What is my book REALLY about?

Introducing 'The Path to Self-Love'

The time is finally here for me to tell you what my book is REALLY about.
Like, really, truly, honestly.

I’m not great with titles. I never have been. So, the title ‘The Path to Self-Love’ came later. After the book was created. Written. Completed. The title was suggested by one of the exceptional editors of this book and —I can’t lie— it fits in so well with the entire theme of the book. This idea that when you pick up my book, you’re on/starting/or thinking to go on a journey to self-love.

Each one of us is on an individual self-love journey.

Some of us seem to have ‘figured it out’, some of us are actively attempting to practise it with the end goal to improve our life —but others are still trying to understand self-love. You’re trying to come to terms with what it means to love and respect yourself —especially when you’re healing. Especially when you’re going through a difficult time. Especially when you’re in the highs and lows of existence.

Self-love can be hard. It can be so, so hard. And not many of us are able to figure out why.

Why is it so hard to practise self-love?

Why is it so difficult to walk on a self-love journey?

And to get the results. Feel happier. More joyful. Content. Loved.

When I was on one of my healing journeys —I’ve been on two major healing journeys, and other smaller ones— I was struggling a lot with my self-worth. I had low self-esteem and low mood. I was depressed. In a lot of pain. I was just about surviving. Just about making it through one more day.

My heart kept pulsing with an ache that I couldn’t get rid of.

Existence was heavy on my chest.

Smiling was like a knife forcing my cheeks apart.

And love? Love was my biggest enemy.

But months of agonizing pain later —and I was fed up. I wanted to heal. I wanted to move on. I wanted to be happy again.

So, I started practising self-love. Not self-love in the way that I understand it now but self-love in the way that I had witnessed it back then —8 years ago.

I joined the gym and went on a ‘healthy diet’. I went on daily walks, saw my friends for lunch or coffee and invested a lot of time in various self-care practices that were intended to improve my life, raise my mood, and take care of my mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing.

But I still didn’t feel happy. I still didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I still couldn’t reach softer, gentler placesin the healing journeys that I was on.

At this point —I started looking more closely at self-love. I read online journals and articles. I continued observing the kind of self-care that is easily recognizable and tried to understand just what it was about those forms of self-care that just seemed to ‘work’ for other people but weren’t working for me.

After weeks and months of looking into self-love practices and how to engage in self-love in a way that was healing —I finally figured it out. I finally came across ‘tough self-love’. When I started practising self-love in this way —my life truly changed for the best.

But ‘The Path to Self-Love’ isn’t a result of this one epiphany. It’s a consequence of decades of me healing from a lifelong trauma that shook the foundation of my existence —my mum’s death.

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Losing a parent is like losing a limb, and grief can take a form of its own —where it affects every area of your life, infecting your happiness like a disease. But losing a parent when you’re as young as 4, and in the early stages of your development —it’s another battle altogether. And this battle has been life-long.

I’ve learned a lot while walking on this healing journey, and those lessons have shaped me, changed me, allowed me to value my life and my loved ones more, and they’ve taught me the most important thing of all —the power of self-love in healing your life, aiding you with the skills to better manage your relationships, and helping you manifest the happiness that you deserve.

‘The Path to Self-Love’ is about this, and so, so much more.

This book is filled with invaluable learnings, tips and tools on how to better manage your relationships, life advice on balancing your self-love journey, setting boundaries, dealing with grief, grasping what ‘tough’ and ‘easy’ self-love mean, coming to terms with the various blocks to your healing and self-love journey —and so, so much more.

I am living proof that you can use self-love as a helpful, beautiful and magical tool in your healing journey. And healing is something that we do all the time. Healing is living. Living is healing. And I will continue to speak about self-love in this way. I will continue to share my personal stories and anecdotes, and the lessons that I’ve learned so that I can make a small positive change in your healing journeys in some way.

Self-love is truly life-changing. But not in the way that social media portrays it. Not in the way that we all understand it. But in the way that we should understand it. In the way that we should practise it.

And for that —you have to read the book.

For that —you need to pick up ‘The Path to Self-Love’.

For that —you need to take a chance on me, on this book, and on yourself.

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‘The Path to Self-Love’ is being published worldwide by Penguin Random House, one of the most prominent publishing houses in the world, on the 11th and 13th of June 2024. They saw something in the book, in its potential, which I hope that you see too. And the biggest way that you can support me, the book and our healing together is by pre-ordering a copy.

As you know, pre-orders make the biggest difference. They truly change a book’s life-time and an author’s future, so —if you pre-ordered, it would mean the absolute world to me. But not just that, I would also love to give you a gift if you pre-order my book.

Click here to claim your gift today.

We’re also hosting a beautiful, enchanting Book Launch in London on 20th June at 7PM —but it’s not just a launch. Hosted by the tremendously talented Salma El-Wardany, there will be some incredibly insightful conversations about self-love, alongside this we have some exceptionally talented performers who will grace the stage with healing poetry and soulful music.

Both Jaspreet Kaur and Amrit Kaur are stupendously talented, and I’m so excited to share the stage with them for my book launch. All the links have been shared below, your continuous love and support means the world to me. Thank you for giving my art space xx

This entire journey wouldn’t be complete without any of you. I hope that I can continue to write healing words that help you, just as you have helped heal me with your compassion and kindness over the years.

May this book change your life the way that it changed mine.

Love,

Ruby Dhal xx