VALUES | My compass
What are my values? Who do I do this for? What do I say yes to / move towards?
When I think of my core values, I am reminded of the elephant.
When I was younger, I often felt too big and out of place, as though I was trampling through spaces too narrow, too restrictive for who I really was. I tried to make myself fit into places that didn't truly hold me. When I think about the moments where I felt most alive, I was my fullest size; not only did I feel like I was meant to be there, but that everything in my life had prepared me for each moment, and my choices within them were truly meaningful to myself and others. So now I aim to move like the gajah: taking up the space I need, remembering the ones before me, and practicing a life in community with others.
Since 2024— and especially after the great moral awakening of late 2023— I value interdependence, rahma, defiance, play, wisdom towards liberation, and not leaving anyone behind.
- I value interdependence over independence. 🧬 Elephants know the importance of relying on each other for support and survival.
- I value accessibility and disability justice. 🩻 Elephants don't leave each other behind. They accommodate each other as they move together.
- I value compassion and rahma. 🏩 Elephants extend their trunks out to support each other when vulnerable. They care and grieve deeply, even for other living beings. I want to show up in ways that bring empathy and affection to others across space and time.
- I value wisdom towards liberation. 🧿 Elephants remember. They carry generations of knowledge within them and navigate their world with a deep understanding of the land. They hold memories of each other that come back when their trunks touch bones of elephants long gone.
- I value defiance and courage. ❤️🔥 Elephants are fiercely protective of their community. They retaliate fearlessly against the many threats they face, steady in their resolve against the forces that have wronged them.
- I value imagination and play. 🪐 Elephants do more than just be majestic and survive; they are also so super silly. The capacity of an elephant to be curious and have some fun with each other (and other species!) is as great as their temper.
Sidebar: Values help build Autistic self-trust
"My values protect me and the people I care about"
To articulate my values, I thought about moments in my past that made me feel truly alive.
This took me a long time to do— a year, maybe longer— where I negotiated the themes and patterns of those moments with how I want to spend my time in the present. This was an ask of Heather Morgan's values-based integration exercise, which was highlighted and adapted by Devon Price in his 2022 book Unmasking Autism: Discovering The New Faces of Neurodiversity. Devon Price wrote: "Exercises like these can really highlight the ways in which we’re 'throwing' time away meeting the expectations of neurotypical people in our lives, or just trying to conform to a vague idea of what we think society wants from us. As soon as we’re able to create a little distance between these implicit demands and our actual selves, saying 'no' gets a lot easier."
The ideal result of this exercise is to help an Autistic person trust themselves more.
Devon Price:
"Stepping back and taking a look at my key memories and core values, I can see that I’m a dynamic, powerful, clear-headed person who is always growing, and who has risen up to defend the people and ideas that matter to me many times. I am so different from the inept, powerless, clueless, needy figure that I have always worried abled people might see me as. I’m also nothing like the frigid, passive intellectual I’ve often masked myself as. This exercise also made it painfully clear just how much my old, masked life blocked me and kept me dissatisfied. Alone in my apartment, socializing with no one, I had no room to inspire others or to express myself. I was so afraid of upsetting other people that I didn’t risk standing up for what I believed in and didn’t indulge in anything that gave me pleasure. It was my attempt at a neurotypical persona that failed me—the real me was a beautiful person who deserved so much more."
As an example, these are Devon Price's answers to the values-based integration exercise in the same book:
- Value 1: Candor. What this value means to me: "Honestly sharing how I feel and the way I see things. Sharing observations that might not be convenient, but which are true and important to hear. Being honest with myself about who I am, who I enjoy spending time with, and what I want out of life. Speaking out when I see someone being mistreated."
- Value 2: Courage. What this value means to me: "Trusting my intuition and being willing to take risks. Standing up for my beliefs even when they are unpopular. Enthusiastically, passionately saying “yes” to the things that I want, instead of searching for excuses to say “no.” Letting my emotions be loud and bold. Taking up space, and taking a huge, hungry bite out of life."
- Value 3: Inspiration. What this value means to me: "Observing the world around me, filling myself up with ideas, and sharing my thoughts and passions with the world. Listening to my own creative drive and bursts of insight. Being a light that can guide others, by empowering people to do what is best for themselves."
- Value 4: Passion. What this value means to me: "Giving myself the space to feel things deeply. Making time to be sad, angry, resentful, or joyous. No longer filtering emotions based on how others might receive them. Being unashamed of who I am, pursuing the things I desire that feel good, and letting myself leave the situations that distress me."
The exercise also asks to think of an image that integrates the values, such as the strings of a guitar or colours of the rainbow. Visually, Devon pictures a shield that integrates those four values into a larger whole. I went with the elephant.