The Loveable Study Experience

Welcome to the Loveable Study Experience!

I know that sounds a little grandiose, but I’m not sure what else to call it. I can’t call it a study guide—it contains a study guide, but it is much more than that. It is all of the most helpful content I have created to study my book—Loveable: Embracing What Is Truest About You So You Can Truly Embrace Your Life—collected in one place, arranged to achieve maximum impact as you go through it, and given to you absolutely free. No strings attached.

A couple of quick notes before you start studying. First, bookmark this page. You may want to return to it for additional resources, and why waste time browsing when you could be reading and studying and healing and growing? Second, I’ve suggested a comprehensive sequence to your study experience below, but if you want to pick and choose pieces of it and engage them in a different order, go ahead! There are no rules. There is only you, getting to become more you, as you begin to remember and rediscover your truest, worthiest, most loveable self.

1. Get Loveable

I suppose that sounds obvious, but I get asked all the time about how to get a copy of Loveable, and there are actually three answers. Here they are:

  • If you arrived here by accident or by suggestion and you are uncertain about whether or not you want to read Loveable, I don’t blame you. Your time is valuable and there are lots of really, really disappointing books with hearts on the cover! So, feel free to click here to download the first few chapters of Loveable so you can make an informed decision.
  • If you are purchasing Loveable for yourself or a small group of people, you can get it wherever books are sold. It is available in paperback, digital, and audio. Support a local bookseller if you have one! You can also go to the Loveable book page and click “Order Now” if you want to comparison shop a sample of retailers who can get it to you in a day or two.
  • If you want to place a bulk order of 50 or more books, you can contact HarperCollins via email by clicking here, or by calling 1-800-242-7737.

2. Study Loveable

First of all, I’d like to thank the folks at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Ashburn, Virginia, for originally commissioning the questions in this study guide, developing some of the ideas for group study, and encouraging me to share all of it with everyone. It was a grace to be with you, because you are all becoming grace, one day at a time.

Second, as you study Loveable, if you find ways to add to or adapt the Study Guide, please feel free to leave your insights in the comments section below. In that way, this page itself can become a group study of its own.

You can download the study guide right now by clicking here.

3. Host Loveable

One of the great, unexpected blessings of becoming an author has been becoming a speaker. Through my speaking about Loveable, I’ve gotten to meet many of you in two wonderful ways:

  • I’ve spoken to churches, schools, hospitals, and other organizations in Illinois, Wisconsin, California, Texas, and Virginia, to name a few. The typical gathering is a three-hour event including an hour-long talk from me, an hour of question and answer and discussion, and an hour of book signing and informal conversation. However, I work closely with event organizers to tailor my presentations and services. So, whether you are interested in having me speak to your church on a Sunday morning or your corporate retreat all day long, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
  • In April 2018, Brynn and Ashton Gustafson of the Good, True, and Beautiful Podcast, hosted a Loveable Weekend in their home. It was a gathering of 20-plus people from places like Illinois, Texas, California, Iowa, Oklahoma, Florida, New York, and Tennessee. We were strangers, but somehow we weren’t, and it was beautiful. Planning is already underway for a second Loveable Weekend in Utah. Here is a suggested itinerary for a Loveable Weekend.

If you are interested in hosting a Loveable event or a Loveable Weekend, or having me speak to your group on another topic, you can connect with me by clicking here.

4. Beyond Loveable

I’ve spent hundreds of hours creating a companion guide for Loveable. This is not to be confused with the study guide above. This is an additional 52 weekly readings, 52 weekly practices, and 54 weekly podcast episodes, and it is called The Year of Listening, Loving, and Living. It is a companion guide specifically designed to further cultivate the experiences that begin to happen within you while you are studying and/or reading Loveable. I think of it as “Loveable with hiking boots and a walking stick,” a way of journeying together through this next year of your life.

Are you ready to walk?

If so, you can get started below. I recommend reading and listening to the introductory podcast episode before you begin your journey. Then, each week, you can download and read that week’s reading and practice, before deepening your engagement with the content by listening to that week’s podcast episode. The introduction will go into all of this in more detail. Now, onward: worthiness, belonging, and purpose await you!

Introduction

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

  • Read “Self-Acceptance Is the Foundation of All Self-Improvement”
  • Download the Week 4 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 5

  • Read “Letting Go of the Solution to All of Your Problems”
  • Download the Week 5 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 6

Week 7

  • Read “You Aren’t Your Thoughts (You Are the Observer of Your Thoughts)”
  • Download the Week 7 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 8

  • Read “The Small Gate and Narrow Road Back to Your Truest Self”
  • Download the Week 8 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 9

  • Read “What to Do When Your Heart Feels Like a Jungle”
  • Download the Week 9 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 10

  • Read “Why Shame Is the Beginning of Your Story, Not the End of It”
  • Download the Week 10 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 11

  • Read “Choosing Which Voices to Listen to Around You”
  • Download the Week 11 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 12

Week 13

Week 14

  • Read “The Life Changing Difference Between Shame and Guilt”
  • Download the Week 14 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 15

Week 16

  • Read “The Fear and Joy of Removing the Masks We Wear”
  • Download the Week 16 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 17

  • Read “The One Illusion We Cannot Afford to Believe In”
  • Download the Week 17 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 18

Week 19

  • Read “From Limping Lonely to Walking Together”
  • Download the Week 19 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 20

Week 21

  • Read “Finding the Fear Underneath All the Fury”
  • Download the Week 21 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 22

Week 23

  • Read “The Most Important Thing to Look for in a Best Friend”
  • Download the Week 23 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 24

  • Read “The Other Most Important Thing to Look for in a Best Friend”
  • Download the Week 24 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 25

Week 26

Week 27

  • Read “The Essential Building Block of True Belonging”
  • Download the Week 27 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 28

 Week 29

  • Read “Embracing Your Limitations and Being Embraced by Your People”
  • Download the Week 29 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 30

Week 31

Week 32

  • Read “Becoming Students of the People We Belong To”
  • Download the Week 32 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 33

Week 34

  • Read “Let’s Hold Each Other Like We’re Dying”
  • Download the Week 34 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 35

Week 36

Week 37

  • Read “When You Think You Don’t Know How to Live”
  • Download the Week 37 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 38

  • Read “What If a Resurrected Life Isn’t as Impossible as It May Seem?”
  • Download the Week 38 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 39

Week 40

  • Read “How Hopelessness Can Become Our Best Hope”
  • Download the Week 40 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 41

  • Read “Five Senseless Days That Could Make Sense of the Rest of Your Days”
  • Download the Week 41 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 42

  • Read “Don’t Try to Be More Extraordinary (Just Try to Be More Human)”
  • Download the Week 42 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 43

  • Read “Don’t Do Something More Meaningful (Do Something More You)”
  • Download the Week 43 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 44

Week 45

  • Read “Why the Most Mundane Life Is Sometimes the Most Passionate Life”
  • Download the Week 45 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 46

  • Read “You Aren’t Here to Be More Happy (You Are Here to Be More You)”
  • Download the Week 46 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 47

  • Read “What a Life of Vulnerability Really Looks Like”
  • Download the Week 47 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 48

Week 49

  • Read “What to Do When Our Feelings Are Lying to Us”
  • Download the Week 49 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 50

Week 51

  • Read “How All This Passion, Pain, and Courage Add Up to Joy”
  • Download the Week 51 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Week 52

  • Read “Reflecting Upon the Unfolding of Your Truest Self”
  • Download the Week 52 Practice
  • Listen to and/or download the podcast on my website or iTunes.

Conclusion