My declaration of self-esteem, by Virginia Satir

I am me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically me. 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 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 so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in 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 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 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 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.

Found in Virginia Satir, Self Esteem, Celestial Arts: California, 1975.

I love this poem. It inspires me, it's so eloquent yet so simple. Think about it: What is you own declaration of Self-esteem?