"I must learn to love the fool in me—the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool."

--Theodore Isaac Rubin

(via Free Bird) 

For a woman, self-acceptance is civil disobedience.
 

--Miss Plumcake, Self Praise and Other Endangered Species 

 

Increase tenfold for every way in which said woman varies from hegemonic White, wealthy, straight, thin, Christian, married-with-children womanhood.

New life resolution

as inspired by this Thought Catalog post:


I want to only spend time with people I enjoy thoroughly, and only attend events I find delectable. I don't want to roll with whatever comes my way. I want to make active choices, and I want to choose well. If it's not doing things for me, I want no parts of it. I want to want to be doing what I'm doing in a moment in that moment.


That's higher-level taking care of yourself, in a nutshell.

And while we're on the subject of self/body-love,

Reblogged from come correct

An illustration on radical self-love

Reblogged from come correct

"There is no simpler or greater joy in life than touching your own naughty bits. You are always your own most reliable lover, friend and partner. No one else in the world knows just how to please you, and when you give up on masturbation then you’ve given up on pleasure."

--Jon Pressick, on Met Another Frog

“Fat people who love themselves scare the shit out of people who don’t love themselves. Even fat people who are TRYING to love themselves scare the shit out of people who can’t do the same. We force people to have to look at why they hate their bodies because we are “supposed” to hate ours and we don’t. And sometimes they have no idea what to do with that, so they act like assholes.”

- Tigress Osborn

Reblogged from come correct

"I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect." -- June Jordan

Our lives DO depend on self-love and self-respect, though. If we do not love ourselves, how do we take care of ourselves? How do we sacrifice and strive for ourselves without respecting ourselves? But the imperative nature of self-love and self-respect don't describe Blackness or a feminist identity to me...they describe the human condition. We need to love and respect ourselves like we need to breathe and eat and think. 

A Declaration for Self-Affirmation:

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 chose 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 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 me and be friendly with me in all my 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.

~Virginia Satir

Source: But I Love Me More (the newest blog I follow)

Why be your own worst enemy

when you can be your own biggest fan?

Reblogged from Indie. Radiant.

 

What self-love looks like:

Reblogged from On the Bright Side

Oh hell yes!

Reblogged from PostSecret

The way to do it:

Reblogged from The Write Curl Diary

You are enough.

"How would your life be different if you truly believed that you are already amazing and complete, just as you are?" -- Rosetta, of Happy Black Woman

La gives herself advice we could all probably stand to follow:

"But I need to keep this in mind. I need to work on this. On being ruled by my strengths and not my weaknesses. On being comfortable admitting that my need for control is just as much an illusion as my thinking I’m in control is. Not making an enemy of my weaknesses, since they are just as much a part of who I am as all the great things. To learn to admire my own flaws as much as I admire the human fallacies of everyone else." --La, of Liquor, Loans, and Love, which vacillates between being some of the funniest shit and some of the most poignant shit I've read in a while.

"Today, make peace with the past, the things you've been through that have brought you to where you are.  Your face, your body, your posture are all reflections of the life you've lived.  Your resilience is a reflection of your beauty.  Reconsider the things you've associated with beauty in the past.  Renew your self-image. 

Today, stop comparing yourself to others and rejoice in yourself.  Life is heartbreaking to each and every once of us.  Since we never know what the next person is going through, we must remember to always be kind.  First with ourselves, then with our fellow man.  Beauty teaches us to see with our hearts." -- GG of Peace Love and Pretty Things

Advice from Max

"...become a bit of an egomaniac. Just for a little while. Look at yourself in the mirror frequently and often and marvel at how fucking hawt you are. Wear tight clothes that show off your assets and assume that any negative feedback you get is just hating bitches hating. Strut around like your shit don’t stink. Constantly remind yourself how effing awesome you are and don’t let anything that happens convince you otherwise. If a girl looks at you sideways, it’s because she wishes she was you. A man rejects you? Because he’s not man enough to handle you. Just gas yourself up for a little while until you get to a point where your confidence is unshakeable. Because you need that to survive the dating game." -- Max, of max-logic

I think this applies to more than just the dating game--whenever shit is going badly, I just remind myself [okay, okay, with a little help from my friends (and India.Arie)]that I run dis shit, and then I keep it movin. She calls it egomania, Ev'Yan calls it narcissism, I call it loving yourself. Whatever you call it, don't forget to practice it, okay?   

"My challenge to you today: Honor yourself.
Realize that you are beautifully unique & so is your story. Don’t compare yourself to the personal stories & experiences of others. Respect your body, your abilities, your weaknesses. Listen to your heart. Listen to your body. Say No (or Yes) with conviction & proceed with grace.
And while you’re at it, tell your ego to shut its mouth." --Ev'Yan, over at Sex Love & Liberation

Tucked away in a dusty corner of my mind is a small voice

that still wants to believe in Santa Claus. It's the same voice that used to wish my mom and dad would realize they still loved each other and get back together when I was a little kid (though when my father revealed that he might still have feelings for my mother to me a few years ago, I was almost disgusted). It's the same voice that never quite stopped identifying with every single one of the Disney Princesses, despite all the reasons Disney doesn't sit well with grown up concerned about the sociological implications of life me. (Reasons 1, 2, and 3 amongst others.) It's the same voice that compels me to make a wish at 11:11 and to want someone to kiss at midnight on New Year's Eve (this will happen eventually, dammit, I swear!). It's the same voice that has been telling me I'm full of shit for years whenever I said I don't believe in love. It's the voice that craves romance and wants to replay scenes from her favorite movies in real life (the upside-down kiss from Spiderman (check), a bunch of scenes from The Notebook, etc.). It's the voice that [though it allows the insertion of "Working hard to maintain their relationship,"] wants to believe they really can live happily ever after, despite everything in the world telling her they can't. This little voice is stubborn. It agrees to grow up only under the condition that this does not require becoming jaded. It still believes it can do everything I have ever dreamed and not have to sacrifice my well-being to do it. It still wears an S on its chest. It wants to find the rainbows end and still loves swingsets and compels me to dance in the rain and spend time admiring the stars. It's the voice that wants to throw temper tantrums, and I'm pretty sure it's where both my tears and my smiles originate. This little voice has faith, crazy blind stupid I-give-it-hella-side-eye faith. Faith in my decisions, faith in my relationships, faith in love and peace and joy and growth and change and reciprocity and karma, faith in adages like "We reap what we sow" and "What goes up must come down" and "This, too, shall pass." It has faith in the small chance that tomorrow can be better even if today was the worst day of my life, and that even if it seems impossible I can do better and I can be better at whatever goals I have set. It has faith in ME. It's the voice that says to let the haters hate, because I'm brilliant/gorgeous/fabulous/wonderful. It wants someone else to confirm that, but doesn't NEED external confirmation. It scoffs at the idea of validation. It never quite lets me believe that all is lost. It might be a small little voice, but it has my back--that voice is one of my ride-or-die bitches.


Find that voice in yourself, and let it be your best friend. [Don't tell your best friends, though. ...Oops.]  

“‎If your compassion doesn’t include yourself, it is incomplete.” --Jack Kornfield