiving love and respect from others, train yourself in the act of self–love. But, don’t create self–love with selfishness or a lack of consideration for others. Without self–love, you might be incapable of being successful in what you do. This summary has a simple message — LOVE YOURSELF. But for some of us that may not know how to, this summary is a guide on how to get there; let Kamal Ravikant’s truth teach you what you need to learn. Practice fiercely and religiously. The one thing that makes all of this work is if you make the vow to love yourself. Write your commitment on paper. Pen down whatever speaks to you, don’t be too conscious of your words. Just let it flow and ensure it comes from your heart and is in your own words; when the magic finally happens, it will blow you away. Self–love is your secret to living a healthy and fulfilling life. Decide to love yourself every day and be deliberate about it. Whatever goes on around you, decide never to stop loving yourself. Try this: If something else feels right to you, do that. Stay devoted to living your truth. Create your magic and let the world respond. Every day, listen to a seven–minute piece of music you like and think of how much you love yourself as you listen to it.