When you have a trauma based relationship with self and the understanding of what it means to love and be loved, it can be hard to hear the truth of your self worth. To know that you are worthy of love and that you are in fact lovable.

It took me until my 40’s to be still enough with myself to be honest about my need for help. That my journey had led me to a place where I could not go any further without a real substantial change. I was barely holding on, getting through my days doing the absolute bare minimum to care for myself and my children. Single and surviving past relationship wounds and ready to give up on ever connecting with another human being in an romantic way. Somewhere deep in myself, I knew that there was a better way to live and that I could achieve it but I had to do some work to get there.

I decided it was time to ignore the religious voice in my head that said just pray and it will change and I contacted a therapist. During my first therapy session within 10 minutes of talking to me, my therapist said that I did not love myself. That I could not stand the thought of a single person being upset with me, because it would mean I wasn’t worthy of their love. She gave me a homework assignment to do and it seemed simple at first. I was to write down 10 things that I loved about myself and it was hard for me to write down more than 2 and the two I wrote down were connected to a role I have and how well I am doing it at any given moment. I did not love anything about me. Which led me to think about who is “the me” I am trying to love. Do I even know? Am I a collection of my experiences? Being a mom, a sister or a friend is who I am. I’ve been able to achieve some level of success in my life, so are my accomplishments who I am?

During my thought process of self love and continued therapy, I met a wonderful man who become my husband. He is a pure and utter love bug so loving him was easy. We both share past trauma and so him needing my love was right up my alley. I could focus on pouring all my love on him and my children, and so for a while I got distracted from doing my self love work. A funny thing happened though, the more he loved me the more uncomfortable I got with myself. What does he see in me? Why does he always want to be around me? He doesn’t really love you Angel, he wants something from you. Are the thoughts and questions that flooded my mind on a daily basis. I wanted desperately to feel and experience his love but I was struggling. I decided that I need to get back to doing the work of learning to love me, but the question still remained Who Am I? How can you love something or someone you don’t know? These questions sent me back on the journey of self. I decided to open myself up to the possibility that there were more paths to change that I had previously thought. I decided to be vulnerable enough to learn from sources that were unfamiliar to me. I began studying the origins of humanity, my physical body, how the mind works and what if anything was the role of the spirit/soul. 

Spirituality has been apart of my life since I was a little girl so it was the natural place to start learning more about me. I started meditating for the first time ever through guided meditations with popular spiritual leaders and found that the quiet space offered an opportunity for learning. With my partners encouragement I downloaded books to listen to and started with books looking at religion and how I viewed God/Source. I studied the soul, energy, source, God, lightwork, healing, the power of prayer, the universe, and working of the mind, and my body. All of these things along with a spiritual awakening process helped me to get to know myself and furthermore gave me a clearer understanding of the intention and makeup of love. It shined a light on the wonderful things that make up my “self” and gave me tools to appreciate and cultivate them. Part of that journey has led me to the ideal that the passion for writing that has always resided in me, is also a gift for the collective. It is for every being having a human experience. My responsibility to you is to share what I learn. I have by no means achieved perfection, I have achieved a greater sense of self and a love for self.