no. 14| 06.06.2014 |
Affirmations, Revisited.
I just looked back at my “Affirming your values” blog post. The two things that stood out are how much focus I place on my friendships, and how low I rated “Creativity” and “Inventiveness” the night I wrote that post.
I actually value creativity and inventiveness very highly. Seeing how I rated them is a reminder of how much my outlook and point of view can change from moment to moment based on what’s going on in my life. It also suggests that my outlook is going to be changing a lot from day to day while I’m at DBC.
The strong focus on close relationships and friendships also points out how much I think DBC is going to impact that part of my life. I’ve decided to just take a leap and commit to staying in San Francisco after DBC. That means leaving 20 years worth of town, career, family and friends for what feels like a total reset.
I’m excited for that, but also a bit bewildered, anxious and sad too.
The connection to Stereotype Threat
Stereotype Threat, at it’s base, it about conception of self, and how that “self” plugs into any given environment. One of the things that’s interesting to me about being surrounded by people who have known me very well for many years, is that they hold a version of me that gets reflected back. When I’ve expressed doubt about DBC, they’ve reminded me that I can do this. Not because they’re being nice, but because they’ve seen me do things like this before. “Oh, yeah. You’re right. I forgot for a minute.”
Stereotype threat is often an unconscious process. Your sense of self, sense of ability, and sense of values gets all mushy without you necessarily realizing it. SF will initially be a place where I won’t have the same kind of reminders from others about my self in moments where I forget. The values exercise is a way to fill in for that. It’s a mindfulness exercise that can help sort out the genuine interior from the exterior of the moment.
Keeping up a meditation practice, exercise, activities that are fun and have nothing to do with DBC, getting together with the few friends and family members I have in SF, and taking time to look over that values list are all things I think I’ll be relying on in the next few months. And, of course, I’m really looking forward to building new friendships. (As well as visits from old peeps.)