I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
For too many years, I have disliked myself for my inability to control either my weight or my drinking, for transgressions past and present and for not living up to who - or what - I thought I should be.
Since we got back from Asia, I have finally been motivated to do something about that. A big part of it is the imminent arrival of our grandchild but then I desperately wanted to change myself before Katie's wedding and it became just another opportunity lost. Maybe it's a whole combination of factors including the death of a dear friend that finally made me realize - and even more, act on the knowledge - that the past cannot be changed but the present and future are ours to shape.
... There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now.
And so I am very proud to say that since June, I have lost over 20 pounds, seldom drink, exercise every day and have even started to lift weights. And I feel AWESOME! I feel good about myself mentally, and physically I feel GREAT. Like Walt Whitman, I celebrate myself and sing myself every time I walk up a steep hill (so many of them in Zurich!) without huffing and every time I see myself in the mirror and every time I watch Greg pour a glass of wine and decide I don't want one.
... Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Jennifer Davidson, a wonderful friend who taught me a mental technique called EFT, showed me a way to let go of things. I inherited from my mother a tendancy to obsess and the inability to just let it go. EFT has helped me to stop the nonstop spooling of the relentless obsessive thoughts in my head.
... In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
... I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
And so ... I celebrate myself and sing myself. And I share myself with you on my blog and I share this particular blog with you not to brag (okay, maybe a little) but to encourage you, my friends, to feel good about yourselves, too.
After all, I like you!
Selections are taken from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself published in his volume Leaves of Grass 1900
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