Things are only as valuable as you make them. It’s all subjective. I’ve come to the conclusion that we seem to apply this to people as well.
I see it everywhere around me now. I used to happily do it myself. The things do only have value if you make money or if it garners some kind of social attention. Who you are only has value if there’s something in it for the other person. What you offer as the goods. What we bring to the table. It can be monetary, ego stroking, actions, even smug satisfaction because you enjoy belittling or watching someone struggle. But it has to be something.
This realization has left me more stunned than I’d like to admit. Mainly because when I began doing the hard work on myself, that horrible stuff I really didn’t want to deal with, I saw the kind of person I had been, how I could have been, and the better choices I could have made, and how everyone in my life was a mirror for those things I wasn’t seeing in myself.
At this point I’m trying to decide if all this comes down to one thing…how we value others is how we value ourselves. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with me. I wanted to be the victim of others oppression. Be it my friends, my partners, my family, whatever. That was so much easier than facing the weakness and faults in myself.
Even now, as I write this, I think of the exceptions I allow myself…”if only they hadn’t…” or…”That person wasn’t honest, or loyal, or loving…’ it’s all my own expectations of how people should treat me. That’s seems to be the deepest problem. Expectations and judgement. It all comes down to me. And my goal has been for quite some time now to place value because that is the only necessity in this world. We value what we expect. It causes arguments, it causes division, it causes wars, it causes every issue we have. Someone’s choices, no matter how innocent it may seem to them, are always trumped by how we expect to be treated. That in turn lets us be superior and justified in the way we treat them. I don’t ever want to be that person again. I don’t need to embrace people that hurt me or make me uncomfortable, but I can let them go to be who they are and try my best not to have any need to put them in their place, or worse, make them feel badly about themselves.
Everyone believes they stand on the right side. Everyone.
Not long after my mom died I went into a pretty deep depression. Too much had changed all at once. Many, many things weren’t as I’d expected them to be, not in any sense of the word. I wasn’t able to talk to anyone about any of it because they all had their own ideas about what I should be doing, and none of it felt right. It was then the tiny thing that started this whole process of growth and learning (that I had actually been working toward all my life, but didn’t really know how to “get” there) came. I got a text.
On a side note, my son’s dad has gone through so much in his life. The world pays for that, but I understand it. He rollercoasters in moods and levity, and he is brilliant in his wisdom, he is a phoenix in every way, rising again and again when things are at their worst. He’s also crass, insensitive, blunt, obnoxious and everything I didn’t understand. And, like most people it seems, I’m pretty sure he didn’t like himself very much for a very long time. (I say this all endearingly now, but in the past, much the time, it made me crazy. Time heals all wounds I suppose, which is a very nice thing.)
The text came from him, and it struck me so deeply that it changed me forever. I’m sure he has no clue.
It said simply… Remember who you are.
And with that, (and about a year and a half of deep miserable depression along with incredible self loathing while I started doing the real work.) I realized how far I had come from the person I know myself to be, to the person I was at that moment. It was then that I finally began to learn and understand inherent value. Valuing people for who they are, no matter how they present themselves, no matter what I think they should be doing. Just acceptance that people are doing the best they can, and knowing they will find their way on their own journey. And with that, finding value in myself as well.
That is the hardest work I have ever known.
In the end, I’d also like to say, please Remember Who You Are as well. I’m pretty sure there’s more there than you ever gave yourself credit for, and it’s worth looking into.
Sending love,
xo
I wanted to share a little art with you too. I’m working on putting collections together so that things make sense. It may be valuable and it may just have value to me in the process of doing the work. We’ll figure that out. This is part of the charcoal pieces I’ve done over the past year.
I tend to like the rough and tattered pieces that I grabbed to just play with.
