The question “how do you love yourself?” is not answerable with words, techniques, or affirmations. Joe insists: “It’s not words. How do you love yourself is paramount to the question of how do you feel. It is a sense — you’re sensing yourself.”
Self-love is the same feeling you have toward a pet you adore, a child you love, or someone you have a crush on — directed toward yourself. It’s a visceral, somatic, sensual experience. In the coaching session, the man accesses it through welcoming: “I am going to say to this part of me, you’re welcome here.” And this is not an intellectual exercise — you can see it in his body. He opens his arms, leans back, tears come to his eyes.
The session works because the man is somatically doing it. Joe explains: “I don’t know if he’s saying ‘I welcome it’ or what he’s doing internally, but you can feel his body going — oh, this thing, I’m letting this thing step into me, or I’m stepping into this thing.” It’s a reversal of the flow — instead of directing love outward, you’re directing it inward, and the body knows how to do this if the mind gets out of the way.
People often come to self-development thinking “if I do all this work, I’ll be good enough to feel good,” only to discover the journey is actually allowing themselves to feel good. Nothing has to change. There’s no perfection needed. There’s just a welcoming of yourself.
Related Concepts
- Welcoming is self-love
- Welcoming, not just accepting emotions
- Loving presence must be embodied
- Everyone already knows the way home
- If you can’t love the thing, love the resistance to the thing
- Love yourself the way you always wanted to be loved