Dayana

Norgard

Nathan Keller

Keith

Sigil Wen

Ksenia

How do you love yourself? 
Why is it important? 

 Creating this room to invite everybody that has

 learnings, wisdom, questions, experiences to share about this topic,

 to share vulnerably and learn from one another.

 thing I would love my kids to know and to

 Grow into as they get older is the ability to 

 love themselves. I know how important this is and

 It's really hard to share. How does one do this?

 What are the simple ways that we can find with ourselves to honor?

 of love and appreciation? How do we do this?

 I remember the first time I read Kamal's 

 book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It,

 the first edition. And he's talking about standing in 

 front of the mirror or looking at yourself in the eyes

 how hard that is to do it like you mean it.

 And in that moment, I realized, man, this is 

 the number one skill set that I wish everybody

 had, especially as kids are growing up and being confronted with so many opportunities

 to compare themselves to whoever's out there.

 And then it's funny sometime last year I

 Saw this Gary Vee little short and you know 

 Vee has the attention of a lot of teenagers and

 Young young generations and they really look up to him

 Some of his advice is really good and he was saying man

 If there's one thing you need to learn is learn how to love yourself

 I don't care how you do it go to therapy do 

 this do that, but learn how to love yourself

 Everything else doesn't matter and I thought Gary you have to read Kamal's book

 Then about a couple months ago, my daughters, 10 and 13 now, were getting themselves into

 a nasty fight and I found myself asking them, do you love yourself?

 stopped in my tracks because the way they

 looked at me with disbelief, they didn't say anything, but they looked at me like, what?

 That's impossible. And I realized how hard 

 it is for kids to look at that in that way.

 So it got me thinking that if I can do one thing in this 

 lifetime, it would be to teach my kids how to love themselves.

 I remember crying really hard the first time I read 

 Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal.

 And at the time, I split up with my co-founder.

 And so I felt like I failed because my best 

 friend wasn't the right person to start a company with.

 And I thought that in order to get over that period, I needed 

 to achieve some things external in the world to validate myself.

 But I think from reading it, there was an internal paradigm shift between the shame 

 felt from almost letting myself or other stakeholders down because of my co-founder,

 but then realizing that along that process, I 

 tried my best and I did the most high integrity thing.

 And that was very profound because it didn't require me to do anything externally.

 It was all just how I viewed myself, how I viewed the events of the past.

 And yeah, it's very, very beautiful book.

 And from then on, I think self-love turned 

 self-confidence and a lot of good things came.

 My glib answer to this is just love them unconditionally and let them 

 that at all points and all times that you love them completely and utterly

 and that will never waver and never fade and then that 

 same light from within you can light their candle as well

 and of course that light itself comes from beyond 

 you so love propagates but it has to be unconditional.

 For me, it was expressed to me by my mom 

 several times growing up, and it was certainly canon,

 But the idea is that you have to love your 

 kids and you have to tell your kids that you

 love them, and they should never be able to doubt that you love them.

 And it's a tricky thing. Not only is it a 

 tricky thing, I mean, it's not tricky loving them.

 It's tricky imparting that sense of regalia and numinousness and wonder that they each

 possess and they have a hard time seeing on their own sometimes.

 And then there's another side of it where we're all playing both sides of the coin,

 you know, we're all gleaming the cube in 

 sense that, you know, there's a question of

 how much self-love you can pass on, and then 

 there's also a question of the role of ambition

 in that. And I suppose this devolves into a 

 personal statement that I drive myself really hard

 when I want to achieve something. And as much as I'm proud 

 of that about me, I don't necessarily want that for my kids,

 or not in the same way. So it's a hard problem.

 But yeah, self-love is the whole ballgame.

 I suppose it resolves unity and duality, which is the whole ballgame.

 I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.

 I have started doing that with my kids, actually.

 myself like you love depends on it by Kamal.

 it but no. It taught me how to forgive myself and well before the book I've

 been a person who couldn't cry. Doesn't matter what kind of tragedy I've been

 through I just couldn't. But this book helped me to open these gates.

 Maybe it connected with that thing that I started to be able

 to forgive myself and because of that sometimes I can forgive other people

 because I thought I don't have this button in my settings to forgive other

 people. So now I do sometimes. But my favorite book by Kamal is Rebirth. Love it.

 Hey Sigil, I really like your point about how you try to achieve 

 in the external world to make yourself feel better about the situation.

 I think I've been through that myself when I was dating somebody 

 in medical school, or she was in medical school, and once we 

 up I was like, oh, I'll apply to medical school too and prove 

 that I'm a high status person to stop the lows that I was feeling.

 And long story short, I got into a few decent medical schools, but when 

 the acceptances came, they didn't make me feel any more whole or any better.

