Balancing Self Care in Community: Finding Values
Balancing self-care with community involvement in a world saturated with " take care of yourself first" messages, such as those dominating the Instagram explore page, can be a challenge. While we are the only ones who can truly heal our patterns, it's not always clear how much emphasis we should place on our personal growth. It’s taken a lot for me to look inside myself and discover that my true purpose resides in healing my own patterns to show up fully for the people I love and value. The phrase "transforming pain into purpose" has been recurring in my conversations with fellow facilitators, friends, and family members. I'm not content with merely scratching the surface of the human experience. I value the depth of diving into the who's, what's, and why's behind it all because, without that depth, what’s our true purpose ?
So, when do we transition from a self-focused perspective to a more community-oriented one? I guess we never fully shift from one to the other, but instead there is a mutual ebb and flow with the people we are in community with. Are we pursuing self improvement for individual gains or to contribute to the greater good? Again, a combination of both is important but we must look at what's the ultimate objective. It can be tricky to balance the time to connect with our spirituality, heal our past wounds, and grow into the people we want to be with while still being there for the people around us. Especially when the pain cuts deep into our psyche and needs isolated time and attention to rewire how we are engaging with the world around us.
During the toughest phases of my mental and spiritual health journey, my relationships with my friends and family weren’t as whole as I would have liked. I observed how my reactions, patterns and behaviors would affect my connections with my loved ones. It helped me have the realization that the extensive time I dedicated to self-discovery was hindering my ability to nurture deeper relationships. Especially with my siblings, it hurt me to see how much my own pain robbed me of deeper connection with them. They helped me see the importance of not only seeking the help I required, but also how to actively prioritize presence and mindfulness. Now, I’m not perfect and there is a lot more to let go of, but being able to identify that the world didn’t revolve around my problems ultimately brought me closer to them and to old and new friends. It also gave me purpose to find ways to breathe new life into old ways of being that I thought I was destined to literally die with.
I often think of the parallel between self-care and the oxygen masks on airplanes. Yes, we're advised to secure our own masks first, but what comes next? Some instinctively reach out to aid their fellow passengers, while others believe people should fend for themselves. However, if we are fortunate enough to have the mental and physical health required for self-care, shouldn't we actively extend a hand to those who can't? While we shouldn’t expect people to run to our rescue, when we treat people better, we give them more opportunities to succeed. To me, this embodies the essence of community. It motivates me to grow so I can be the hand to help those still struggling with the complexities of their metaphorical oxygen masks.
Maybe the ultimate goal of self healing is to establish a sturdy enough foundation that can hold collective weight. How else as humans would we be able to overcome societal structures that confine our souls to unhappiness and suffering? I'm not suggesting that we should do all of the work for others, or that this is the only answer to the world’s problems. I do ask that we look at how we can uplift one another as we strive towards our individual healing. This is part of what has motivated me to open a community studio. Sometimes the simplest signal of mutual struggle or success can motivate another towards remarkable change.
The biggest thing that’s helped me to learn how to intertwine my own healing with others is learning what I value. Engaging in values-based therapy, living on farms in community, traveling and journaling have allowed me to connect with my "why" behind self-discovery. Full transparency, when my therapist initially introduced me to values-based exercises, my mind resisted. A mental barrier had grown so high that when I attempted to list three core values on paper, I had to climb super high to unearth elements that were not externally driven. And don’t get me started on my travel and farm days, I’ll save those stories for another post. A lot of these experiences made me feel more disconnected from my sense of self. It took years of writing, deconstructing old beliefs, and making many mistakes to shift my focus beyond myself and establish a deeper spiritual connection with this planet and all of you.
Now, I’m finally in a place where I understand more of who I am at my core. I can clearly see what connects me to the people who may not be walking on the same path as me, but at the very least are looking in the same direction. My “big 3” when it comes to values revolve around authenticity, empathy, and a deep caring for the Earth (and its inhabitants).
Values Based Journal Prompts:
How would you define your core values and could you describe what each of them means to you personally?
Reflect on a time when you felt the most content and aligned in your life, career, and/or relationships. What was happening during that period? Can you describe your daily routine and the habits that contributed to your happiness?
Who in your life do you admire the most, and what specific qualities about them inspire you? Or, is there someone who irritates you, and if so, what particular traits stand out as annoying to you?
Imagine a world where money and time pose no constraints. How would you ideally spend your days? If your legacy didn't depend on work or financial success, what would you want to be remembered for?
Think back to your childhood activities that brought you the most joy. How can you reintegrate those experiences and feelings into your daily life as an adult?
