The First Love: Reclaiming the Forgotten Commandment

In this episode, we dive deep into what might be the most overlooked truth in all of spiritual practice: you must be taught how to love yourself. Augustine got it wrong. So did many traditions that assume self-love is innate or automatic. I argue the opposite—self-love is a discipline, a mystery, and a prerequisite for any true love of God or neighbor. From the Shema to the Upanishads, from trauma healing to kenosis, we uncover how the love of self—rightly understood—is not vanity, but sacred charity. This is not self-help fluff. This is soul-deep recovery work. And it just might be the missing link in both East and West.