How to *actually* love yourself.

I'm a dating coach located in Bentonville, AR (hence the username). I am not here to advertise my business, make money, or do anything other than to share my knowledge and experience.

Scroll down for the TL;DR.

Before committing myself to my business, I focused on self-improvement for 8 years straight. Every day I would do something that would augment my inner game, outer game, appearance, physique, and mental health. I used every modality available. All of them.

Many think that loving ourselves requires actively doing something such as repeatedly saying "I love myself", giving ourselves a hot bath, getting a massage, taking care of our health, and so forth. While these things may be nice and supplemental, they will not give us the desired results we're after.

After an earth-shattering period of heartbreak from a failed relationship, I went out to several bars and clubs alone. Rejection after rejection, I went home with my tail tucked between my legs. All I wanted that night was to have someone at my side. I didn't give a shit if I got laid or not, I just needed to be with someone to lessen the pain of being alone.

As I sat in my car in my driveway, I became filled with the darkest, purest hatred I'd ever felt in my life. My chest was extremely tight, and fury was flowing through my veins. I hated my ex, I hated all the women who screwed me over in my "beta" days, and I hated all the slutty low-class skanks who rejected me at the club that night. I had game, but it was a really bad night to pull, yet I still beat myself down thinking it was because of me, my energy, my persona. It started raining hard, and the thunder and lightning seemed appropriate for the darkest moment in my life in regards to dating. I covered myself in tears from the anger of not being able to get what I wanted, and that's when it hit me...

No matter how badly I wanted to change and become the man women desire, I knew I would never be able to change.

I gave up and surrendered completely.

I accepted every single part of me. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the dark. I was completely genuine when I told myself I'd give up chasing after women for good.

Ironically, that's when everything changed for me.

I knew I would never be able to change, so I started functioning from a place of authenticity. Socializing with others after my epiphany was like learning how to walk again; everything was completely different, and life, colors, even food was different. I believe there's a re-wiring in the brain when someone goes through trauma or life changing experiences, which explains some of the personality changes I went through.

Being as philosophical as I was back then (I no longer focus on the 'why' anymore, I simply focus on the 'now'), I asked myself how we could love ourselves. I could never find the answer because nothing worked, and that's when I had my second epiphany.

Love, in and of itself, is simply acceptance or allowing. You don't actively love your family; you just do. Acceptance is a state of being. Just being allows for self expression, which led to my conclusive "aha!" moment.

We are in our happiest state when we lose ourselves.

In other words, we are happiest when we lose our ego. When we do things we love such as performing live music, being in the presence of someone we love, creating art, singing, or doing anything that allows us to be our authentic selves, there is self love. In simpler terms, self love is the acceptance of WHATEVER OUR NATURAL STATE IS. Keyword: natural. This means experiencing or expressing every emotion as it comes naturally. If you're pissed because your woman fucked around behind your back, be pissed. If you're sad because you saw a bunch of puppies die, be sad. If you're happy because you just won the lottery, be happy. If you're feeling desire from seeing a cute girl in a short skirt at the mall, go up and talk to her and express that desire. Every emotion you feel is EXACTLY how you should feel. You are not "supposed" to feel one way or the other. "But we should be happy all the time!" That's bullshit. No one is. And if they are, find out what kind of crack they're smoking because I want in.

If you grew up in shitty household, chances are you were taught to suppress your natural state because of bad parenting. This is the worst thing you can to do to a child; they'll eventually grow up remaining equally suppressed, and their bottled up emotions will explode as "overreactions" in their day to day lives. This leads to depression, strong and overly sensitive emotions, and (you guessed it) - social anxiety and approach anxiety.

The final step involves letting go, but this is mostly done autonomously once you realize you'll "never be able to change". This is more of a quick realization phase, and not really a stage per se.

"Just be yourself" is the biggest piece of shit advice I've ever heard, yet I couldn't agree more with it. It implies that we let go of the ego, but "letting go" should really be "just be", and "just be" means allowing to be exactly who you are, allowing yourself to feel what you feel, and allowing yourself to do what you do.

It's not in what you are. It's not in what you feel. And it's not in what you do. The answer lies in ALLOWING. But don't worry. You won't continue being the beta society detests. You will change, but you won't notice it. The people around you, however, will.

When you lose yourself, you're not losing anything about your core personality. You're only losing your ego. For example, say your girlfriend blatantly disrespects you in front of your friends. A man with his ego still living within him will be too afraid to speak up because the ego will crave for validation, and it doesn't want to create conflict. But if you don't have an ego, you'll choose to pull your girlfriend aside and calmly but firmly tell her it's not okay to talk to you like that. Ego is nothing but fear. Love is always fearless.

Keep in mind, we will always have an ego. It gives us a sense of identity, and is a necessary evil for us to function in a normal society, but we can always minimize it.

TLDR Here are the five stages, top to bottom, that I went through in the last decade.

Stage 1: Dive into self improvement. Lift. Eat healthy. Meditation. Lift. Hypnosis. NLP. Chakra balances. Reiki. Read. Implement. Watch. Learn.

Stage 2: Frustration and heartache. Rejections. This isn't fair. Keep trying anyway. Why isn't self-improvement working? More heartache. More failure. More rejections. When will it end? Why can't I figure this out? I need to change. I have to change. This seems kind of pointless.

Stage 3: Giving up. "I'll never be able to change." Major emotional trauma. Epiphany. Darkest moments. Tears. Severe pain.

Stage 4: "Learning to walk again." Light at the end of the tunnel. Who am I? What do I really want? I can say what's on my mind, and people still like me? Sweet!

Stage 5: Losing yourself (ego) = Happiness I am who I am. I feel what I feel. I do not resist myself at all. I express my intentions. I speak my mind. I honor myself with as much transparency and authenticity as I can.

Here is my takeaway from this "process". The most difficult transition, in my opinion, will be moving through stages 2 and 3. This is where the real change happens, and where the most amount of pain will occur. This is something no one can help you with. You will need to go through this on your own. It may require you to experience some hard emotional trauma - an awakening, if you will. But if you can make it to stage 3, and you GENUINELY believe you'll never be able to change, that's when everything will change for you.

There's a funny thing about self-improvement. The finish line is actually your starting point. No matter how hard you try to change, you'll see that who you are is who you'll always be, and it won't be your personality women will be attracted to...it will be your ability to express your authentic self without limits. The ego is like an eye trying to find itself not realizing it is an eye, and requires a mirror to see itself.

When it can finally see itself without the mirror, it realizes there is no eye. There is only being.

Have a great week.