Values
I recently realized that after a very intense couple years in my life, and coming to know myself and the way I am reacting to my past, I have lost sight of my values and personality.
While doing all of this “self-work,” as I would describe it to clients I advocate for, I’ve been focusing on such a narrow part of myself I’m not even sure what makes me tick anymore.
How do I feel about being polyamorous? Do I expect communication, but little restriction in my relationships? Are my really intense urges to create more connections with people because I want more partners, or partners that feel more like a big family?
I feel out of touch with my past commitments to sustainability. How can I lead a comfortable and healthy life while honoring my beliefs about the impact I have on the land I’m occupying? I’m living in a city that is really spread out, while not making any use of the land I’m sitting on- my past self would hate me. Should I move to a bigger city or pick up farming again?
Is money and stability more important to me than my ethics and ideas around how a workplace should operate? Should I continue absorbing vicarious trauma in order to earn a small paycheck? Could I settle with losing a “meaningful job,” and work at a small retail store in order to gain some peace of mind?
The past few years I’ve gone from feeling forced into a femme box by my abusive partner to almost starting testosterone to this current wavering place of I appreciate my body when its modestly covered, but feel resistance to my need to speak out against the shit I was told to be quiet about most of my life, with people telling me I’m negative or unattractive when I say what’s on my mind. The only difference between doing it now, and doing it when I was younger is that I don’t care about their reactions anymore- but this also changes other people’s perceptions of my gender. Essentially, do I just keep letting what happens, happen? Or do I force myself to think about it more?
I’ve slowly but surely separated myself from my biological family. This was not only a big loss because I lost a large part of my history and my family’s history, but I lost my connection to my culture. I have traditions without the people to practice them with. I have a culture and history that displaced my family, and have experienced their feelings around that, but no one to process it with. And they don’t want me around. I make them uncomfortable. I’m queer and that just doesn’t work for them. How do I regain that culture, outside of my own dietary habits, holiday observances, and in general feeling out of touch with the people around me? How do I deal with the feelings they never dealt with but put on me?
These are a lot of things I hope I can give some time over the next part of my life. As much as I want to resist change right now, I hope I can make some that will make me more comfortable in the end.
