My Declaration of Self Esteem
By Virginia Satir

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.

I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own 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 me and be friendly with all my parts. 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 solutions to the puzzles and 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 authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, 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. -- from Self Esteem

ABOUT VIRGINIA SATIR

Virginia Satir (1916 – 1988) was a noted American author and psychotherapist known especially for her approach to family therapy. Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972 and The New Peoplemaking, 1988.

She is also known for creating the “Virginia Satir – Change Process Model”, a model developed through clinical studies. Change management and organizational teachers of the 1990s and 2000s have embraced this model to define how change impacts organizations.

Her entire work was done under the umbrella of “Becoming More Fully Human”. From the possibility of a nurturing primary triad of father, mother and child, Virginia conceived a process of Human Validation.

She continually planted the seeds of hope toward world peace. As she once said, “The family is a microcosm. By knowing how to heal the family, I know how to heal the world.”

With this overview in mind, she established professional training groups in the Satir Model in the Middle East, Orient, Western & Eastern Europe, Central & Latin America, North America and Russia

The Institute for International Connections, Avanta Network, and the International Human Learning Resources Network are concrete examples of teaching people how to connect with one another and then extend the connections. Her world impact could be summed up in her universal mantra: peace within, peace between, peace among.

Her work was extensively studied by Richard Bandler and John Grinder who used it as one of the three fundamental models of NLP. Together Bandler, Grinder and Satir wrote the book 'Changing With Families' for Science and Behavior Books, which bore the subtitle 'A Book About Further Education for Being Human'. AVANTA is an international organization that carries on her work and promotes her approach to family therapy. Visit AVANTA online at AVANTA Website.