But for so many girls, the world knocks that love and self-confidence right out of us. For me, things started changing at age 11, right along with my body. At 18, my dream of being a Broadway star dissolved in a sea of more talented competition, my first true love broke my heart and my body became unrecognizable to me after a year of homesickness, heartbreak and emotional eating. A crisis of confidence swirled into a full blown identity breakdown. Who was I now? I had no idea.

I coped the only way I knew – by beginning a pattern of numbing and fixing behaviors. People pleasing. Perfectionism. Starving myself. Unrelenting workouts. Compulsive reading of self-help books. Doing anything and everything to try to fix what I believed was broken in me. I lived so much of my life as a reaction to what other people thought, or what I thought they thought of me. I was at war with myself in a battle that would last for almost two decades.

After college, I accepted a prestigious job that made me miserable and was in opposition to everything I valued. I stayed in the wrong relationship for way too long with a guy who couldn’t love me. My full-scale free fall only lasted a few years but the journey to recovery took more like fifteen.

Things began to shift when I began to really listen to the voice within me that was longing for more. I got some great therapy, ditched the bad relationship, quit the soul-sucking job, moved across the country for love and dove into a career I loved in social service. Personal development slowly became more hobby than punishment. I was making progress toward self-acceptance, even though I wouldn’t have called it that back then.

After a battle with infertility, I had three miracle babies in 2 ½ years. I was deeply in love with them but completely exhausted and overwhelmed, with virtually no skills in self-care. I was trying so hard to be the perfect mom and make it look effortless. When my boys would go to bed at night, wine became my only reliable strategy to unwind and relax, to try to cope with the pressure I was putting on myself (and also my very real and massive responsibilities). Night after night, as predictable as a taxi turning off it’s light at the end of a shift, I checked out and called it rest.

Eventually, having the first sip of wine was too much for me and the last one was never quite enough. The impact that drinking was having on my spirit and my self worth was killing me and I was filled with constant shame and fear about where it all was headed. I knew that I couldn’t continue to drink and be in integrity with other people or with myself.

Quitting and choosing to do life wide awake meant that I finally, finally, finally had to accept myself wholly and completely. I had to decide that I loved myself enough to make a life change that felt radical and counter-cultural, but that was totally grounded in what I knew to be true for me. Integrity, connection and courage are my three most deeply held values (a great coach helped me figure that out). Giving up alcohol was the ultimate gesture of self love. Once I really, really knew that, the solution was clear.

I had to keep on loving myself, every single day, imperfections and all.

I still do.

I had to find a way to live that more deeply honored my gifts and the things that make me uniquely me.

In 2012, I became a coach and the rest, as they say, is history.