Just remain open to the possibility of loving yourself. The rest is easy.
Window
Darkness is the absence of light. If you remember this, it will change your life. Changed mine. It is this concept that the practice is based on.
Any negative thought is darkness. How do you remove it? Do you fight fear or worry? Do you push or drown away sadness and pain? Doesn't work.
Instead, imagine you're in a dark room and it's bright outside. Your job is to go to the window, pull out a rag, and start cleaning. Just clean. And soon enough, light enters naturally, taking the darkness away.
It's that simple. Each time the mind shifts to darkness - fear, worry, pain, you name it - when you notice, clean the window. Light will flow in.
Mental loop
I sit at my desk. San Francisco sparkles through the large bedroom windows. A Coca Cola sign blinks off, then rebuilds itself, one letter at a time. I see cars on Market street, red taillights. The famous tower over twin peaks is swallowed up by the night, hidden by fog.
A neighbor's balcony light comes on. Sliding door opens, a woman in shorts and t-shirt steps out, kneels to pick something up, then returns inside. The door shuts.
If you were to open up my head at this moment and peer within, you'd find yourself asking with a thick Southern drawl, "Does this boy not have an imagination?"
There is only one thought running through my head: I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.
For days, ever since I made the vow, this has been my only focus. Sometimes as a whisper, sometimes silent. When I brush my teeth, mumbling. In the shower, loud. Non-stop. I love myself, I love myself, I love myself.
I have nothing to lose. This is all there is. I love myself, I love myself, I don't give a damn about anything else, I love myself.
I once heard someone explain thoughts as this: we, as human beings, think that we're thinking. Not true. Most of the time, we're remembering. We're re-living memories. We're running familiar patterns and loops in our head. For happiness, for procrastination, for sadness. Fears, hopes, dreams, desires. We have loops for everything.
We keep replaying the loops and they in turn, trigger feelings. It's automatic to the point where we believe that we have no choice. But that is far from the truth.
Imagine a thought loop as this: a pathway laid down by constant use. Like a groove in rock created by water. Enough time, enough intensity, and you've got a river.
If you had a thought once, it has no power over you. Repeat it again and again, especially with emotional intensity, feeling it, and over time, you're creating the grooves, the mental river. Then it controls you.
And that is why a focused mental loop is the solution. Take this one thought, I love myself. Add emotional intensity if you can - it deepens the groove faster than anything. Feel the thought. Run it again and again. Feel it. Run it. Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter, just focus on this one thought. Make it your truth.
The goal here is to create a groove deeper than the ones laid down over the years - the ones that create disempowering feelings. They took time as well. Some we've had since childhood.
Which is why this requires a focused commitment. Why it must be a practice. Forget demolishing the grooves of the past. What you're creating is a new groove so deep, so powerful, that your thoughts will automatically flow down this one.
It takes time, sure. Took me a month to go from misery to magic. But you will notice changes, shifts in your feelings, beautiful happenings in your life. Expect them. There'll be more and more until one day, you'll be walking outside in the sunshine, feeling good, loving life and life loving you back, and you'll stop and realize that it's now your natural state.
Can you imagine a better way to be?
A meditation
Even if you don't do anything else, please do this. It will make a difference.
Each day, I meditate for seven minutes. Why seven minutes? Because I put on a piece of music that I like, one that is soothing and calm, piano and flute, one that I associate good feelings with, and it happens to be seven minutes long.
I sit with my back against a wall, put on my headphones, listen to the music, and imagine galaxies and stars and the Universe above, and I imagine all the light from space flowing into my head and down into my body, going wherever it needs to go.
I breathe slowly, naturally. As I inhale, I think, I love myself. Then I exhale and let out whatever the response in my mind and body is, whether there is one or not. That's it. Simple.
Inhale: I love myself.
Exhale: Breathe out what comes up.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Natural. The music flows.
The mind wanders, that's its nature. Each time it does, I just notice where I am in the breath. If inhaling, I shift to I love myself. If exhaling, I shift to letting out whatever is in the mind and body.
Occasionally, I shift my attention to the light flowing in from above. Sometimes, I do that each time I inhale.
Before I know it, the seven minutes are up and the meditation is over.
There is something to this, the thought of light flowing into my head from galaxies and stars. The concept of light itself. Just like love, the subconscious has a positive association with light. Plants grow towards the light. As human beings, we crave light. We find sunrises and sunsets and a bright moon beautiful and calming.
Once again, there's no need to consciously create healing or anything positive. The subconscious takes care of it. All I have to do is give it the image - in this case, light; give it the thought - in this case, loving myself. It does the rest.
This is an intense practice because it is focused. But does it feel intense? No, quite peaceful, actually. I think that's what real emotional intensity is, one that creates peace and love and growth.
Instructions
Step 1: Put on music. Something soothing, gentle, preferably instrumental. A piece you have positive associations with.
Step 2: Sit with back against wall or window. Cross legs or stretch them out, whatever feels natural.
Step 3: Close eyes. Smile slowly. Imagine a beam of light pouring into your head from above.
Step 4: Breathe in, say to yourself in your mind, I love myself. Slowly. Be gentle with yourself.
Step 5: Breathe out and along with it, anything that arises. Any thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, fears, hopes, desires. Or nothing. Breathe it out. No judgment, no attachment to anything. Be kind to yourself.
Step 6: Repeat 4 and 5 until the music ends.
(When your attention wanders, notice it and smile. Smile at it as if it's a child doing what a child does. And with that smile, return to your breath. Step 4, step 5. Mind wanders, notice, smile kindly, return to step 4, step 5).
Step 7: When music ends, open your eyes slowly. Smile. Do it from the inside out. This is your time. This is purely yours.
Why music? Since I listen to the same piece each time, it now acts as an anchor, easily pulling me into a meditative state. A crutch perhaps, but a nice one.