I am I is the essence of self-acceptance. But it is not passive or selective self-acceptance. It is active, loud, strong, and, if necessary, heroically aggressive. It applies to all aspects of self. It is dictated to only by the highest regard and dedication to individuality, however, that individuality may conform or depart from what are commonly regarded as “cultural norms.” This includes all thoughts, ideas, feelings, desires, decisions, and eventually actions. I includes all that I am. Judgment value, moral equivocation, cultural and conventional values, the ideas of others do not cause me to deaden, reprise, or attempt to cut off parts of myself. I includes all that the culture may see as assets, liabilities, limitations, resources, insensitivities, cruelites, neurotic, good, bad, sensitive, wise, or stupid in me.
— Compassion and Self-Hate, Theodore Issac Rubin
Artwork:
Kahlo, F. (1940). Self-portrait with monkey. [Oil on masonite]. Retrieved from Wikiart.