My story is a journey about loving myself that started from a place of not realizing that I wasn’t. I went half a century unaware of my biggest issue in life. Tucked safely just outside of my awareness by my efficient ego. Happily suppressing any information that might indicate the need for change. Until, like many before me, suffering resulted and the avoidance of the truth and the changes that needed to be looked at couldn’t be avoided any longer. 

 The Divine (plz substitute the understanding that aligns with you. God, Universe, Source, Allah, etc.) sent me here with a highly organized brain and effective learning patterns. I hail from a large family of 8. I discovered in childhood that being “perfect” was the best way for me to be seen and appreciated. So, being a smart cookie, I quickly became superb at it. And at most things, being “perfect” to garner appreciation was very simple for me. Truly, I had the most wonderful and happy childhood. My very loving parents were always deeply in love, with us and each other. We didn’t have much in a material sense, but we were granted the freedom and the supportive push to follow our passions. I dove into life head first with insatiable curiosity, boundless confidence, impressive powers of observation, rarely-matched stamina, and a desire to be the best. (And thereby appreciated.)

I was insanely successful in everything that I tried overall. Most overachievers are right? Everything I touched turned to gold. Today I am humbly grateful for all that I have accomplished. I know that who I am is a result of good parental programming from childhood. There could not have been a more perfect family for me to grow up in. I was taught to be humble, to give thanks in all things, and to work hard. So, I didn’t squander my gifts.  Everything from grades in school and sports all the way to the very competitive career I love and enjoy – it was easy. Sooo easy.

I would find my Achilles heel in romantic relationships. My “formula” for being seen and appreciated would become tremendously toxic to me through those relationships. I did not know or understand that I was a magnet for insecure or selfish characters. I did not understand that my adaptability would be my downfall. I hate the term “people pleasing,” but I have learned that if I am not authentic in every word, action, or reaction, then this is my label. People Pleaser. Grrrr! Just the sound of it gets my back up. 

I hid the truth from myself in a disguise of willingness to bend, change, compromise, become, tolerate, ignore, take on more responsibility, load my plate, and so on, as being ‘the right thing to do.’ I did it willingly to keep the peace and be loved. (I love peace as all people pleasers do.) And while I did all those things, to my complete dismay, there was no appreciation, no reward, definitely no peace, and little that felt like love.

On a physical plane, during my last romantic relationship, I became seriously metabolically and physically sick. I have always been a relatively thin and fit person. I was headed through menopause and it wasn’t fun (like at all). But I had been using herbs for hormonal support, and it was tolerable. 

Then covid came. I had it in December of ’19, and though it was unpleasant, I returned to life as usual pretty quickly. When I got it again in the fall of ‘21, I can say that I had never been that sick in my life. And it just wouldn’t end! I have always been the person who still worked, taking care of the horses and doing chores during every sickness. But this one laid me out flat for days. It would be two weeks before I felt remotely functional. 

The next two years, I was sick so often I lost count. My metabolism shut down; I had hot flashes that put me into full body sweats constantly throughout the day and night, and lower back pain that no amount of yoga and magna-wave alleviated. I had a continuous headache, complete with brain fog, forgetfulness, and mental disorganization. I had a constant and continuous cough. I had menstrual periods that lasted weeks with constant heavy flow and terrifyingly large blood clots. And the worst part was that I couldn’t stay asleep. I would wake up 20-30 minutes after falling asleep, be awake for 1-2 hours, and repeat that all night long! Obviously, I was exhausted. Walking up the long slope behind the barn with our Gorilla feed wagon on one day? No problem. But the next day my heart would race painfully to the point I would have to stop halfway. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes, it would just “run off,” racing with no provocation at all. Literally, I would be standing still, and it would take off racing.

When I say I have always been a fit and active person I am not joking. Training horses, standing stallions, chasing baby horses, throwing 100 lb bales of hay, and tossing 50 lb bags of grain  (daily!)  is hard physical labor. I’ve ridden 5-20 horses a day for over 25 years! So this was not an “out of shape” thing. It was an “out-of-the-blue” thing. And I eat a really clean diet as well.  I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I knew it was serious. During this two-year period, I tried herbal cleansing, water fasting for two weeks (more than once), changing my diet to vegan, and so many different things. 

Then, one day, I took a spill going down a muddy hill. It was not a big deal, but it put the center of my back out. I have had the same chiropractor/kinesiologist for upwards of 28 years now. So I went to see Dr Yoder. My kids call him Yoda because he ;). He went through the bone structure and realigned that. Worked with me on the emotional body. And then mentioned that my spleen was alarmingly enlarged. Dr Yoder utilizes muscle testing to diagnose using the “kinetic energy of the body. So we went through muscle testing to find the root cause of my swollen spleen. I could feel he was concerned. 

