February 24, 2025 - Poems to Encourage You by Reyna Biddy and Maya Angelou

Today I want to share with you two poems which are about self-worth, because I want to talk this week about how you are a person worthy of being valued by yourself and all who meet and know you. Poems can be a wonderful way to express ourselves and receive encouragement. I found these poems on line at this link and this link.

accept yourself as a work in progress the continue 

to build yourself into the person you’re dreaming to be;

the person you have all the potential to be. 

accept your flaws, accept your truths. accept your past. 

and make light of them. no one can tear you down if 

you make peace with who you are and where you’ve 

been. if you are going to focus on the negative at all,

focus on turning them into positives. focus on growing. 

sometimes, often times, our minds are the scariest 

place to sit. it’ll trick you into comparing yourself 

to others and it’ll trick you into believing you aren’t 

good enough. but you are. you have always been

and you always will be. you’re much more powerful 

when you believe in yourself. if you don’t love 

all of you, who will? 

give yourself time to blossom. 

—Reyna Biddy 

 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Copyright Credit: Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems.  Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.  Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994) 

I hope you take these words to heart. Here is my virtual "hug" for today - You matter. You deserve to be loved and are loved - I love you! You make our world a better place - we need you in this world. I hope you have people around you who tell you these things, but if not, please let me be someone who does. Yes, I say this every day, but these words are true and will always be so. You will find the video at this link.