 And I picked up Kamal's book after seeing it in Naval's recommended books 

 and it definitely helped me reach a new level of self confidence and self love.

 I even remember going to this volunteering event where we were teaching some 

 kids and I saw my ex at the event and I just felt like I didn't need her validation.

 But over time I stopped practicing the things that Kamal mentions like saying 

 love myself in the mirror and I think slowly those benefits actually went away.

 And I haven't really done the practice in a long time and I don't notice 

 the benefits as much, so I'm curious if all of you who have read the book, if 

 you have noticed that when you stopped doing the things that are mentioned,

 that you're back to square one or if you 

 really need to just keep doing it indefinitely.

 And in recording that I just want to note the sheer uncomfortability I felt

 being vulnerable and sharing that story and I think this is something I've

 noticed using air chat is the fact that I get very uncomfortable being

 vulnerable and I'm not sure if it's what that's about if it's because I'm worried

 that I'm gonna be judged or if people won't like what I'm saying I don't know

 but I would be curious if you guys feel the 

 same way about sharing your lives on this app.

 Nathan, thank you so much for sharing your story and yep I can relate to the

 vulnerability piece about sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings or

 memories here or everywhere else. I think it's something that is hard to overcome

 experience, I would say that self-love is a daily practice.

 It has to be for me because otherwise the noise from outside drowns that voice within

 that knows my worth. And what I noticed too is that 

 amplifies itself or I would say it's exponential when

 basis, if not daily basis, it's exponential.

 But I don't think it's a practice that can be left behind.

 that's what I was curious about what you guys do

 in that regard, because imagine if you wouldn't brush your teeth or shower, right?

 that you do to cleanse yourself off of all

 the noise and remind yourself of your true worth.

 Angela, what a beautiful way to say it, despite all the hang-ups, despite all the shortcomings.

 That sounds pretty unconditional to me. Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

 Through some work with myself, I have discovered that there are some messages of self-love

 that I wish I received growing up, and maybe 

 I'm not the only one that wish you heard these

 messages from your father, your mother, your caregivers, your sisters, brothers, peers,

 family members, teachers, whoever was around you in those very delicate, formative years.

 And as an experiment, I'm going to leave 

 of those messages here, and I would love for

 you to chime in, and maybe you can play 

 them to yourself, and you get to hear them.

 You don't have to be perfect, you are loved exactly as you are.

 It's okay to make a mistake. You're not in trouble.

 every day, all the time, no matter what you do.

 You are important. Your needs matter. You are worthy 

 of everything this world has for you. You are important.

 It's okay not knowing what to do sometimes.

 It's okay to ask for help. I'm here for you.

 Oh my dear HerChat community, family, friends, everybody listening. I have spent

 truth in what I put out there. And I come

 back to this channel, this topic of living in love 

 learning to love ourselves as the most important task.

 A lot of you have heard me talk already about Kamal's book Love Yourself Like

 Your Life Depends On It. This book was foundational for me a number of years

 out of a divorce and was truly looking at

 broken pieces of myself and not knowing how they all fit together anymore.

 During the course of these years after I discovered the book I looked over and

 over again at this practice of loving myself and I have to say that it wasn't

 easy at the beginning and yet over time I 

 found a reliable way to love myself no matter what.

 Childhood Strengths. I've always had a difficult time with breakups. It's as if

 at the end of each relationship I forget my own value and devolve. It's a deeply

 entrenched groove which is why an alternative groove through a consistent

 practice is a must. Otherwise the mind returns to the suffering it knows. While

 doing the meditation I realized why I had this groove. My father was abusive to

 my mother. After one especially bad episode she went grocery shopping and

 didn't return. We'd planned this out, she and I. When my father went to sleep I'd

 sneak out with my little brother and meet her around the corner.

 Any surprise I lose it after the end of a relationship?

 In those moments, it's not this grown adult 

 has his acts together and knows how life works.

 It's that little boy pulling the strings, desperately needing love.

 No relationship, no object, no substance or escape.

 Only I can. So the last time this happened, I 

 turned inward, closed my eyes and pictured him.

 Then I held him and loved him. Just loved him.

 And you know what? That's all he needed. He 

 calmed down. Whenever he talks again, I do the same.

 It's another opportunity to love a piece of me.

 We all have our weaknesses. This happens to be one of mine.

 Yours may be different, but the themes are the same.

 We're human, and the primal threads of love and fear binds us all.

 Whatever childhood strings you discover within yourself, first accept them.

 They are a part of your personal history.

 They've made you this amazing, beautiful human being that you are.

 Second, love that part of yourself. In the present give yourself what you needed in