self-acceptance

That just seems to be the way we__e built.

n our perfection-obsessed, air-brushed society, it can be tempting to measure our self-worth against its set of impossible standards. However, organic beauty is in the flaws that make us vulnerable, human and fallible. We are here to learn, evolve and grow. We do not need to become perfect to be worthy of love, there is no such thing. We can not love others when we are withholding love and acceptance from ourselves. We can not criticize ourselves and then reach with open arms to give and receive love from others. It has to start from within, radiating outward. We need to learn how to be unconditionally loving, accepting and forgiving of ourselves, first, if we wish to forge healthy and loving relationships with others.

Human history is the ancient story of the umbilical conflict between a lone individual versus a cabalistic society. A love-hate relationship defines our personal history with society, where the suppression of individuality for the sake of the collective good battles the notion that the purpose of society is to enable each person to flourish. A conspicuous feature of cultural development involves societies teaching children the sublimation of unacceptable impulses or idealizations, consciously to transform their inappropriate instinctual impulses into socially acceptable actions or behavior. The paradox rest in the concept that in order for any person to flourish they must preserve the spiritual texture of themselves, a process that requires the individual to resist societal restraint, push off against the community, and reject the walls of traditionalism that seek to pen us in. The climatic defining event in a person__ life represents the liberation of the self from crippling conformism, staunchly rebuffing capitulating to the whimsy of the super ego of society.

The way I saw it, I was fully capable of being treated with indifference that bordered on disdain while maintaining a strong sense of self-respect. I obeyed his commands, sure that I could fulfill this role while still protecting the sacred place inside of me that I knew deserved more. Different. Better.But that isn't how it works.

I feel like, God expects me to be human. I feel like, God likes me just the way I am: broken and empty and bruised. I feel like, God doesn't look at me and wish that I were something else, because He likes me just this way. I feel like, God doesn't want me to close my eyes and pray for Him to make me holy or for Him to make me pure; because He made me human. I feel like, God already knows I'm human...it is I who needs to learn that.

If you think my waistline defines my worth, you are not worth my time anyways.

Funny how in a material world full of pundits and economists obsessed with assets and liabilities -personally, economically and globally - few speak about the greatest of all these_YOU.

I tried to push my body through his and completely disappear.

So much has been done to my body, and still, somehow, not enough.

Your personal truth is your gift to the world.

A girl who truly knows herself is a girl that everybody else wants to know.

The question isn't whether the world is perfect.The real question to consider is: If it were, would you still be in it?

Either nobody's perfect,or everyone is.

I could watch him do this until morning _ never asking questions and never interrupting his work. I worship quietly _ his intense focus and attention to detail and then, out of no where, I realize the inconvenient, inappropriate truth: __ love this man_ and it has swallowed me.

Accept only the divine self.

If you can't appreciate the full worth of my courage, you can't admire my mastery.

May the might power of the Holy Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes.

There is beauty all around us, and the light finds us when we realize, we are all part of that beauty and worth the cherishing. If we despise any, we journey to despise ourselves. See all as beautiful, even if they choose to see themselves through you, as being less than so. We have the power to see for each, and be the reflection of what they may yet see.