You Are Worthy of His Love

The Peru Chronicles | Season 1 | Part 5

I came to Peru looking for answers. Today, I start to believe I might actually deserve them.

New to the series? Catch up on the first four dispatches HERE.

Cade proposed right before I left for Peru.

Initially, I was elated. Like jump-on-the-bed elated. I’d love to tell you I was just happy. I was happy. I also didn’t believe it.

I already loved him. I knew that. But it wasn’t the same as how I loved him after Peru, or how I love him to this day.

Back then, “in love” felt like a phrase people said in movies. I didn’t really know what it meant. Certainly not as something you can trust.

So when he asked me to marry me, it didn’t take long before my brain started doing what it always did.

Wait. How can this be? Knowing what he knows. Knowing all the ways I’ve sabotaged myself and our relationship, he still wants to commit his whole life to me?

Part of me even went to a dark, ridiculous place. I thought for sure there must be something wrong with him. It just didn’t seem possible.

That was the pattern I had lived with my entire life. Something good happens and I start pulling it apart. Not because I want to ruin it, but because disbelief feels safer than hope.

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A few days later, in Peru, I heard something inside me that didn’t match the usual running commentary.

You are worthy of his love.

My first reaction was almost sarcastic. Okay. That sounds like something a preacher would say in a sermon.

Except it didn’t feel like an idea. It felt like a straight answer. Like someone had finally said the sentence I never let myself say out loud.

Around that same time, I started reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The first agreement hit me hard: Be impeccable with your word.

Impeccable means without sin, it said. Do not use negative words to plant the seed of sin against yourself or others. Our word casts spells. Do not gossip. It is black magic.

It wasn’t the gossip part that got me. It was the spell part.

Because if words cast spells, I’ve spent years putting one on myself. Quietly. Constantly. Not even out loud. Just the low-level commentary that runs in the background until it starts to feel like truth.

I’d been assuming something about myself for a very long time. If I couldn’t love me, then nobody else could either. And if they said they did, it meant they didn’t know the whole story yet.

That’s what made that line feel so disruptive.

You are worthy of his love.

Because if that was true, then I had to at least consider the other possibility. That maybe Cade wasn’t confused. Maybe he wasn’t broken. Maybe he saw me more clearly than I saw myself.

---

After lunch one afternoon, I met with the director and the shaman to set my dieta, which would start the next day. Strict rules. No perfumes. Only natural soaps. No one can touch me. No electronics.

It was a commitment, and it made everything feel more serious. Less like I was visiting Peru, and more like I was stepping into something I couldn’t half-do.

Before ceremony that night, I set an intention like I was making a deal with something bigger than my fear.

Surrender. I’m available for your healing. Show me how to see the light. Heal me and teach me. Teach me to love myself the way I am right now.

---

I only took a small dose, but it didn’t matter.

It was extremely powerful. Physically painful. I cried. I asked if the pain was mine, and it was.

Then the medicine went quiet, quite suddenly.

The maloca was pitch dark. I could hear other people breathing, shifting on their mats. The shaman’s icaros had stopped. There was just silence and the hum of the jungle outside.

I don’t know why I did it. But I brought my arms around myself. Like I was holding someone I cared about.

It felt ridiculous at first. I was alone in the dark, hugging myself like a child. But when I started to pull away, I heard it again, clear and unmistakable.

Yes. Love yourself.

So I did. I kept my arms around myself like I meant it.

Then I laughed, because I could see my belly sticking out. Not with my eyes, it was more like an image placed right in front of me, from my own point of view. I squished it and said, out loud, I love you.

I know how that sounds. But it was a first for me. Not the idea of self-love. The experience of it. A moment that didn’t ask me to earn anything. A moment that didn’t come with a punishment attached.

I stayed there for a long time, holding myself in the dark.

---

Afterward, everything outside looked calm again. The lake went still. The paths went quiet.

But inside me, something was shifting. Like a warning system that had been stuck in the “on” position for decades was finally starting to loosen.

I didn’t know what was coming next. I just knew I wasn’t done yet.

Because the jungle was patient. And it wasn’t finished with me.

—R. Michael

If you have thoughts or questions, I’d really love to hear from you in the comments. I read every one.

Want to keep going? The Peru Chronicles.

Quick note for context, since this topic can bring out a lot of strong opinions.

Everything I’m sharing here is just my personal experience. I’m not speaking for the medicine, for a tradition, or for anyone else’s ceremony. I also know firsthand that people can sit in the exact same setting and walk away with completely different experiences.

My goal with this series isn’t to make a claim or start a debate. It’s to tell the truth about what happened, and how it changed my life.