MY DECLARATION OF SELF-ESTEEM (From the book Chicken Soup for the Soul)

The following was written in an answer to a 15 year old girl's question "How can i prepare myself for a fulfilling life?"

I am me.

In all the world there is no one exactly like me. There are some people who have some parts like me but no one ends up exactly like me. Therefore everything that comes put 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 my thoughts and ideas; my eyes, including the images they behold; my feelings, whatever they might be - anger, joy, frustration, love, joy, disappointment, excitement; my mouth, and all the words that come out of it - polite, sweet and rough, correct or incorrect; my voice, loud and soft; all my actions whether they be to others or 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 so doing, I can love me and be friendly with me in all my 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 loving to myself, i can courageously and hopefully look for the solutions to the puzzles and the ways to find out more about me.

However i look and sound, whatever i say or do, and whatever i think or feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am at the 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, feel, hear, say and do.I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, 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 am okay. 

VERGINIA  SATIR