Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

One question

It's easy to say "I love myself" while locked inside my apartment, recovering from being sick. Tougher when I'm back to the land of the living, interacting with people who have their own issues and mental loops.

That is where the question came from. In dealing with others and reacting to their negative emotions with my own, I found myself asking this question:

If I loved myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this?

The answer, always, was a no.

It worked beautifully. Because I'd been working on the mental loop, the step after "no" was clear. Rather than solving the emotion or trying not to feel it, I would just return to the one true thing in my head, "I love myself, I love myself, I love myself."

This question is deceptively simple in its power. It gently shifts your focus from wherever you are - whether it's anger or pain or fear, any form of darkness - to where you want to be. And that is love. You mind and life have no choice but to follow.