Finding my Core Values After Self-erasure
I was depressed for almost fully half of last year.
Emotionally, that was my rock-bottom.
And a lot of value comes to you as you’re coming out of something like that. I have many thoughts about that period of my life, and I do believe that it was important and transformative for me moving forward.
For instance, I learned that one major contributor to my depression was years of self-erasure due to my Mormon upbringing.
This has, in turn, helped me begin to really find myself, my own values, what I want out of life, etc. All stuff that I should have done as a teenager, but repressed because I thought that repression was essentially the highest, most Jesus-like virtue.
And so, as I do when I figure out stuff that feels important to me, I write it down. And sharing it here might hopefully provide some value to someone else in a similar boat.
I learned that all my core values, goals, ambitions, motivations, wants, etc, in life come down to seven core categories; health, wealth, family, joy, home, community, and legacy.
Health:
I want to be physically, emotionally and mentally healthy. I want to eat good-quality, nutrient-dense foods, like organ meats, mineral-rich salt, raw milk and honey, cold-pressed juices, structured water, etc. I want to always be physically capable of carrying my wife out of a burning building. I want to be emotionally healthy enough to avoid manipulation myself, and protect my family from manipulators. And I want for every member of my family to grow to be healthy in all those ways too according to whatever is fitting for their age, gender, etc.
Wealth:
I want to never be in survival mode financially ever again. I want to be in “thrival mode”. I want to generate enough money to be able to securely move away from dependence towards total independence, building such a level of long-term security and self-sustainability that society could completely collapse around us and my family would still have enduring peace.
Family:
I want my family to be happy. I want to have healthy, meaningful and secure relationships with every member of my family. And I want my family to continue to grow and add even more people into it because family is true wealth.
Joy:
I want to live a joyful life. I want to build the sort of life I never need a vacation from, a life filled with beauty, nature, creativity, higher vibes, quality music, a lot of love and happiness, gratitude, friendship, peace.
Home:
I want a home with a sense of spaciousness and grandeur to it. Natural materials like brick or stone. A lot of solid wood work. Beautiful detailing. Warm and inviting. Multiple fireplaces. Meaningful artwork. Good energy/aesthetics. Lots of instruments and books. Solid hardwood furniture. A lot of life. Big enough with even more room to grow and expand, with a large property upon which we can be entirely self-sustaining and eventually build a bunch of cabins or tiny homes for each of the children and their families, etc.
Community:
I want a solid, like-minded, high-trust community with similar values. I want a group (or a few groups) of friends, at least one of which is a men’s-only group, with whom I can build things, learn skills from, do business with, shoot, hunt, learn martial arts, make music, and do a whole bunch of other creative and masculine endeavors.
Legacy:
I want to help build good things for my family and community, like the raw milk bar burger joint, and tiny home/cabin villages, and land security, and abundance; free energy or water-powered cars, and other creative stuff that is good, beautiful and true, for the community and especially the children, like books, movies, music, etc.
And those are my core values.
Yes, they’re all phrased in “I want” language, but that’s good and healthy. I should have my own things I want to achieve in life, and I should be free to pursue anything in life that falls under the good, the beautiful and the true, for me and for others.
So, if you’ve experienced any self-erasure due to emotional or religious abuse, I hope this can help you focus on discovering the good things you want in and out of life, and gaining the ambition to make them a reality.