You can look it up if you aren’t familiar with muscle testing. I will give a short version: The tester (Dr. Yoder) made statements to see if my cells (inside of me and controlling my muscles) agree or disagree. Through the series of test questions, it was determined that my issue was “spike” proteins collecting in my liver and spleen. I asked, “OK, how do I fix that?”  I did not expect the answer…… He didn’t know. 

I drove home in a daze. The videos of athletes in sports keeling over were starting to make sense to me. And terrifying me! And I would find in the next week that basically, no one knew how to eradicate the spike protein from the human body effectively. Nowhere did there seem to be a clear and concise answer. There were lots maybe try this’s. And for the most part, they were, “Well, this protocol could be helpful”. 

I would finally get off Google and start researching outside of our country. I pieced together a protocol (which I will provide when asked) that I had some hope would work. During this time I also researched every hormonal system of the body as well. I started putting together protocols for herbs, foods, and nutrients to support each one. I wasn’t going out without a fight.  I had already been using the Feminine, Wormless, Sweeper, Mover, and Protect (herbal remedies that will be defined later) for years. So, I knew and trusted the power of Mother Earth’s medicinal arsenal. I ordered everything and embarked. I put some in capsules and left some for teas then began a cleanse that would run for 120 days. 

Two days into the cleanse and the spike protein eradication protocol, I slept for 4 hours straight. I woke up with no headache and no cough. On the 3rd night, I slept 10 hours without even turning over. I woke up like a new human. No brain fog, very mild hot flashes, and energy. In fact, my daughter would tell you that I was bouncing off walls and being ridiculous. I hadn’t felt good for a long, long, long, long, long time. Heck, I hadn’t felt average in a long time! 

That morning, during a meditation, I promised myself that I would fix my health and everything else in my life that was not serving me. And when I said everything, I meant everything. As I was moving through my day, I put in earbuds and set the YouTube channel to start playing podcasts. I pick one, then set the phone down, and let the algorithm choose the next one. If what starts doesn’t resonate, I just go skip to the next. 

One eventually started about “loving yourself”. I thought, “Well, of course, I love myself”, but I was busy and didn’t change the podcast. Before too long I was leaning against the mucking fork in my hands in dismay. I was beginning to wonder…. “Is this my actual problem?” I thought putting my needs last was the right thing to do. The thing that struck me the most was the idea that if I wasn’t feeding myself love first I also wouldn’t be able to give effectively. The love that I would have to offer would be of an equally low quality if I didn’t first see to my own self loving needs. In essence fill my cup first. This was a concept I had never considered. We all know you have to love yourself to love others. But I had never considered that the quality of the love I showed to myself was directly equivalent to the love I could offer. I always gave. More than I actually had to offer much of the time. I am generous by nature. I had never considered that putting my needs last was creating a problem for me. Letting my plate get piled high because I didn’t want to say no and disappoint others. This was just the first point of many that would make it clear to me that I was quite unloving to myself a good bit of the time.

   So, what did I have to learn to do? Well like a cup that is filled to overflowing runs over, I had to treat myself that way. Fill me with loving things and feelings first, then let what runs over feed those around me. I thought, “Well, this sounds simple enough. I can do that.” Oh, Holy Moly, it was NOT! I can remember specifically , after a meditation, walking out of the barn and thinking, “Ok, I am going to love myself full right now!” Then, I tried to feel some love for myself on purpose. And honestly, I felt nothing at all. I stopped, stood there a bit, and thought “ok, this might be harder than I first thought; I might actually have some real work to do here.”

As you get further into the spiritual practices on this site I will explain some of those that really helped me with this. It sounds really straightforward. For me it was not! But I am relentless and tried many, many suggested ways. I have included my favorites for you.

Once I started being able to feel “love” for myself on purpose I discovered that that was just the part of the iceburg that was above the surface. And if you know about iceburgs the larger part, like about 90% of it is below the surface. So then came many “oh no, there’s more” moments”; such as while actively listening to my internal dialogues to investigate the quality of their love. Good Grief! I discovered that I was also really unkind to myself. I could forgive and hand out passes to everyone around me. Holding them to quite a low standard. But I was wholly unkind to myself about every little Fing thing. And wow that proved difficult to change! I mean I would have a mean thought about something regarding myself and then beat myself up for the mean thought. And then I would realize that I was beating myself up for beating myself up and then I’d beat myself up for both! Talk about feeling crazy! I felt like a coked-up hamster on a well-lubricated spinning wheel! It was so silly. 

Then, one day, I found a break. While I was systematically berating myself as described above, I realized it, and I just started laughing. Kind of hysterically, I can’t lie. Like, all the way to tears! I mean it was just so absurd. Being mean to myself and then beating myself up! While my entire mission was to LOVE myself! Wow, I was getting worse at it, not better!! Such Craziness! That helped so much. And once I found a way to lighten up through laughter, it all became easier. And when I failed I could feel myself leaning into the laughter and finally, “failing forward”. That’s when failing forward became my goal. 

