Why Won’t You Love Yourself?

BREATHE

All you have to do to destroy an individual is give them less stress than the amount necessary to trigger a growth response, or MORE stress than they can healthfully integrate. The healthy range is narrower than the range of environmental variation that supports human life. Enemies will generally destroy you by creating that stress, but also by denying it exists. Friends and family can destroy you by NOT challenging you enough, or allowing you to avoid responsibility for your life in healthy ways.

Beware of both.

Once you establish a Morning Ritual (10–20 minutes of movement, focus, positive emotional flooding and spoken affirmation), you’ll notice that there is a direct correlation between performing it and having a positive, productive day. If you journal it out, the connection becomes even clearer…but so will the realization that under pressure, it will likely be the very first thing you drop out (similar to dropping exercise or meditation when things get stressful).

You will know that you have progressed powerfully when stress makes it MORE likely to do your ritual, exercise, and/or meditation.

The question is: why does stress make it more likely to avoid doing the things that handle stress at the root? There may be endless answers, but one truth is that the Ego thinks it is you. Stress, properly handled, leads to growth, which challenges and even destroys the ego shell. This happens with challenges that rise to the level of a “Hero’s Journey” —…