Z is for Zen ~ The A-Z Challenge is Officially Over!

Today is the final day of the A-Z Blog Challenge and I have a gift for you at the bottom of this post.

Am I glad I did the A-Z Challenge? Soooo glad. But I’m also happy it’s over! I learned amazing things, blogging to the alphabet. I highly recommend you try it…just not all in one month.

I’ll be getting back to my regularly scheduled goals with some serious newfound confidence that I can write a LOT, to deadline, and about things I know little to nothing about.

What were my favorites this month? The Top 5 spots go to:

• H is for Hussy: Online Dating Gone Awry
• M is for Moms…Who Deserve Medical Attention Too
• My favorite post of the month? K.B. Owen’s OneNote About The World Famous Cowbell. It was A-MA-ZING, astonishing and creative as hell!
• U is for Uber-cool, Unboring Writing by Margie Lawson
• X is for X Chromosome: 18 Interesting Facts About Women (134 was the magic number in this post…watch for it in the comments too!)

In honor of all the A-Z Bloggers, who turned their brains inside out this last month, and all of my ROW80 pals that are in the middle of Round 2, here’s a poem to bring you some ZEN. This is  the blog about “more” after all, and Lord knows I can always use more Zen.

Trivia Fact: This poem hung on the wall over our light switch in the laundry room for most of my growing up. I would mull it over whenever I folded laundry.

I can think of no finer gift to give you than the poem below:

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

Have you heard this poem before? Did it give you some Zen? What provides you with that extra smidge of calm on those harried days? Enquiring minds always  want to know these things here at More Cowbell!

Jenny