Loveable: The Book That Reminded Me I Was Never Supposed to Earn My Worth

Have you ever read a book that hit you so hard in the gut you wanted to cry? And maybe you did—multiple times? Not because it was sad exactly, but because it found something tender, deep, and old in you that you had spent years trying to fix, hide, outrun, pray away, drink away, or pretend didn’t exist. That was Loveable for me. A friend recommended it at the exact moment I needed it, and I started with the audiobook but ended up buying the physical copy too because for some reason I felt that I needed to hold it, underline it, dog-ear the pages, write all over it, and basically use it like a workbook for my life. I’ve also given it to a couple of people because it was that eye-opening for me, and I tell pretty much everybody I know/meet about it.

The Questions Underneath It All

Psychologist Kelly Flanagan builds the book around three painfully human questions: Am I enough? How do I become unlonely? Do I matter? His answers are simple—you are enough, you are not alone, and you matter—but this isn’t one of those fluffy inspirational quote “just love yourself” books. It gets into the shame and ego crud we carry around and the ways we slowly lose ourselves while trying to become whatever version of us seems most useful, impressive, loveable, or least likely to be left. The premise of the book is we spend our lives auditioning for love, trying to be funny enough, successful enough, helpful enough, easy enough, or whatever else we think might finally make us worthy and wanted. We get good at reading the room that somewhere along the way, we stop reading ourselves, and boy, did that poke some places in me.

When We Stop Hearing Ourselves

Flanagan writes about the “ego castle” we build to protect ourselves, and I understood that immediately. The protective version of me had a job. She helped me survive, read the room, make herself useful, and get shit done, so I don’t need to hate her for doing what she thought she had to do. The problem wasn’t that I built protection; it was that I forgot I was still living behind it. I keep wondering when I stopped listening to my real self and started becoming whatever version of me seemed easiest or most valuable to everybody else. I don’t know whether there was one specific moment or whether it happened so slowly that I didn’t notice, but at some point I got very good at being who I thought I needed to be and lost touch with who I actually was.

Worth Is Not the Prize

The biggest thing I took from Loveable is that worthiness isn’t supposed to be the finish line. It is the starting place. So many of us have a running list in our heads: I’ll be worthy when I lose the weight, make more money, stop getting triggered, or finally get my shit together. I am all in for growth, and I’m grateful for therapy, sobriety, books, tools, and all the work I’m doing, but growth and worthiness are not the same thing. I can work on myself without treating the current version of me like an embarrassing rough draft (the shame). Maybe growth isn’t about building some brand-new, better version of myself, its more about clearing away all the junk, roles, lies, and coping mechanisms that were never really the real me in the first place.

What Is Still Calling You? Here’s Mine…

This book also made me realize that I hadn’t only forgotten my connection to music; I had forgotten I was a creator. I wrote poems and had them published when I was a kid. I journaled because writing was how I made sense of things, and later I wrote for my own websites and places like Billboard, Huffington Post, Forbes, All Access, and Radio Ink. I was also a singer, performer, thespian, and drama kid who loved being onstage and making people feel something. Somewhere along the way, I traded a lot of that for the money-making executive version of myself, and listen, I was good at it. I knew how to lead, organize, promote, and get shit done, but the creator in me never actually went anywhere. She just got quieter while I got busier being impressive, responsible, useful, and productive.

Maybe I wasn’t trying to become somebody new at all. Maybe I was trying to get back to who I already was before I decided those parts of me were impractical, childish, embarrassing, or not worth pursuing.  The writer, the singer, the performer, the storyteller, and the woman who had something to say and actually gave herself permission to say it. Maybe True Northey isn’t me inventing some brand-new version of myself. Maybe it is me finally coming back for all the pieces I left behind???? We’ll see what happens. This all in REAL TIME baby!

And also….

A few friends and I started a little Tucson book club called Shelf Help Sessions, and Loveable is our first book. I also wanted to open the conversation beyond our little group because you don’t have to sit in my living room eating snacks to be part of it. You can read from home, journal through the questions, talk about it with a friend, join the Facebook group, or just quietly think about what the book brings up for you. This is a book club, not an emotional hostage situation, so you do not have to answer every question or share anything that feels too personal. Take what you need and leave the rest.

The Question I’m Keeping

Finishing Loveable did not magically make all my insecurities disappear. I still overthink, get triggered, and wonder what I need to fix, prove, explain, or become so I can feel safe, accepted, and loved, but the book left me with a better question: What would I do right now if I remembered that I already am loveable?

Maybe that is the work—not becoming worthy or finally earning your way into love, but remembering that you already are and then coming home to yourself again, and again, and again. And AGAIN.

Enjoy this book. It changed my life in the best ways!!!!