I love Myself!

I love myself!

At the request of my life coach I bought a book this week called “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” by Kamal Ravikant.  I bought this book like so many other self-help books, seven at last count of iBooks and committed that I would read it.   He told me it was short and I was glad because of the seven I have on my iBooks I have only listened to one start to finish. 

Most of the time non-fiction books bore me terribly.   I can’t help it.  When I listen to a story I want to get lost in some fantasy.  I think my life coach told me I was a passenger in these stories and I was always looking searching for the place I belonged.  I couldn’t disagree.  It was true.  I often find myself wondering into other realities with the characters from TV or from movies.  Hell most people didn’t cry when Eddie Dean died but I did.  Most people are so emotionally invested in Jon Snow that they wake up in the middle of the night worried about him.  I try to lose myself in these places because I perceive them as being better than the place where I am and with whom I am.

It is probably the same reason that I have created worlds and characters in those worlds.  They always lead far more interesting lives than the one I do.  They do great things and accomplish things most people could only imagine.  I think in my worlds I have won Oscars, Grammy’s, World Series, Super Bowls, the Indy 500, the Rose Bowl, the College World Series, I ended gang related violence in the US by writing a healing song for the world, and I am sure I ended nuclear war, aids, and cancer along the way but the list is infinite as are my dreams. 

As I travel in and out of these worlds and places I always try to find the place where I belong.  I am never present in my own body or mind.  I am searching, searching, always searching for something greater than what I am.  It is probably why I constantly find myself asking myself if I was not fat, then what am I?  

So today, two days later than I was supposed to start it, I put on this book written and read by Kamal Ravikant with very little hope for what it would have to tell me.  It is a sort read, or listens in this car, about 56 minutes long and after starting it twice in the car this week, I went and sat in the back yard with the Kona Bear and had me a listen.  I was fucking blown away.  “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It” what a fantastic read or listen in this case but I am going to buy a hard copy to have on hand.

The message is very simple but so powerful and almost too good to be true.  As a matter of fact I have already listened to it a second time while I was doing my choirs.  I went to his website and listened to a talk her gave, about an 18 minute speech and the message is very clear to me.  Love yourself.  He likens love to magic and working on the subconscious and I dig that a lot.  I am going to look into some of his other books because the message is so simple yet powerful to me. 

Maybe because I have spent the years between 17 and 41 looking for meaning and looking for something to believe.  The whole time I know the one true thing to believe is me.  However, I am afraid to take the plunge.  I am afraid to let my guard down and let love wash through me and over and replace the hate, the fear, the insecurity, the anger, and self-loathing.  This could all be overcome if I could just love myself.  

So, immediately started walking around and everything I did today I repeated in my head one very simple mantra “I love myself!”  I was washing the dishes and on an endless loop in my head was “I love myself!”  I was tossing the ball to Kona Bear and again and again the chorus in my head was “I love myself!”

Each time I said it, I found myself wanting to believe it, needing to believe it!  However, trying to reprogram the subconscious after 41 years of abuse and hate isn’t easy.

I would tell myself “I love myself!” and myself would tell me back but you are a disgusting fat body private Burkle, I answered with “I love myself!”

I would say “I love myself!” and myself would respond but you are still fat, single, and along, and I would repeat “I love myself!”

I would tell myself “I love myself!” and myself would say but you can barely walk ten minutes because you have destroyed your body, and I would repeat “I love myself!”

The bad gunky kept coming up, but I kept repeating it.  I want to make a pledge here and now that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, that as of now, “I love myself!” and not matter that  am sitting her envisioning my readers rolling their eyes saying oh here we go again, Billy b is dreaming and hopeful again, I keep telling myself, “I love myself!”  I am trying to bulldoze through it and I know everything I say from this point forward won’t be all roses and butterflies.  I know tomorrow I could be spewing hate filled obscenities to myself.  I know I might wake up depressed but I am not going to hold back.  I am going to tell myself “I love myself!”  I am going to have ups and downs, strikes, and gutters!  “I love myself!”  However, it matters not because I am forging a path.  A path forward and that is what I need. 

I woke up this a.m. at 10:30 and I wanted to stay in bed.  I had lunch plans with Mana an old friend and I wanted to blow them off. I wanted to sleep.  I didn’t care that puppy had been in the crate going on 9 hours.  I just wanted to stay there.  I felt fat.  I felt so huge.  I keep making bad food choices and I just felt so huge when I woke up. 

However love for puppy got me out of bed, I needed to let her outside and to give her some yummies.  I need to stop being a hermit and go and see one of my loved ones.  I needed to get up and listen to this book and learn that “I love myself!”  I don’t feel fat right now.  I don’t feel tired or depressed.  I feel energized and ready.  I have food and meals to prep tomorrow and I am excited about that.  I am going to eat real organic food this week and that excites me! 

I am really excited right now!  This will ebb and flow.  These things always do.  Life is a roller coaster and that is part of what makes it amazing.  I am learning to fix my mind.  I have no doubt once I fix my mind the body will follow.  The weight will go away.  Once I put love into the world the world will love me back. 

It does almost sound too easy doesn’t?  It sounds like mumbo jumbo or well magic and I guess that is what it is.  If laughter is a magical healing power and it is, then what is love?  It is something on a higher and different plane all together.  I have known for a long time I have so much love to give.  However, I keep hidden away and buried because for some reason I think my love is tainted and not worthy of being in the world.  That is crazy talk and it is non-sense from a person who didn’t want to believe in himself.   

I have often said what would a Billy b who loved himself be like?  What could he accomplish?  The truth is we don’t know because we have never seen it.  However, I believe the sky and the universe is the absolute limit?  I have done so much handicapped by my own my and limitations.  Well take off the blinders and rise above it all.  As I have often said “Let the Black Reaper rise!” don’t know why I call myself the Black Reaper other than he is one cool character and now so am I. 

I love myself!  I think I am giving off the vibe too, Kona Koffee just came over and gave me the good kisses (liked my face) and snuggled up to me.  I wonder if she knows what an angel she is to me.  I tell her all the time.  I love her.  However, more importantly from here on out till the end “I love myself!”