“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?
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”(Albert Einstein)
You suck because you believe that you suck. That’s it.
No one can convince you of something that you don’t already believe on some level. Albert Einstein said “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” So how are we going to solve this H “problem”? (It’s a whole other discussion on the power of words we use and the kind of impact those have on our experience of life.) First, step outside of it actually being a problem. It just is. Can you change the fact that you have herpes? No. Yes, 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. So what?”), then you are free to move into healing your own relationship to yourself. Denial that you have herpes actually holds you back from getting on a deep level that you don’t suck. Actually, it’s quite opposite from sucking. Because it’s not really about herpes. It’s about whatever beliefs you have rattling around in your head that have you thinking that something as simple as a skin condition can mean that you are unlovable.
Based on Brene Brown’s research (see her inspiring TED talk here), the people who had love and belonging and those who didn’t only differed on one thing: 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 not a process of learning more, but a process of unlearning all that programming that has you believing all that bullshit of you being anything less than awesome.
Tell me, what makes a newborn baby worthy of love? If you looked at a newborn baby (how about imagining you as a newborn baby), how many reasons could you rattle off that this little bundle of joy isn’t worthy of being held, accepted, loved? I would assume none. I know it would be quite difficult for me to judge that innocent baby. Maybe your powers in baby judging are better than mine, but I assume we’re on the same page here. So my question is, what’s the difference between you and that baby? What makes it deserve nothing but love and acceptance and what makes you deserve all this self-judgment and beliefs of not-enoughness? Herpes? I don’t think so.
So let’s wrap this up with an obvious statement: You don’t suck. You’re awesome. Get over it. Own it. Drop all the other bullshit. Start believing that you are worth it. Why? Because you are. And the more energy you put into entertaining the possibility you aren’t just fuels the fire of not-enoughness (have you ever heard the great phrase “What you focus on 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 within you (and in all of your other relationships, too).
So start now. You deserve it. It’s up to you. You awesome human being, you.