I let go of holding myself to perfection (an unbelievably enormous feat for me) and learned to be okay with baby steps. Accepting baby steps as being enough is how I learned to start “friending myself.” I patiently showed myself the support that I so easily handed out to others. Slowly, I began mentoring myself in a patient and loving way. Finally!

 I had been studying the law of attraction for decades. And I had had a meditation practice for 20+ years. Many aspects of my life showed this work. But loving myself, valuing my needs and seeing to them, had been my blind spot. Maybe it is yours. If it is then there is sooooo much hope. I promise! And I am going to equip you with my arsenal!

I read Teal Swans’ book How To Love Yourself. It was transformative for me. I found myself (the real me) over and over in the pages and practices she offered. I most definitely didn’t love myself immediately. If there is a switch to flip to accomplish that, I couldn’t find it, but I made steady progress. 

Slowly, the effects of learning to love myself more started to show around me. The more I began to show to love myself the less I tolerated not being treated lovingly by others. And so the toxic romantic relationship that I was engaged in started to really struggle. The route problem was simply a matter of the misalignment of values and desires. We were a terrible match truth be told. In spite of our misalignment, I did love him. We are all eternal beings, and I still love him. He is a good person, but he was not the right partner for me. So that ended. It certainly wasn’t painless. It was actually excruciating. However, my commitment to removing everything from my life that was unloving to me was the basis for every single decision that I was making regarding my life.

Even still ending that relationship was absurdly difficult for me. Picking me and my needs was not what I was good at. A large part of “people pleasing” is driven by the preference of taking pain as opposed to giving pain. When you hear the term people pleaser you think that they aren’t strong. This actually is so far from the truth. They are nearly always the strong ones in every relationship and every situation. And the silent one. People pleasers are listeners of everyone’s needs, pains, and problems but often feel they can not burden others with theirs. 

I didn’t share my pain or worries with others. So when the relationship counselor told me “ Peggy, you need to grieve. Just go home and cry.” It was like someone opened my floodgates. With “permission” (so silly someone had to give it to me) to feel my own pain, I cried all the time (embarrassingly and quite literally) for weeks. Ok, that’s a lie. It was more like months, lol. I was like a bottle of champagne, shook hard and then opened abruptly. Everything I had suppressed came up fast and hard. I don’t advise everyone to shake their emotional bottle, but that is just my personality. I do everything all the way and immediately. If I can logically see the benefit of doing something I go all in. The emotional bubble practice might be what saved me from the insane asylum. (I will explain soon!)

And hand in hand with people pleasing is the inability to say “no” to those we are close to. It is easy for me to say no to strangers. Something I had to be able to do to be good in business. So naturally that was a skill I developed. But in close relationships, it was incredibly difficult. When someone would ask me a question I would have to pause and check in with myself. I would have to ask myself to see if I was answering by thinking in terms of what I thought would make them happy or what was best for me. Goodness, but I actually, in the moment, could not always make that determination. I learned to say: “Let me think about it, and I will get back to you.” And I would literally have to force myself to search around inside of me to determine what MY true answer was. At first, it took an exorbitant amount of time! If I could use an emoji here, I’d use the hand-over-face one! I mean like hours at first! 

Looking back, it is easy to see with clarity the ways that I was unloving. If I loved myself, I would’ve refused to do anything or become any version of me that wasn’t authentic. I would have been true to the “me” that  I wanted to be. I understand that I chose to participate in the things I agreed to put on my plate. I wasn’t forced. And so I am not blaming any other person in any of this. I take full responsibility for my part in each relationship and any toxicity that was created there. Some I wasn’t a fit for. Some I evolved differently than. Some I just was never aligned with enough. 

I am responsible for what I did that made it toxic for me. I allowed myself permission to be less than who I came to earth to be. When I finally turned around and took a good, hard look back, I could see the moments I didn’t stand in my authentic power, didn’t hold to my highly valued beliefs, and let my boundaries be pushed. 

In my journey to love myself, I discovered that I have to give myself permission for the capacity to fail forward. Laughing at myself was one of the most helpful things I learned to do. To be more lighthearted towards myself. Crying and allowing any suppressed pain to pass out was the second most healing thing that I learned to do. And each one, each instance, was a forward step to where I stand today. The most healed, the most content, the most peaceful, the most authentically me, by far the most joyful and excited about life I have been since childhood.

I want to share with you how to take the journey from not loving yourself, your body, and your relationships and transform them into all that you could ever dream of. I want to give you my school of hard knocks version of battling against a lack of self-love so that you can win. And not just win the battle of not loving your body. I want to show you how to find authentic love for every facet of you. For the entirety of the life that you are here to live. I want to show you how to Win using LOVE!