How to be Love(d)

What if the love you’ve been chasing your whole life isn’t something to find but something to become? In How to Be Love(d): Simple Truths for Going Easier on Yourself, Embracing Imperfection & Loving Your Way to a Better Life, Humble The Poet (born Kanwer Singh) proposes that love isn’t a destination or a reward, but a daily practice—a way of living that starts with you. He argues that real transformation happens when you stop striving to be loved and start learning how to be love itself.

At its heart, this book dismantles the myths about love that keep us unfulfilled and disconnected—the lie that we must earn love through perfection, sacrifice, or validation from others. Instead, Humble shows that love is not something others give us; it’s an energy that already flows within. Our job is to clear the blockages—fear, ego, insecurity, and shame—that keep it from circulating freely.

From Seeking to Realizing Love

Humble opens with raw personal stories—breakups, career setbacks, disappointments—that expose how chasing external approval brought him pain. Like many people, he confused attention, validation, and attraction with love. But through painful introspection, he learned that love isn’t found in approval or achievement but in authenticity. The first chapters redefine love as both a verb and an energy. It’s not something you receive; it’s something you generate and share. “Love doesn’t have to be earned or found,” he writes, “it just has to be realized.”

From there, the book frames love as a journey inward. The author urges readers to drop the outdated scripts fed by fairy tales, social media, and cultural conditioning—the beliefs that make us think love comes only after we’re flawless, rich, or chosen. Love, he insists, is within reach to anyone willing to listen, learn, and unlearn.

Unlearning: Clearing the Path

Humble sees personal growth as the process of "unlearning" what gets in love’s way. Ego is the first culprit. In vivid analogies drawn from his Sikh upbringing, he explains that ego separates “you” from “we.” When you serve ego, love dries up; when you release it, love overflows. Other blockages—like perfectionism, secrecy, judgment, and fear—are explored through stories both painful and humorous, such as holding grudges over dog-puke-on-the-rug moments or overexplaining yourself to be liked. He reminds readers that awareness, not avoidance, is the antidote. Awareness turns weakness into a doorway.

Throughout the book, Humble uses playful language to pull you in (“shut the fuck up and listen,” he says in a chapter on communication) but then lands gentle truths underneath the profanity. The consistent message: stop overengineering love and start practicing its simplest expressions—trust, forgiveness, honesty, listening, and presence. These are muscles to strengthen, not ideals to chase.

Self-Love as the Foundation

A major portion of the book centers on self-love, which Humble calls “being your own nurturing parent.” He connects our adult struggles with love to the wounds of childhood—the attention we didn’t get, the conditional affection that made us perform for approval, the silence we mistook for safety. Healing begins when you learn to give yourself what you’ve been outsourcing to others: kindness, validation, nurturing. This is echoed by thinkers like bell hooks in All About Love and Brené Brown in The Gifts of Imperfection—self-acceptance is not indulgence; it’s preparation for compassion toward others.

Self-love, Humble writes, isn’t about bubble baths or mantras. It’s being the friend, the parent, and the coach your inner child needed. When you stop treating yourself as a problem to fix and start treating yourself as someone worthy of care, you make yourself available for love to flow through you.

Love in Relationships

After grounding readers in self-love, Humble extends the lesson outward: we bring to others only what we practice within. The latter half of the book explores romantic and platonic relationships—how to build interdependence instead of codependence, how to communicate with empathy, and how to know when to walk away. He flips common ideas—"nice guys finish last," "jealousy means love," "love conquers all"—and replaces them with patient, real-world wisdom. Love is not a prize or a fix; it’s a process of showing up honestly, communicating clearly, and respecting boundaries—yours and theirs.

To love, he emphasizes, is not to rescue or control but to witness and choose—again and again. Relationships don’t complete us; they reflect us. Learning to close harmful pathways (like toxic relationships) is as loving as nurturing healthy ones. Whether through heartbreak stories (“Diamonds for Paperweights”) or quiet truths (“Listening Is Love”), Humble invites you to stop chasing perfect people and instead build imperfect but genuine connections.

