Bo L. Arnold is the author of Mood, Food, and Gratitude: Healing from the Way We Think and a weekly columnist for Viva Glam magazine. She is also the founder and CEO of a risk consulting firm and a lifelong proponent of health and fitness.

Here is her story:

“I have promoted personal safety, high-quality nutrition and superior health for more than 25 years. My dedication has been centered on personal empowerment, education and excellent health for each person with whom I have come in contact.

In the past, I gave everything I had to assist others, but did not always apply the same principles to my own life. I didn’t realize back then that I wasn’t connected to my personal power—my true self. Because of this disconnection, I felt unworthy, lonely and inadequate for much of my life. And this low self-worth became the basis for the patterns and habits I created and repeated in my life.

You see, although I was willing to go against the grain in both my personal and professional life, I was stuck in a holding pattern created by my low self-worth and my disconnection from my true self. It may have not appeared that way on the outside, but it certainly was my reality. I started and ran 2 successful companies. I was driven. I excelled. I succeeded. I loved people and had long-term relationships, but I didn’t truly love myself. I feared failure and I thought that I needed to prove myself over and over to everyone because I was trying to prove my worth to myself. I worked so hard for my achievements — both personal and professional, but I was operating amidst patterns of fear, anger and victimhood. But, even as I found myself repeating the same stories over and over again in my life, there was an underlying knowing that, deep within, a different life was waiting to be discovered—waiting to be remembered.

And then things changed.

After a heart-wrenching breakup that occurred one Christmas Eve, I felt devastated and alone. I felt like my life was over after this 5-year relationship ended. I depended on the love of another person to make me feel valuable and whole and now dependency vanished in an instant. The niggling thoughts that I wasn’t good enough — that I wasn’t lovable—surfaced with a vengeance. Little did I know that a revelation of epic proportions was on the horizon.

During an afternoon of tears and despair over the breakup, I experienced something marvelous. Right in the middle of sobbing, sniffling, and feeling sorry for myself, I stopped crying. No whimpering, no deep breaths. Just silence. Then, I heard a voice within me say, ‘Wait a minute. This can’t be right — all this crying, misery, doom and gloom. There has to be something else.’ I noticed I was sitting upright now instead of slumped over the ottoman. My dogs were staring at me. The voice continued: ‘The truth is I am not special because someone else thinks I am — I am special all by myself. And I don’t need someone else to love me — I need to love myself.’ Who was saying all of this? The voice wasn’t coming from my mind. These weren’t my thoughts. No. This voice was coming from a deeper, more authentic place. It was coming from my soul, my heart-center. I knew these words were the truth. I remembered it with all my heart.

Since that moment, my life has shifted dramatically. I began experiencing a life that wasn’t built on the foundation of low self-worth, fear and victimhood. Instead, I became me, the true, authentic me and I am living that life free from the pain of worthlessness, lack and the fear of being unloved. I now know that I have been on a quest to uncover the whole truth about who I really am. It’s not a quest I have orchestrated, though. It is a quest that has unfolded with divine guidance at the helm. I am a major part of that divine guidance - it is within me, not outside of me. And as this quest has grown, it has touched and encompassed all areas of my life — not just my personal life.

The resulting gift of these trials and tribulations is that I stopped believing other people could shape my life, that I was less than others, or that I had anything to prove to anyone, even myself. I stopped believing in my own limiting, demeaning beliefs as they created a life that was drastically inconsistent with the life of my true self. I stopped being a victim.

I now understand what it takes to get off the hamster wheel of life, which means I’m walking away from the false stories that played out through my beliefs, thoughts and actions. I am reconnecting with my truth—the center of my true power, true peace, exceptional health and more love than I ever dreamed possible! I finally remember who I am and why I came here. Now I live with the deep knowing that I am valuable and worthy of love in every aspect of my life, as are you. I am dedicated to spreading this message. I want you to experience this knowing, this freedom.