“Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”

-- Les Brown

Love was never meant to be personal. That validation I sought as a child, from someone I worshipped and adored as my lesser god and upon whom I depended for my self-acceptance and self-esteem. Their approval and praise would send me soaring while their disapproval sent me to the depths of despair and into self-hatred, self-loathing and self-rejection.

I sought redemption through needing to please and placate those lesser gods. I lost myself in the process and they become the shapers of my personality and decided my fate. My life, taken over by the need for their approval, demanded obedience to their images of what would make me acceptable. This is the preamble to choosing abusive and controlling relationships.

Ultimately the goal is to develop my own unconditional self-love and self-acceptance. That no other god but the God within me can define who and what I am and what I am to become in the world.

The bottom line is that I belong to no one, and every space I enter, I enter a whole. I am complete and there is nothing to achieve but my full self expression of talents and abilities. It is not a matter of being successful. We are all born to succeed and it is only the traumas, the false impressions of ourselves, that keep us from being all that we have been created to be.

~ Gemma Halpern

“A true knowledge of ourselves is knowledge of our power.”

-- Mark Rutherford

Read Gemma’s complete story.