Why This Matters Now

In a world obsessed with achievement, online validation, and fleeting pleasure, Humble’s argument that “love is realized, not earned” is radical. He blends ancient Sikh principles with modern therapy, mindfulness, and pop-culture relatability. His tone is equal parts monk and stand-up comic, mixing self-deprecating confession (“I’m a shitty listener”) with tough love (“Stop using love to fix people who don’t want to heal”).

Ultimately, How to Be Love(d) reminds readers that love isn’t something we wait for; it’s something we create daily through our choices—to forgive, to listen, to be honest, to let go, and to start again. Self-acceptance widens the roads love travels on, and when we live love, rather than seek it, connection becomes inevitable.

“It’s not a labor of love,” Humble writes near the end, “but a labor to love.”

He positions this book not as a how-to guide but a field manual: for unlearning, forgiving, and returning to what we already are. Love isn’t lost; it’s simply waiting for us to remember ourselves.

One of Humble The Poet’s loudest messages is that love has no chance to take root in the soil of perfectionism. The more we demand that life, people, or ourselves be flawless, the less love can flow. In chapters like “Perfect Is the Enemy of Love” and “Love and Ego Won’t Hold Hands,” he strips down the illusions that keep us anxious and disconnected.

The Prison of Perfection

Perfection, Humble argues, is an ego-driven fantasy that promises worthiness once we become ideal. But striving to be the “perfect” lover, parent, or human means tying love to achievement. He reminds us that even Beyoncé falls down stairs and that your quirks—whether bad posture, acne, or mood swings—don’t disqualify you from love. They make you real. Perfection cuts you off from life’s texture, and without imperfection, love has nothing to anchor itself to.

Ego: The Barrier Between You and We

Drawing on Sikh philosophy, Humble describes ego as a barrier separating “I” from “Us.” Ego thrives on comparison, competition, and control—it needs you to win for someone else to lose. Love, meanwhile, thrives on connection. The ego speaks the language of fear; love speaks the language of trust. He likens the ego to a toddler throwing tantrums for attention: impulsive, insecure, and always hungry. “Our ego,” he writes, “is that little toddler inside demanding to be fed.” The cure isn’t self-hate but awareness; once seen, ego’s power fades.

In practice, dissolving ego looks like humility—serving others, listening deeply, and choosing connection over control. Spiritual traditions from Sikhism to Buddhism echo this: love dissolves the illusion of separateness. Modern thinkers like Eckhart Tolle would agree: to live in love, you must die to ego.

Practicing Imperfection

Humble encourages you to see self-acceptance as continual training. That means forgiving yourself when you fall short, laughing at your own flaws, and allowing vulnerability as part of your daily existence. He introduces the notion that progress—not perfection—is love’s best friend. Each act of patience, each moment you choose compassion over criticism, is a renovation of love’s house.

“Love melts the ego,” he writes, because the more you risk being imperfect, the more human—and therefore lovable—you become. When you stop protecting your image and start protecting your peace, love naturally takes your side.

In Humble’s framework, self-love is not self-indulgence—it’s self-parenting. We can’t give from an empty well, so learning to love ourselves is learning to fill our own reservoir. Across chapters like “Loving Yourself Is Being Your Own Nurturing Parent,” “Be Kind to Your Inner Critic,” and “Self-Care Is Not Always Self-Love,” he replaces the vague slogans of self-esteem culture with actionable compassion.

Becoming Your Own Parent

Most of our hunger for love, Humble says, originates in the love we wanted as children but never received. Whether it was neglect, constant comparison, or conditional praise, we internalized “I must earn love.” The antidote is to become the parent we needed: gentle, attentive, affirming. He even recommends writing letters to yourself from that parental voice, hugging yourself, or practicing self-havening—formally tending to your emotions with touch and care.

Replacing Criticism with Compassion

Your inner voice is often the ghost of someone else’s expectations—a teacher, parent, or partner. Instead of silencing it, Humble suggests talking back to it kindly. When the critic says “You’re wasting time,” answer, “I hear you, but rest is part of healing.” When it says “You’re not enough,” respond, “I’m enough as I am.” By addressing rather than battling the inner critic, you transform guilt into guidance. Louise Hay’s advice—“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked; try approving of yourself and see what happens”—frames this perfectly, and Humble echoes it through humor rather than therapy-speak.

