Who are you?

I happened to read the following poem when our women's group went volunteering last quarter. It made an impression on me so I decided to share it.

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 fanatasies,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

© Virginia Satir, 1975.

To summarise this poem, you must know and accept who you are and be willing to change if and when necessary.

I also like these quotes by Virginia Satir:

“Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.”

“We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us”

The second one sounds like another way of putting Proverbs 29:25a won't you say. It's only what God says about you that matters - so who are you? I pray we all discover and accept who we are  - that's a stepping stone so we can rise and radiate to God's glory. God bless.

References:
http://www.kalimunro.com/declaration-of-self-esteem.html
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/virginia_satir/
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/satir.html