“You suck. You’re worthless. You won’t find someone to love you. Who would possibly accept you with this disgusting H thing? Who are you kidding? You should give up — right now!”
Sound familiar?
Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: I’m not the one saying all these nasty things to you right now. No, no, no — I couldn’t be that cruel even to my worst enemy! Based off of so many people I’ve talked with in our Herpes Opportunity forums, our Herpes Opportunity weekend workshop and private coaching clients, I have heard this kind of junk coming straight out of their own heads! And I assume that on some level that kind of smack-talking is going on in your head … right now.
So what’s the answer to why you suck?
You suck because you believe that you suck. That’s it.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
— Albert Einstein
No one can convince you of something that you don’t already believe on some level. So how are we going to solve this herpes “problem”? (Read the power of words.) First, step outside of it actually being labeled a problem. It just is what it is. Can you change the fact that you have herpes? No. Of course, you could hold out hope of a herpes cure, but sometimes hope can hold us back from living. So if you can just accept that one fact (Say it with me: “I have herpes. And?”), then you are free to move into healing your own relationship to yourself. Denial that you have herpes actually holds you back from that visceral feeling that you don’t actually suck. Actually, it’s quite opposite from sucking. Because it’s not really about herpes after all. It’s really about whatever beliefs you have rattling around in your head that have you thinking that an over-stigmatized virus has the power to destroy your life.
Based on Brene Brown’s research, the people who had love and belonging and those who didn’t only differed on one point: The belief that they either deserved it or didn’t. That’s it. So what does it take to believe that you are worthy of all those things? It’s mainly a process of unlearning that deep neural programming. The programming that sneakily has you believing all that bullshit of you being anything less than awesome.
Tell me, what makes a newborn worthy of love? If you looked at a baby (better yet, imagine yourself as a baby), how many reasons could you rattle off that this little bundle of joy is not worthy of being held, accepted, loved? I would assume none. I know it would be quite difficult for me to judge that innocent lil cherub. (Hey, maybe your powers in baby judging are better than mine, but I assume we’re on the same page here.) So my question is this: What is the difference between you and that baby? What makes the baby deserve nothing but love and acceptance and what makes you deserve all this self-loathing and not-enoughness? (Note the rhetorical question.)
So let’s wrap this up with an obvious statement: You don’t suck. You’re awesome. Get over it. ;) Own your awesome. Drop all the other bullshit. Start believing in your bones that you are worth it. Why? Because you are here. Because you are uniquely you. Worthy of being here. (Hear you roar?) And the more energy you put into entertaining the possibility you aren’t just fuels your fire of not-enoughness (what you focus on truly becomes bigger). If you entertain the facts of your awesomeness and all the wonderful proof that goes along with that, then your awesomeness gets to grow.
So start now. You deserve it. It’s up to you. You awesome human being, you.
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