Listen, before I had my coffee, I didn’t know how awesome I was going to be today, either.

Love yourself, you are enough. Yup. I am on a new journey, or maybe an old one. I have always been a survivor, someone who could perservere through life challenges that were not designed for the weak. This new journey of mine starts with finding my true self again. I actually like myself, not in a conceded way but in an acceptance way. I can laugh at myself, I am fine with self exploration along with recognizing my flaws and owning my mistakes. Plus, I am so much fun and I am delightfully unique in everyway. Let’s roll.

Step one in my self revival, this self doubt shit, that needs to go. Shake it off.

Self worth. What is my self worth? What am I worth? It’s time to explore that. What is self worth? The internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others. This is not to be confused with my self esteem. I have fed my self esteem over the years with my external achievements, for example, running the Boston Marathon 5 times, having successful athletic events, being physically fit and other professional successes. I received positive attention for those accomplishments which fed my self esteem, but self worth, that lies below the surface, under my skin. In order to move forward I have to peel the skin back and face the uncomfortable head on.

About 10 years ago I was going through my first divorce. Yes, first. I am that awesome I married and divorced twice. I started seeing a therapist about 10 years ago. He pulled no punches and forced me to be direct with myself. We all have our baggage, it’s part of life, how we take care of our bags is different for all of us. My bags had been through a world tour. They had their fair share of dents, tears, broken zippers, ect. But, my bags, they are durable, and they have room to fit more life into them. My therapist was going to help me come to terms with the stuff in my bags along with getting rid of useless crap I had been lugging around with me. It was my first real attempt at identifying my self worth. He would tell me, “You are not bad. You have had bad things happened to you.” I am not bad. I have had bad things happen to me.

How much better would life be if a liar’s pants really did catch fire? I felt like a big fat liar. I could not accept my therapists words. I AM NOT BAD. I HAVE HAD BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO ME.

I went to my therapist once a week for the next 3 years. I wonder if he still has his notes on me? What do those therapist really write down? I have seen a far side sketch of a patient and therapist, the therapist has his notebook out and it simply says, ‘Just plain nuts’. LOL. I knew I wasn’t nuts, but I also knew I struggled with my self worth. Those bags man, they could be heavy at times. While I struggled with my self worth, I was hitting it out of the park with my self esteem. Seems conflicting but it isn’t. I was a single mother raising 3 young boys, working full time and running marathons and other distances like a rockstar. I would run 10 miles at 5:30am then teach an hour bootcamp class, immediately after class I would take my 3 boys to all of their sporting stuff. Wash, rinse and repeat. Everyone take notice. I got this. Fulfilling my self esteem by collecting accolades and attention, no sweat. Loving myself and feeling worthy of love, hardest fucking task out there.

It’s not an easy thing. My journey to self worth has been long. I don’t think it ever stops either. I practice self love everyday. Some days it seems next to impossible, but I power through. I am not bad. I am good.