Thread by @nickcammarata

Heuristic for if you have self-love (that I’ve seen a bunch of people reach!): walking around alone feels kind of like walking with someone you have a crush on

there’s emotional infohazard in sharing this stuff, since it hurts if you’re not there, but I think it’s important to know the incredible heights you’re capable of. Every one of us could have a bright and happy future if we figure out good and safe protocols for getting there

In fact it’s probably the exact same circuitry. That we’re wired to get into this state permanently with relative ease - that you can feel butterflies in your stomach because you’re about to spend time with yourself (!) - is a treasure future generations will reap

I’d also like to highlight (got a dm about this) that self love is not selfishness or narcissism. It’s literally just self + love. When you hold your baby and have unconditional compassion for them - it’s just that, but for yourself. It’s not about grandiosity

It’s also not self-care. Self love isnt taking a bath or doing your nails it’s just self + love and you can have it doing anything. Mothers still unconditional love their toddlers when they’re sick and poop everywhere

Can’t give you a detailed protocol but “all you need to do” (it’s hard) is find how to access your view of yourself stored in your emotional memory then trigger memory reconsolidation to make it plastic and change it. When it hardens it’ll be updated forever

Basically, your mental model for thinking about getting self-love shouldn’t be taking a bath, it should be neurosurgery

And I’m extremely confident we can all get there. Direct electrical stimulation of the reward system has a 100% cure rate on depression, and emotional memory really does set how you feel about things, and one of those things is you

Lastly, I def don’t know everyone who achieved this, but I personally don’t know anyone who got there without making it a targeted goal and aiming right at it with a high tolerance for risk. It might not be worth it for you to try- and humanity should work hard to make it safer

But when they do, it’s usually a broad-spectrum cure to most of their problems, which melt, though they don’t tell people about it bc it feels unfair (her point here). As humanity if we get practically everything wrong but get just this one thing right, our future will be bright