I Am Me
IMAGE OF THE WEEK
We are grateful to Rupali Bhuva for offering this hand-made painting for this reading.
I am me. In all the world, there is no one exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out 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 its thoughts and ideas; My eyes including the images of all they behold; My feelings whatever they may be… anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; My Mouth and all the words that come out of it polite, sweet or rough, correct or incorrect; My Voice loud or soft. And 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 doing so I can love me and be friendly with me in all 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 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 ME . This is authentic and represents where I am in that 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, 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 was an author and family therapist who wrote this poem when she was working with a teenage girl who had a lot of questions about herself and what life meant.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How do you relate to the approach of taking ownership of 'me,' and therefore, the freedom to 'engineer me'? Can you share a personal story of a time you took ownership of your conditioning and claimed your freedom to participate in your evolution? What helps you stay committed to finding solutions to the puzzles about yourself, while being rooted in friendship to yourself?