My Declaration of Self Esteem

What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.

The following was written in answer to a 15-year-old girl's question,"How can I prepare myself for a fulfilling life?"
I am me.
In the entire world, there is no one else 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 everything it does; my mind, including all my thoughts and ideas; my eyes, including he images of all they behold; my feelings, whatever they might be - anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointed, excitement; my mouth and all the words that come out of it - polite, sweet and rough, correct or incorrect; my voice, loud and soft; all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, and 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 my 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 the solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and what I think and feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am at that moment in time.
When I reviewed 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 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