Loving Yourself - Softcover

Daphne Rose Kingma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8179925552 ISBN 13: 9788179925553

Publisher: Jaico Publishing House

Synopsis

All the self-help books and advice, all the therapy and support groups, even the most fabulous, successful career in the world won't really help at all--until we learn to love ourselves. In Loving Yourself, Daphne Kingma claims that until we practice loving ourselves--and it takes a lot of practice--we will never be able to love others fully and completely. She writes, "When we haven't learned how to love ourselves well, we keep getting stuck on this simple first rung of the ladder--not knowing how or how well to treat others, having problems with what we call boundaries, stumbling in the swamps of low self-esteem and thickets of self-loathing that derail us in our efforts to 'love others as we love ourselves'." For so many of us, loving ourselves is our greatest emotional problem. Kingma points out that self-love is not narcissism, egotism, greed, self-righteousness, self-involvement, stubbornness, or conceit--all of which have given genuine self-love a bad name. "Rather, it is the singing spring from which we become who we were--each one of us--most truly meant to be."
Reading Loving Yourself, the reader takes a journey to their selves--a journey of how they lost their selves, and thereby their ability to love their selves. Kingma names six life themes--including abandonment, neglect, and abuse--that help readers identify themes in their lives and decide what to do with these themes as they discover them.
No matter what the reader's wound or life story is, Kingma shows--with gentle patience and intelligent advice--how each of us can start to love ourselves through a simple four-step process:
1. Speaking out of our heart's desires, 2. Acting out to meet them, 3. Clearing out old patterns, and 4. Setting out on a new path.

About this title

About the Author:

Daphne Rose Kingma is a psychotherapist who has counseled couples and individuals to a deeper understanding and improvement of their relationships for more than 25 years. She has appeared on national television shows including Oprah and Sally Jessy Raphael and is the best-selling author of many books including True Love, Finding True Love, and Loving Yourself. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

From Publishers Weekly:

A therapist who has made frequent guest appearances on Oprah and whose previous three books have sold over 200,000 copies each, Kingma (The Future of Love) believes that "loving yourself is the greatest work you will do in this life." For Kingma, self-love not only contributes to better relationships and personal achievements, but enhances the ability to be compassionate and generous toward others. Negative childhood experiences, such as abandonment or abuse, that one had no control over contribute to persistent self-defeating feelings of low self-esteem that follow one into adulthood. All of this will be familiar to most readers, as will the four steps Kingma recommends for overcoming patterns of self-criticism and moving toward self-acceptance: mastering the ability to speak out honestly; taking actions that lead to growth; carving out one's own emotional space without others' interference; and "setting out" or focusing on a path beyond the self, via spiritual or other pursuits. What sets Kingma's work apart is that she almost unerringly gets the tone of affirmation right: she encourages without condescension, shares anecdotes without self-aggrandizement or sentimentality, and composes her sentences with care. The results make readers feel as if Kingma has anticipated their needsā€"exactly what one wants when receiving advice, especially when one has heard much of it before.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
• ISBN 10: 8179925552
• ISBN 13: 9788179925553
• Binding: Spiral-bound