Photo: Sachin Khona

Photo: Sachin Khona.


 
Something’s been brewing out there. In the work I’ve been doing with my clients. In the world of social media. In conversations with family and friends. In the atmosphere. People are waking up. They are wanting more. They are beginning to believe that they can have lives that are different from the ones they’ve been sold. Easy lives. Free lives. Rich lives. Lives full of love and purpose.
 
There’s something I say regularly when I’m coaching and it never fails to stop people in their tracks. I went through the fire to learn it. I travelled to Australia, California, England and Spain seeking the answer. I went night diving, drank plant medicine, holed up in a yurt, sank into grief, rose up, lit bonfires, trekked through nature, fell in love, lead a retreat, road-tripped, got messy, got brave and had a hundred conversations about it along the way. It followed me everywhere, a constant question and then a mantra and finally (finally) a deep knowing.
 
For a long time, I thought it was just me who was seeking this answer. Along the way, I realized it’s a collective longing.
 
So many of us are trying to fix and better and change ourselves. We read books and do programs and strive at work and check boxes and run marathons and over-apologize and choose partners who want us to be just a little bit (or a lot) different. We work really really hard to be worthy. To be loveable. To love ourselves.
 
All of that trekking and searching showed me that we’ve got it completely backwards.
 
We don’t have to do anything.
 
We are already worthy.
 
These three words changed my world:
 
You are enough.
 
Right now.
 
Just like that. Just as you are.
 
Self-love isn’t an intellectual thing. It’s a soul thing.
 
You are enough.
 
You don’t have to achieve a thing to be worthy.
 
You don’t need to be fixed.
 
There is no part of you that needs to be fought or killed off or surrendered. It’s all allowed to exist. The critic, the slacker, the clutz, the bitch, the over-indulger, the fuck-up, the freak. Lean in and love them all.
 
Here’s the secret, the thing it took a giant, loss-shaped wake-up call and years of contorting myself to learn:
 
When you stop beating yourself up and accept all of you, you become powerful beyond measure. 
 
All of that energy you’ve been expending to change, look good, push through, please others? You can have it all back.
 
You can love big and accept the flaws in others. You can forgive easily because you’ve forgiven yourself. You can say no and mean it.
 
You get to rise up from the bowing, toiling, accommodating, making do and sacrificing to your actual glorious height.
 
You are mighty tall. And mighty beautiful.
 
When you love yourself, you stop trying to get there.
 
Because you know: There is nowhere to get. There is nowhere to arrive.
 
You are already home.
 
Welcome.