The Daily Stoic - The Vow - From Kamal Ravikant's “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" Pt. 2

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

This episode comes out for free on 10/9/2022Today’s episode features an excerpt from Kamal Ravikant’s book “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It" provided by Harper Audio. The book is a collection of Kamal’s writings on overcoming depression and living a happier life. This second part talks about the applicable practices that Kamal used to improve his life during a dark time.📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, from the Stoic texts, audio books that you like here recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening. of life. Thank you for listening. or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. You might have heard of Kamal Ravakant. Well, as it happens, we were just in the middle

of excerpting his book, which I have raved about. Love yourself, like your life depends on it. Steve Hanselman, my agent, co-author, and translator on The Daily Stoke, was the literary agent who sold what was originally a self-published book for a new edition with Harper Collins and he helped set this up. Today's episode is an excerpt published by Harper Audio of Kamal's book, Love Yourself, Like Your Life depends on it. The book's a collection of Kamal's writings on

overcoming depression, living a happier life, focusing on self-care and mental health. I'm going to give you one of my favorite samples of that, which I think you'll really enjoy and is very much around the specific stoke practice of overcoming anxiety. You can pick up, love yourself like your life depends on it at the painted porch, thepaintedporge.com, anywhere books are sold, and you can get the audio book published by Harper Audio

on Audible and anywhere you get your e-books. and anywhere you get your e-books. One, mental loop. I sit at my desk, San Francisco Sparco, through the large bedroom windows, a Coca-Cola sign blinks off, then rebuild itself, one letter at a time.

I see cars on Market Street, red tail lights. The famous tower over Twin Peaks is swallowed up by the night, hidden by fog. If you were to open up my head at this moment and peer within, you'd find yourself asking for the thick sudden drawl. Does this boy not have an imagination? There's only one thought running through my head. I love myself. 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, and 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 they are thinking. Not true. Most of the time, we are remembering, we are reliving memories, we are 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 day 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 and 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 create the groups, 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 because it deepens a group faster than anything. Feel the thought, front it again and again. Feel it, run it. But 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 group 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 focus commitment.

Why it must be a practice. Forget demolishing the groups of the past. What you're creating is a new group so deep, so powerful that your thoughts would automatically flow down this one. It takes time, sure. It 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 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? 2. 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 severed my back against a wall, put on my headphones, listened to the music, and imagined galaxies and stars in the universe above. I imagine all the life 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 this 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 that thought of life flowing into my head from galaxies and stars. The concept of light itself. Just like love, the subconscious is a positive association with light. Plants go toward the light. As human beings we crave light.

You 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, when it creates peace and love and growth. Instructions. Step 1. Put on music. Something soothing, gentle, preferably instrumental. A piece that makes you feel good. Step 2.

Sivit your back against a wall or window. Cross your legs or stretch them out, whatever feels natural. Step 3. Close your 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 four and five until the music ends. If your attention wanders, notice it in smile. Smile at it as if it's a child doing what a child does. And with that smile, return to your breath. Step 7. When the 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 listened to the same piece of music each time, it now acts as an anchor, easily pulling me into a meditative state. A crutch perhaps, but a nice one. Do this meditation consistently. You will notice the magic that occurs.

Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and Banity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air, from the usual Wall Street buffs with his

casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings. But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse, and SPF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondery comes spellcaster a new six-part Docu series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder Sam Beckman Fried follow spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts a prime members you can listen to episodes the Amazon Music app today. Set a timer for five minutes. Step two, stand in front of a mirror, nose a few inches away. Relax. Breathe. Step three, look into your eyes.

It sometimes helps to focus on just one. If so, try your left eye. Breathe slowly, naturally, until you develop a rhythm. Step 4. Looking into your eyes, say, I love myself. Whether you believe it that moment or not is an important. What's important is you saying it to yourself, looking into your eyes, where there is no escape from the truth, and ultimately, the truth is loving yourself. Step 5. Repeat, I love myself gently,

pausing occasionally to watch your eyes. When the five minutes are up, smile. You've just communicated the truth to yourself in a deep visceral way, in a way the mind cannot escape. If anyone ever looked in your eyes knowing that you loved them, this is what they saw. Give yourself the same gift. Four. One question. It's easy to say I love myself, I 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 love myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this? The answer always wasn't no. It worked beautifully, because I had 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, I love myself. Discussion is deceptively simple in its power. It 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. Your mind and life have no choice but to follow.

Thought. If we are made of atoms and molecules, and they in turn for smaller particles that are empty space and energy, then what are we? Are we are thoughts? I recatch your mind in a mental loop, replaying some old story and old hurt, the same pattern. Who are you? The thought of the observer of the thought. If you're the observer, then what is the thought? Or are you a thought observing another thought? Perhaps we're just biochemical storms within synaptic connections

in a brain that evolved over millions of years Or maybe there's an observer a deeper self No proof by the way I'm fine with not knowing I enjoy thinking about it, but mainly to remind myself that ultimately Everything is theory. I care about what works what creates magic in my life This I know, the mind, left to itself, repeats the same stories, the same loops, mostly ones that don't serve us.

So what's practical, what's transformative, is to consciously choose a thought, then practice it again and again, with emotion, with feeling, with acceptance. Lay down the synaptic pathways until the mind starts playing it automatically. Do this with enough intensity over time and the mind will have no choice. That's how it operates. Where do you think your original loops came from? The goal, if there is one, is to practice until a thought you chose becomes a primary

loop, until it becomes a filter through which you view life, then practice some more. Sounds like work, perhaps, but the nature of mind is thought. Choose one that transforms you, makes your life sing. The one I found, I love myself, it's the most powerful one I know. You might discover another. Regardless, please do it. It is worth it. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa.

The Stoa, Poquile, the Painted Porch in ancient Athens. Obviously we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the Stoa. We're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You can talk about like today's episode. You can talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with

all these people who are using Stoicism to be better in their actual real lives. You get more daily stoke meditations over the weekend, just for the daily stoke life members, quarterly Q&A's with me, cloth bound edition of our best of meditations, plus a whole bunch of other stuff, including discounts, and this is the best part. All our daily stoke courses and challenges totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our new year, new you challenge. We'd love to have you join us. There's a two week trial, totally for free. Check it out at dailystokelife.com. comp. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.