How I Learned to Be My Own Love

By Misty Lamppa

There was a time in my life when everything looked fine from the outside—business running, family moving forward, yoga classes happening. But inside, I was crumbling.

I was doing all the things, trying to hold everything and everyone together. Achieving, pushing, surviving. Hoping it would all somehow lead to peace. To worthiness. To a sense of being enough.

But no matter how hard I worked, it never felt like it was enough.

I kept thinking the next thing—another certification, another title, another effort—would finally make me feel whole.

But none of them did.

And when the financial trauma hit, when the move uprooted me, when the relationship I’d tried so hard to hold onto began to fray, I found myself at a crossroads.

That’s when Inner Alignment entered my life. Not as a plan. Not as a fix. But as something I didn’t even know I needed.

The Mirror I Didn’t Expect

In the program, I started to see clearly: I was chasing love and worth outside of myself.

I thought a partner, a role, a result would give it to me.

But what I had to learn—slowly, gently, through tears and truth—was that my real work was to become my own love.

To offer myself the very tenderness and belonging I’d been seeking.

To stop outsourcing my value to anything external, and instead meet myself with honesty, compassion, and care.

It Wasn’t Easy

Honestly? It was messy.

I had to look at the parts of me I didn’t want to see. I had to feel emotions I’d worked hard to numb. I had to unhook from belief systems that told me I wasn’t enough unless I was producing, performing, or perfect.

But something inside me knew: this is the way home.

And slowly, it was.

The Love I Carry Now

Now, my love for myself isn’t loud. It isn’t a performance.
It’s quiet. Deep. Steady.

It looks like boundaries that don’t push others out, but honor me.
It looks like breath. Space. Rest.
It looks like trusting my own rhythm, even when the world moves differently.

I don’t need someone else to name my worth.
I don’t need to earn my value.
I don’t need to chase the next thing to feel okay.

Because the love I was looking for... was always meant to come from within.

And now I know how to give it to myself.