“I Love Myself”

For a long, long time, I didn’t love myself. I felt different, defective, and worthless. That’s common among survivors, and a few become braggarts or bullies as if to yell to the world, “See! I am worthwhile.”

It took me a long time to feel compassionate toward myself. Not only did I have emotional support from my wife and a few friends, but I began to experiment with what some call positive self-talk.

That experiment began after hearing a lecture. One statement went something like this: “You can change who you are by changing what you say when you talk to yourself.” I read several books on the topic and came to this conclusion: We can say positive things to ourselves to overcome the negative things we’ve been saying all our lives.

Here’s one such sentence I began to say to myself every morning and have been repeating it several times for the past 15 years: I love who I am, I love who I used to be, I love who I am becoming.”

I follow up with a second self-affirmation: “I lovingly embrace every part of myself—known and unknown.” I can’t tell you when the change began, but I can say I believe and joyfully accept those words today.

I lovingly embrace every part of myself—known and unknown.