It is hard to get over the self-hate. I would read books and they would say plithy things like "Change your attitude and life becomes wonderful." I hurt myself quite badly after reading "don't sweat the small stuff." I decide however that I was going to do something about it. I decided that all these people where wrong when they messed with my mind as a child. I decided that I was a creature of the infinate, of god, of mother nature, the cosmos, whatever my source was at the time. And as a child of Goddess I deserved to be treated well. This happened in one silly defining moment when the sun was particularly yellow and I could see God in the leaves of the trees. It was something like 12 years ago. Sigh.

Now I am in love with myself. The Hate is gone. But it took all of that 12 years and I still have pockets of ick that I run across. For me has been a long process and will continue until the day I die. But it is worth it.

What I am saying is that I hope that you will today do one thing that says to yourself that you are a child of the infinate, that a peice of you is divine and you deserve the best. It can be something simple. Eat an orange slowly with the intent that you are nourishing someone special.
Ok, I will shut up now, if I don't I could ramble on forever.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft