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When you keep hearing that you need to love yourself, and nobody gives you instructions in how, it’s easy to feel stuck (and not any more loved). But self-loving people are not a different breed of human being: they’ve just internalized certain lessons earlier in life. In this episode, we’ll do our best to articulate what these lessons might be, so that you can adopt them in adulthood for the decades-long timeline of your future, too:
- Love is a positive-sum pursuit, not a zero-sum or negative-sum one. Loving yourself does not take away love from others.
- The only condition for self-love is simply being a living human being. There should be no other conditions placed on one’s self-worth.
- Self-love is a process, not just a static state. It requires actively turning inward and finding the love within yourself.
- Look to where the “glass is half full” rather than dwelling on what’s missing. Focus on appreciating what you do have.
- Apply self-love as a salve to heal emotional and physical wounds, just as you would comfort a friend.
- Treat yourself with the same compassion and understanding you would extend to a loved one in a similar situation.
- You already have the capacity for self-love within you. You just need to recognize and nurture those positive thoughts and feelings.
- Overcoming resistance to self-love often stems from conditioning in childhood where love was conditional.
- Societal and cultural messages can also contribute to the difficulty in practicing self-love.
- Self-love is a fundamental human right, not something that must be earned or achieved through perfection.
Table of Contents:
00:00 – Intro
03:17 – Love is a positive-sum pursuit, not zero-sum.
08:00 – You need no reason to love yourself other than that you’re alive.
12:52 – Your own heart makes more of it and you won’t run out.
14:16 – If you don’t feel anything the first time, try as many times as you need to.
19:02 – Look where the glass is half-full, not half-empty.
22:47 – Apply self-love to wherever it hurts, is scared or feels empty.
26:25 – When you’re treating yourself equally to others, you’re doing it right.
32:32 – Outro
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Luke Chao and Pascal Langdale are the co-hosts of the How to Be an Adult podcast. Possessing of a philosophical approach to life, they are both keenly interested in improving the society they live in. In this podcast, they share their thoughts freely in order to democratize high-quality living.