The Five Freedoms

1. TO SEE AND HEAR
What is here,
Instead of what should be,
Was, or will be

2. TO SAY
What one feels and thinks
Instead of what one should

3. TO FEEL
What one feels,
Instead of what one ought

4. TO ASK
For what one wants,
Instead of always waiting
For permission

5. TO TAKE RISKS
In one's own behalf,
Instead of choosing to be
Only 'secure'
And not rocking the boat

*

MY DECLARATION OF SELF ESTEEM

        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.  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 may 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 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 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 whatever 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 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.

* * *