When the man in the session tries to welcome himself and instead finds himself trying — efforting, straining toward self-love — Joe doesn’t tell him to try harder or to stop trying. He says: “Welcome the trying.” The man visibly shifts — lighter, more present, more here.
This is a universal coaching principle: “If there’s some part of yourself you can’t love, then love the resistance to the thing you can’t love.” It’s an elegant escape from the trap of self-improvement. You can’t force self-love, and trying harder to love yourself often becomes another should. But you can always love whatever is actually present — even if what’s present is resistance, trying, frustration, or the inability to love yourself.
The man’s progression demonstrates the power of this approach: welcome the trying, welcome the openness, welcome the resistance to being open. Each welcoming brings him deeper into presence, not because he’s fixing himself but because each layer of resistance, once welcomed, no longer needs to defend itself.
This principle dissolves the paradox of “I should love myself but I can’t” by removing the should entirely. Whatever is here right now — welcome that. If shame arises after feeling good, welcome the shame too. The welcoming itself is the self-love.
Related Concepts
- Love the resistance
- Resisting parts creates more of them
- Hug the demon, don’t slay it
- Welcome the inner critic
- Welcoming whatever arises is self-love
- Self-love is somatic welcoming, not affirmation
- Everyone already knows the way home