Beyond Bubble Baths: True Self-Love

Self-care is surface-level maintenance; self-love is deep acceptance. Going to the gym or getting facials only helps when it stems from love, not shame. Humble writes, “Self-care won’t make you love yourself; it should come from the fact that you already do.” Real self-love is choosing honesty, discipline, rest, and forgiveness—all the things that make you proud of yourself privately, not just presentable publicly.

When you practice self-love daily, you stop begging others for scraps of validation. You become your own safe place—and that radiance draws true love in, naturally.

One of Humble’s recurring lessons is that love is not what you say—it’s how well you listen, how honestly you live, and how fully you show up. Good intentions don’t sustain relationships; good attention does. Through vulnerable storytelling and humor, he spells out what this looks like in action.

Listening Is Love

In “Listening Is Love,” Humble confesses to being a “shitty listener”—the kind who listens to debate, not understand. Listening, he learns, is the purest gift of love: it says, “You matter enough for me to stop thinking about myself.” He lays out nine tips to become a generous listener: listen with your whole being, paraphrase to ensure understanding, ask questions, and silence your “agenda” to talk. Listening, he says, is meditation with another person as the mantra.

The Courage of Honesty

In “Is Honesty a Pathway to Love?” he experiments with radical honesty. While truth-telling can alienate those unready to hear it, he discovers that honesty, even imperfectly delivered, cleanses the soul. Lies—even polite ones—breed resentment. He reframes honesty not as brutal transparency but as alignment: do your words, values, and actions match? When they do, you attract others who can meet you there. “Honesty clears the mind,” he writes, “and the clearer the mind, the more love can flow.”

Presence over Performance

Finally, Humble identifies presence as love’s master key. “Being there” means putting away your phone, slowing time, and making someone the center of your attention. This presence is contagious; it means you also learn to be present with yourself, noticing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. It turns conversation into communion. In a distracted age, choosing presence is an act of rebellion—and affection.

When honesty grounds you, and listening anchors you, you stop needing to force love. Love arrives on the frequency of your presence.

What separates fleeting infatuation from lasting connection? For Humble The Poet, it’s emotional maturity: the ability to handle discomfort, own your truth, and feel your pain without letting it define you. Love, he insists, isn’t avoiding hard emotions—it’s learning to sit with them and grow stronger through them.

Learning from Pain

In “Love Is Sitting with Pain” and “Love Is Feeling It All,” he shares how avoiding pain only magnifies it. His upbringing taught him to “suck it up,” but that restraint turned into numbness. Real empathy comes only from embracing your wounds rather than hiding them. His description of magic-mushroom ceremonies—vomit, panic, and revelation—translates into the idea that pain is not poison; it’s unprocessed truth. Sitting with suffering builds resilience and opens space for love to breathe.

Breaking Cycles

Many of our toxic relationship habits, he explains, are survival mechanisms from childhood. We recreate familiar pain because comfort often masquerades as love. “Self-sabotage,” he writes, “is picking familiar misery over unfamiliar happiness.” The way out is awareness and small, deliberate change—keeping one foot in the old world while stepping into the new. Healing takes patience, not drama.

Forgiveness as Freedom

Forgiveness, he says, isn’t letting others off the hook—it’s setting yourself free. Writing your regrets on paper and burning them, or saying aloud “I forgive you,” transforms resentment into movement. This echoes Desmond Tutu’s definition of forgiveness as a “love language of liberty.” Love flows again where grudges once clogged it.

Emotional maturity, then, is not the absence of pain but conscious partnership with it. You love better when you know sadness intimately, yet do not fear it.

Humble spends the second half of the book redefining relationships—not as romantic fairy tales, but as living ecosystems. Love is not ownership; it’s respect for boundaries. “To love with your eyes open,” he writes, “is to see reality clearly and choose kindness anyway.”

