The Gift of Someone Who Believes in You

When I think about the people who shaped me, there’s one name that will always come to mind: Lori. To me, she wasn’t just a family friend. She was like my second mom. I spent so many hours at her house growing up that it felt like an extension of my own. She was someone I looked up to, admired, and quietly tried to emulate without even realizing it.

I remember one summer when she taught me how to waterski. It wasn’t easy for me—I fell more times than I can count, and I wanted to give up. But Lori didn’t let me. She sat with me, with her calm patience, again and again, waiting and waiting until I got it. And eventually, I did. Looking back, I realize it wasn’t just waterskiing she was teaching me—it was persistence. It was believing in myself when giving up seemed easier. It was the lesson that sometimes the people who love you most will hold the line for you until you can hold it yourself.

Life carried on, as it does, and we all got busier. But when I truly needed help, when my world felt like it was falling apart, when I hated myself, when I didn’t want to be in public. Lori was the first one to show up at my house. Not with judgment. Not with shame. But with an open heart and the words that I’ll never forget.

I remember it like it was yesterday: I was sitting on my front porch, frail in every way…underweight, overtired, with no emotional strength left in me. Lori sat down, and I found myself in her lap, like I was a child again. She looked me in the eyes and told me, “You don’t have to live like this. We’re going to do this together. I believe in you.”

Those words cut through the fog in my mind and the chaos in my soul. At a time when I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, Lori looked at me and saw something worth saving. She saw strength I couldn’t yet see in myself. And she wasn’t going to let me walk away from it.

Lori is the founder of Herren Wellness, the mom of four incredible boys, and one of the most talented, compassionate women I know. But to me, her legacy isn’t her resume. It’s in the way she has sat with people at their lowest and said, “I believe in you.” It’s in her ability to show up and love someone through their brokenness until they can love themselves.

Her belief in me changed my life. It gave me back to myself. And it taught me a lesson I still carry: impulsivity might feel powerful in the moment, but real strength comes from patience, intention, and trust. These are the same qualities Lori modeled for me that summer on the water and again years later on my front porch.

I am who I am today because Lori believed in me when I couldn’t. And for that, I will always carry her in my heart, not just as someone I looked up to growing up, but as someone who reminded me, in the most vulnerable chapter of my life, that I was still worth saving.

So today, if you’re feeling blank, lost, or like you don’t have much to give, please know that you are worth it. Even if you can’t see it in the mirror, even if you don’t feel it in your bones, your life holds meaning. You matter. And sometimes it just takes one person believing in you, but until that person shows up, let these words stand in their place: I believe in you.