a rose is a rose...

I am ME

In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. I have some parts like others but I don't add up to be exactly like anyone else. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.

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

I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. I own all my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.

Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. Being very well acquainted with me, I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts.

In being well-acquainted with myself, loving myself, and being friendly with myself, I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.

I know that there are aspects about myself I do not know, and there are parts of me that puzzle me.

As long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for the solution to the puzzles and continually look for ways to find out more about me -- how I look and sound, what I say and do, and how I think and feel.

No one else looks and sounds, says and does, and thinks and feels exactly like me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment is me. It is authentic and represents where I am at that moment in time.

When I review later how I looked and sounded, what I said and did, and how I thought and felt, parts may turn out to be unfitting and I can discard that which is unfitting and keep that which proved fitting and learn something new for that which I discarded.

I am me and I am okay.

I own me and therefore I can engineer me.

I can learn all the new things that I need and discard all the things that no longer fit.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I will then 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 am Me and I AM OK.

~ Virginia M. Satir