Loving Ourselves Entirely

"I asked the Zebra, “Are you black with white stripes? Or white with black stripes?’

And the zebra asked me, ‘Are you good with bad habits? Or are you bad with good habits?’"

~ Shel Silverstein

I share this sliver of a poem because it touches on something a lot of people struggle with when they come to therapy, that is intending to figure out who they are. We often want a concrete answer, to fit into a clear label, but none of us do. We exist with both good and bad, little and a lot of skills, with black and white, and to embrace one over the other is to deny a part of ourselves. While we often have parts of us that we don’t like, as we move through therapy, we learn that those parts of us are lovable too. There are no bad parts. Self-love becomes easy at that point.

"I asked the Zebra,

‘Are you black with white stripes?

Or white with black stripes?’

And the zebra asked me,

‘Are you good with bad habits?

Or are you bad with good habits?’"

~ Shel Silverstein