He left, and I was sure it meant I was completely unlovable.

She trashed my locker at school and then watched with her new friends, laughing hysterically. I fought back tears. I was clearly not lovable.

My mom kicked me out of the house at 17—and that sort of sealed the deal on my unlovability.

I could keep going, but I’ll stop there.

I don’t want to totally depress you because there’s a beautiful ending to this tragic beginning. Over the years, I had amassed plenty of evidence to indicate that not only was I not worthy of love, I was even, possibly, totally unlovable.

And so, it became my mission to sort it all out.

Was I truly unlovable? Or did I simply have the worst luck in the world when it came to parents, friends, and romantic partners?

I started out desperately wanting to prove I was lovable. And so, like many of us do, I became a classic overachiever. It was all A’s and 4.0’s in school, and then loading my plate up with jobs, volunteering, and winning. If I wasn’t at the top of whatever I was doing, it was like a punch to the gut.

In truth, I was doing everything I possibly could to quiet down that voice within (that sounded shockingly-not-so-shockingly like my mother’s voice) and all of the evidence I had amassed of my unlovability.

Then, I got badly sick, had a spiritual awakening, and learned that, lo and behold, I had healing gifts (literally warm energy comes out of my hands and then—healing—it’s wild!).

Over the past 11 years, I’ve worked with over 1,000 people one-on-one and in groups only to discover that I’m not alone. Every human I’ve ever worked with also has the same fear, the same dread, the same mounting evidence of their unlovability.

This nagging feeling in the back of their subconscious mind that says, “You aren’t worthy. You aren’t lovable. You don’t matter.”

And you know what that voice does?

It drives us to do all sorts of whack-o things, like becoming A-list overachievers with a resume of accomplishments and accolades a million miles long. Maybe not the worst thing in the world, but a direct path to burnout, disconnect from our true self, and living the joyful and love-filled life we are each meant to experience.

Or, if the pain is overwhelming, it drives us to self-sabotage, hurt ourselves and others, and act out in outrageous ways with drugs and alcohol. Another good reason to be sober now.

Basically, the “I’m not lovable” story line can account for almost all of the pain in the world.

That “criminal” down the street, that “drug addict” in your family or in your community—they don’t believe they are lovable. So, they act out. Their hurt fuels their self-destructive and destructive-to-others behavior.

Knowing all of this, I finally had a mission. A mission that few people would deem as anything other than fanciful, but I had to do it all the same.

What if I created as many things as I could that remind people that they are lovable, worthy, good, and just have traumas in need of healing, and that when they heal, life gets better and more beautiful?

And not in a floating-on-a-cloud kind of way.

Not in an airy-fairy, “It’s all love and light” way either.

‘Cause we know that it’s not.

We’ve had plenty of trauma.

We’ve been on our knees in heartbreak, pain, and agony.

But we know—we can feel it with every bit of our being—when we slow down and get still, at the core, there is love.

And so, what if we became the reminder-ers of this?

What if everything we created was infused with this knowing of love and worthiness and pure deserved-ness?

This is true for every one of us—we are all lovely and lovable and love itself—we’ve simply forgotten that it’s true.

I figured I had nothing to lose.

That it was far better to have tried than to have not tried at all.

And so, I infuse every article, book, and billboard I write, every class or workshop I create, every walk I walk, every social media post I post, every piece of clothing I wear, every time I go out into the world—I infuse it with love.

Because just maybe it will matter.

Just maybe you’re reading these words and you’re realizing that you’re even more lovable than you imagined, simply because you’re here and you exist.

Maybe you’re reading this with tears sliding down your face (as I am in writing it) and you “get” it.

You’re not the bad sh*t that happened to you. You’re not how other people treated you as a child, or even as an adult.

You are love.

You can act out your unlovability pain in overachieving or in self-destruction—or, if you’re really creative like I was, a little one-two combo of both.

Or you can decide to create with and from love and bring that into everything you do.

So, let’s do it.

Let’s remember that we’re actually love. Let’s keep healing and loving despite our trauma and then create with love infused into everything we do.

I can’t wait to see what you (and I) create!

~