Over the last few weeks, I’ve been meeting BR readers and a hot topic has been values, namely, realising that what they ultimately ended up doing in a host of situations did not reflect their true intentions, values, and basically who they are in the main. They each found that in situations that called for them to speak or stand up for themselves, or to show up as they truly are, they doubted themselves. They feared that if they didn’t play the game, “put out”, appear agreeable, let certain things slide, that they would be judged and rejected. They didn’t realise that aside from this being a self-rejection for what was often a veritable stranger or certainly not somebody that warranted self-abandonment, that sure, they may have felt that they avoided one form of judgment but what they didn’t like was that bigger picture of recognising that in that ‘one moment’, which actually became one in a number of moments, that they got into a habit with these people and that they were judged anyway. It might not have been done in a conscious fashion by the other party but nonetheless, that person did get an idea of what was and wasn’t permissible and no doubt used these judgements to form conclusions.

It’s very hard to be judged fairly on who you are if, despite your best intentions, your fear of not being liked, your fear of letting this ‘fish’ slip back into the bucket that ‘everyone’ is fighting over, takes precedence and causes you to be and do things in the moment that do not reflect who you are in the main.

It’s like, “What’s one chocolate bar gonna do?”, says many a person (like me) who decides to give up an unhealthy habit, but of course if that chocolate bar is one of many in the grander scheme of things, yeah, it means a lot. Incidentally, this happened to me today–38 days sans chocolate, accidentally ate a cupcake with heavenly white melted chocolate that I mistook for icing and thought, “Ah, what the hell! Might as well have another with a cup of tea”. Kettle’s boiling and no joke–I felt woeful due to the massive sugar rush in my chest and head. High as a kite! So I didn’t have another one. It reminded me of engaging with exes and other toxic people in my past, only I would have another ‘cupcake’ in those instances.

Momentarily forgetting your values and boundaries, isn’t a big deal in the grander scheme of things and it’s part of the on the job training of life—of course it’s all relative and it depends on what it is—but doing this a lot and with one particular person or in a particular type of situation, builds into something bigger, especially when you’ve lost the context of recognising that it’s not just that “one time”.

It’s vital to carry your values with you and to follow through as often as you can (this means you’ll be values driven in your outlook anyway) because you can’t be selective about your moral convictions. At that point where you’re willing to make one set of rules for one and different set of rules for another, is where you begin to come undone. I see this all the time—people who stand for a lot in certain aspects of their lives but who when they’re in a romantic relationship or whatever their ‘trigger’ is, they completely lose the run of themselves.
Your values need to permeate your life.