At the Heart :: Core Values

Last year when I embarked on my Mondo journey, I had very little idea what I was getting into. This time around I feel the format and I am trying to remember that it is good to be open to each lesson, each small preparation because they led to a pretty big change in my life.



This lesson askes us to identify core values, two people we admire and why. I posted about two folks last year here. And I have to say not much has changed since last year, which is good because these are core values, people. But then, in reflection I realize so much has changed in the last year and a half.

When I published that post I had yet to meet Kate, she was a person on screen but not in person. I think we all understand what that means these days; some emails exchanged, comments here and there, @ on twitter as a way to communicate and make contact. But not yet real. And I did meet Kate and found that she is as lovely as I thought her to be. And we still communicate via the occasional contact online, mainly because she lives half a world away. But the thing I love about asking the Universe in my Mondo list for a meet up was granted in the oddest of ways. NYC and a few minutes to laugh about shirts; tiny, big and borrowed. When you ask the Universe, it answers in its own way.

And my husband. He is still my husband. And yet, a different version of that man that I have known for so long. He has gorwn and shifted out of what he was and is on his road to becoming what he wants to be. He makes furniture from scrap and manages a household when I am away and gains confidence in himself in ways that I never anticipated. And he turns 34 tomorrow ... so many years have passed since I met him at 17 but he will always embody my core values because he always has.

I didn't work my way through the exercise this time because I feel that these values did not shift ... much. But I think I know that I can state them in a clear way this time around.



I think these people came to mind for a few reasons. They exist outside of the box, outside of a faith system, a school system, the system. They thrive on reflection about themselves, and are very good at realizing that. Kate does it very publicly while my husband does it very privately. They just might not give a damn about what others think (at least, not all the time). Shirking responsibility is not an option.

From my post later year.
And my revised conclusion

I cherish respect for life and the way we each walk through it, freedom to allow ourselves do it the way we will and allow others their way, awareness that we are part of a whole and not always right, self reflection becuse the only way to self is when you know how to see self and movement becuse when you stop moving you are, well, dead.

Bam.