Accepting yourself

Most people wish they were somebody else. They are never happy with who they are and what they have. They wish they looked like a certain movie star and feel depressed that they are not as tall as a certain basketball idol. They would starve to death to have the slim silhouette of a famous supermodel and even resort to surgery to conform to the look of what’s generally considered beautiful.

The failure to accept yourself initially as you are is the common cause of many a personal misery. This could create a serious mental block that can affect your personal wellness. It will impair the way you look at yourself, decrease your self-confidence, and stump your self-esteem.

The way to truly loving yourself is through owning and accepting yourself and everything about you. From there, you could start on your own special road to improvement. You must look at what you have with great appreciation; not focus on what you lack and feel miserable.

You are what and who you are in your own singular, magnificent way; nobody else in the universe is like you. That’s how unique and important you are. It is time for you to know and declare that you are you and you’re okay!

More Fully Human

Virginia Satir, philosopher, teacher and founder of Avanta, a non-profit organization dedicated to training and supporting people "to be more fully human" beautifully put into words a declaration of being, owning, and accepting yourself and, from there, engineering your life.

She wrote this poem when she was working with an angry teenage girl who had many questions about herself and what life meant.

I Am Me

I am me. In all the world, there is no one exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone choose it.

I own everything about me: my body including everything it does; my mind including all its thoughts and ideas; my eyes including the images of all they behold; my feelings whatever they may be … anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth and all the words that come out of it … polite, sweet or rough, correct or incorrect; my voice loud or soft. And all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.

I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By doing so, I can love me and be friendly with me in all parts. I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know. But as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am in that moment in time. When I review later how I looked and sounded, what I said and did, and how I thought and felt, some parts may turn out to be unfitting. I can discard that which is unfitting, and keep that which proved fitting, and invent something new for that which I discarded.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me, and therefore I can engineer me. I am me and I’m okay.

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For your comments on this article and inquiry about the author’s life-enhance seminar schedules, e-mail DeroSeminar@yahoo.com.