From Codependence to Interdependence

In “Interdependent Relationships > Codependent Relationships,” Humble dismantles the myth that love means merging into one. Codependence is “fix me, save me, validate me,” a cycle of need and guilt that suffocates everyone involved. Interdependence, by contrast, is two whole people choosing togetherness without control. This concept mirrors psychologist Esther Perel’s description of erotic intelligence: balancing closeness and autonomy. Love without freedom is imprisonment; freedom without love is isolation. Healthy love honors both.

Boundaries and Clarity

In “Walls and Windows,” Humble borrows therapist Shirley Glass’s research on infidelity to illustrate how relationships crumble when we build windows to outsiders instead of each other. Emotional cheating begins when you give someone else the openness your partner deserves. Boundaries, he writes, are the architecture of love; they define where safety lives. Similarly, in “Mixed Signals Mean No,” he reminds readers to stop mistaking ambiguity for potential. “Hope plus confusion,” he writes, “is a dangerous mix.” If actions and words misalign, believe the actions.

When to Walk Away

Letting go is also love. In “When to Close Pathways of Love,” he offers a checklist of emotional red flags—feeling small, anxious, hidden, or drained. The defining question: “How do they make me feel about myself?” Leaving isn’t failure; it’s self-respect. As he puts it, “We can’t lose ourselves trying to keep others around.”

Healthy relationships, then, are less about finding “the one” and more about co-creating safe spaces where both people can evolve. Love rooted in freedom can last beyond infatuation—it becomes fuel, not glue.

Ironically, many people are better at giving love than receiving it. Humble confronts this imbalance in “Love Needs to Be Received” and connects it to his central theme of worthiness. You can’t experience the love that surrounds you if you believe you don’t deserve it.

The Art of Receiving

Humble confesses to rejecting compliments, affection, and support because of guilt and self-doubt. Receiving love, he says, is scarier than giving it—it demands vulnerability. When you say “thank you, I receive that,” you acknowledge that you matter. Receiving doesn’t mean dependency; it’s cooperation in love’s ecosystem. It lets others love you back, deepening both hearts. This resonates with psychologist John Welwood’s line: “Receiving love is more threatening than giving it.”

Letting Go with Grace

Equally essential is learning to release what doesn’t serve you. In the book’s emotional finale, “A Broken Heart Is an Open Heart,” Humble meditates on the necessity of heartbreak. Pain, he writes, is what carves us hollow enough to hold more love. To resist loss is to freeze life; to accept it is to expand. He likens hearts to work boots, not glass souvenirs—meant to get scuffed, not kept pristine.

Receiving and releasing form love’s breathing rhythm. Each inhale welcomes affection and support; each exhale forgives and releases attachment. Learning both is how we keep love alive long after others leave.

In his closing reflections, Humble reframes love as a lifelong spiritual practice—measured not by romance or reputation but by awareness and daily action. Across 62 short, fiery chapters, he reminds us that love is less about feeling and more about how we live.

Love Is Verb, Not Noun

Humble urges readers to shift from seeking love to doing love. Acts of patience, gratitude, and forgiveness multiply love, even if no one notices. Love is the sum of consistent small actions—listening, keeping promises, saying no when necessary, respecting yourself. It’s not found but practiced. Echoing Thich Nhat Hanh, he shows that love, like mindfulness, deepens through attention.

Every Relationship as a Mirror

Each person you encounter reveals your capacity to love or your fear of it. Those who challenge you expose the parts still unloved. Heartbreak, jealousy, or irritation become opportunities to expand. In this sense, love is a school, not a fairy tale. Every experience trains you to listen better, to forgive sooner, and to choose peace over pride.

The Everyday Practice

Ultimately, Humble wants you to leave not with declarations but disciplines. Create rituals that nourish love: journal to process pain, sit in silence, tell the truth faster, reach out first, laugh often. Choose courage over comfort. See progress, not perfection, as evidence you’re growing. “Love,” he closes, “requires sacrifice—the death of who we were, so we can make space for who we’re becoming.”

To be love, not just be loved, is to live awake—to let awareness soften into kindness every single day.