I Am Me

I am Me.  In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me.  Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to other or myself.  I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.  I own 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 all my parts.  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 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 authentically me.  If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, 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 am Okay.

~ Virginia Satir
American psychologist and educator, 1916-1988