I will celebrate the joy of
being myself.
My self image
is a collage
made up of an
odd assortment of individuals.
Everyone I have ever wanted to be lives there,
along with everyone I have never been afraid of being.
Hero and bum, saint and sinner,
all take their turns in dominating both how I see myself and how I act.
My inner child
who is the heart of my true self
is neither a hero nor a bum.
Each extreme arises from shame.
The hero drives me to be more than I really am to prove my acceptability and my worth.
The bum is merely a twisted product of the critical voices from my childhood,
and, not a true reflection of me at all.
Today I will take another step on my journey toward wholeness
by erasing
both the heroes and the bums from my self image.
I am a human being ---
nothing more,
nothing less.
Today I will celebrate
the joy of being myself,
unique, special and acceptable
just as I am.