What Does It Mean to Love Yourself? | Awakening Into Life

What Does It Mean? To Love Yourself?

A Guide to Awareness, Nervous System Healing, and the Plasticity of Self

About the Book

This book is an invitation.

Not into a program, not into a belief system — but into the quiet, honest investigation of your own life.

It asks a single question:

Do you live like someone who truly loves themselves?

And if not, why not? What stands in the way? Where does your suffering actually come from? And what would it look like to return home to yourself?

What This Book Explores

Drawing on more than ten thousand years of contemplative wisdom—the inner science of awareness that mystics and meditators have refined across every culture—alongside modern trauma theory, neuroscience, somatic psychology, and lived human experience, this book explores:

  • Why we suffer
  • Why we get stuck repeating the same patterns
  • How trauma shapes identity, perception, and emotion
  • The protective genius of the nervous system
  • What self-love actually means
  • How healing unfolds when we stop fighting ourselves
  • How responsibility and surrender work together
  • How freedom becomes possible

This is not a self-help book.
It is a mirror — a way of seeing yourself clearly.

What You'll Find Inside

  • Short, grounded chapters designed to be sat with, not rushed
  • Clinical clarity woven with contemplative insight
  • A map of suffering that makes sense
  • A path toward healing that doesn't rely on willpower
  • A deeper understanding of the self, mind, body, and Being
  • A compassionate lens for your own humanity

Read the Book

Read it slowly. Read it honestly. Read it the way you might sit with a trusted friend who's speaking something true.

Read the Book

© 2025 Awakening Into Life | Bradley Bemis, MS, LPC, ADDC, NMIT, NCC, CLC

Guiding clients beyond symptom relief toward self-compassion, inner transformation, embodied wisdom, and authentic freedom.