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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Break Cycles, Find Peace, and Heal Your Relationships
How to Be the Love You Seek by Nicole LePera guides us through the journey of self-love and healing. It provides tools for transforming relationships by understanding and addressing our emotional patterns and unconscious behaviors.
You probably didn’t need LePera’s dark night of the soul story to know that early relationships are hugely influential. Even if you haven’t consciously made this connection, it’s likely you’ve subconsciously experienced it at some point or another.
Our way of relating to our parental figures and primary caregivers is called our conditioning or, as LePera terms it, our conditioned selves. As kids, these pivotal dynamics quickly taught us how to think, speak, and act to receive the love and acceptance every being inherently wants and needs.
You may be equally unsurprised by the implications of this conditioning: instinctually, our conditioned selves seek out relationships as adults that mirror the early ones we had as children. This is true even if the dynamics we had with our parental figures were dysfunctional. A blessing and a curse of being a human is that we neurobiologically tend toward familiarity – not necessarily functionality.
On one hand, this means that if our childhood relationships were safe and secure, we’re highly likely to reenact safe and secure dynamics as adults. The problem, however, is that few of us had primary caregivers who were well-regulated – who felt safe and secure themselves. As a result, most of us adopted maladaptive ways of navigating the world: patterns we then invariably repeat in our romantic relationships all these years later.
These patterns are popularly known as fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, and they describe how we grew to seek love and acceptance. In truth, we each act out our own unique blend depending on the nuances of our early conditioning. But unless our parental figures were particularly attuned, we’ve acquired some variation of this survival strategy.
It’s crucial to highlight here that although having unmet emotional needs as children wasn’t our fault, healing from this subtle trauma as adults is our responsibility. Fortunately, LePera has a roadmap for making this healing possible – one she followed herself and which has since guided many of her clients. You too can follow this roadmap, starting now!
How to Be the Love You Seek (2023) is part candid memoir, part practical manual to improving your romantic relationships. Supported by personal experience and patient case studies, it argues that deep inner work is the essential prerequisite to secure, loving outer relationships – and outlines the process to make this transformation possible.
How to Be the Love You Seek (2021) is a book that explores the power of self-love and guides readers on their journey to finding love within themselves. Here are three reasons why this book is worth reading:
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Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Get startedBlink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
What is the main message of How to Be the Love You Seek?
The main message of How to Be the Love You Seek is to cultivate self-love and create authentic relationships.
How long does it take to read How to Be the Love You Seek?
The reading time for How to Be the Love You Seek varies, but it typically takes several hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.
Is How to Be the Love You Seek a good book? Is it worth reading?
How to Be the Love You Seek is worth reading as it offers valuable insights on self-love and building meaningful connections.
Who is the author of How to Be the Love You Seek?
The author of How to Be the Love You Seek is Nicole LePera.