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.

Mindfulness & Happiness

How to Be the Love You Seek Book Summary - How to Be the Love You Seek Book explained in key points

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How to Be the Love You Seek summary

Name: How to Be the Love You Seek
Rating: 4.1 (98 reviews)
Author: Nicole LePera

Nicole LePera

Break Cycles, Find Peace, and Heal Your Relationships

4.1 (98 ratings)

16 mins

Topics

Mindful Loving Resolving Conflict Self-Help Happy Love Healthy Living

Table of Contents

How to Be the Love You Seek
Summary of 5 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Become the love you seek.

Although it certainly didn’t feel like it at the time, Nicole LePera’s “dark night of the soul” was the greatest gift she ever received.

Despite growing up in a family where her physical needs were met, and despite rarely going more than a handful of months without a romantic partner, LePera had never shared a genuine emotional connection with anyone. Not even, she quickly realized after her emotional breakdown, herself.

LePera had unconsciously spent her life trying to fill this void with someone or something, but – no matter how much she contorted herself into what she believed she “should” be and do – was always left aching with wanting. Feeling as alienated as she did from herself, her work as a clinical psychologist, and those around her, an emotional breakdown was almost inevitable.

Yet it was in this dark night of the soul that the penny dropped: if she ever hoped to connect deeply and authentically with another, she’d have to connect deeply and authentically with herself first – something she’d never done before.

This revelation was confronting, yes, but empowering too. It meant she no longer had to wait for someone else to fully see, know, and support her. She could – and needed to – model and embody the unconditional love and acceptance she so craved.

In the two years that followed her hitting rock bottom, LePera radically shifted how she understood and related to herself and, in turn, transformed her relationships with those around her. At the same time, she began introducing the self-healing process to clients, and found it frequently led to the same profound success she had personally experienced.

In this Blink, we’ll explore the three exercises central to LePera’s process – the practices of body, mind, and heart consciousness – and bookend these with summaries of the underpinning theory and research to make your self-healing journey comprehensive and complete.

This work isn’t easy, and results won’t magically appear overnight. But it’s an investment that will repay itself many times over if you’re willing to make it.

Ready to become the love you seek? Let’s get started.

Stories from the past

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!

Body consciousness

With a little theory in place, let’s jump ahead to put some of this knowledge into practice – starting in the context of our bodies.

When we have strong body consciousness, we can feel and fathom our body’s sensations. On the other hand, when our body consciousness is weak, we might not even realize what’s going on within our body – let alone understand what these sensations may be calling us to address.

Mind consciousness

Now that we’ve started aligning ourselves with the genuine wants and needs of our bodies, it’s time to do the same with our minds.

Everyone has an ego, and our egos have their favorite childhood stories. Contrary to popular belief, however, our goal isn’t to “kill” our ego. After all, the stories it created were only desperate attempts to protect our childhood selves. And while we probably don’t want to continue identifying with these old narratives, we can use their appearance as helpful signals – like a smoke alarm alerting us to a nearby fire. This is what it means to have strong mind consciousness: we’re aware of our ego’s favorite stories but are no longer their victim. In fact, we’re actively working to rewrite the script so our mind can serve us better in the future.

Heart consciousness

We’re now well underway with the realignment of our bodies and minds, so it’s time to turn to the final frontier: that of our hearts.

Strong heart consciousness is characterized by what scientists call heart-brain coherence, where our heart and brain operate in sync – effortlessly exchanging signals and messages between them. Our heart actually contains around 40,000 neurons, so it makes sense that we’d be at our most regulated when our “little” and “big” brains are integrated and intertwined.

Stories for the future

So, you’ve initiated the reconnection to your three centers of consciousness and are checking in with yourself a few times daily. At this point, you may be wondering how these practices will transform your romantic relationships as a result.

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately picked up the stress or tension palpable in the people or person there? If so, you may recall this happening at two levels: you consciously noticed the mood and subconsciously adopted it – even if you were relaxed and open when you walked in. The social synapse is responsible for this phenomenon, which, amazingly, enables us to communicate through biochemical, electrical, and energetic nonverbal signals.

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What is How to Be the Love You Seek about?

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 Review

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:

With its practical exercises and tools, it provides a roadmap for personal growth and transformation.
By combining psychological insights with spirituality and mindfulness, the book offers a comprehensive approach to self-love.
Through inspiring stories and relatable examples, it creates a connection with readers and brings the concepts of self-love to life.

Who should read How to Be the Love You Seek?

Anyone looking to improve their romantic relationship(s)
Individuals committed to moving past old wounds and trauma
People interested in self-development and personal growth

About the Author

Nicole LePera is an American psychologist and best-selling author, whose work focuses primarily on self-healing modalities of therapy. LePera has two previous books, How to Do the Work and How to Meet Your Self, and leads the #selfhealers community under her online moniker, The Holistic Psychologist.

Categories with How to Be the Love You Seek

Mindfulness & Happiness Personal Development Sex & Relationships

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