—Values

Let’s talk transformation, pleasure, autonomy, and consistency. Values and motivations transcend culture, language, and regulations and greatly impact our expectations and experiences of one another. It is important for me to communicate my values clearly so that common ground can be built and sustainable relationships can be nurtured.

I feel it is so important to lead with my personal values, particularly in my role as a care-giver. The personal is political, and my personal identities and values absolutely inform how I present in my professional engagement and relationships.

I have included here a list of a few of my deeply rooted (and sometimes aspirational) values:

Transparency

Valuing transparency means I trust myself and the people around me. I trust us to be vulnerable, honest, and forthright with each other. As a somatic practitioner, I am honing the skill of listening and responding to my body, and I practicing being honest and transparent communicating where I am at with myself and with others. The more that we reveal the more we will be able to meet each other and determine our compatibility and realistic expectations for our relationship. I want to show up fully and to do that I need as much transparency from my relationships as possible.

Pleasure

I am committing to name and seek pleasure within my body and our collective bodies. To me, pleasure is synonymous with vitality, freedom, and rest. This manifests in my work as encouraging breaks, creating intentionally liminal space outside of capitalism, and nourishing others with food.

Mutual Aid

Reciprocity, repair, consent, abundance, community are all words that inform my understanding of mutual aid. My commitment to community and collective work and accountability grounds me in these principles and practices. We build the road as we walk it, and even as I navigate surviving under capitalism it brings me so much joy and hope to simultaneously be collectively building our way out, around, and through with structures of mutual aid and reparations.

Consistency

Within a model of mutual aid and sliding scale, I am building a practice of consistency. I reject the notion that “you get what you pay for”, particularly in my role as a support person. In this practice of abundance and human dignity, I strive to meet every interaction with the same amount of energy, empathy, determination, and expertise no matter where on the sliding scale you fit in. This means that the experience of my services does not diminish or inflate based on the financial situation of my client(s).

Liberation

In my liberation practice(s) I value autonomy, communicating and honoring boundaries, and the power of refusal. Centering liberation in my practice(s) means respecting others’ needs and also communicating my own needs as a human being. Boundaries can be challenging in a caregiving role, if I am not comfortable, fully charged, and/or equipped to meet your needs I will do my best to communicate that with you.

Humility

As I continue to grow and offer “services” I also aspire to stay soft, curious, and adaptable. As a white person, I try and center racial and cultural humility while also pushing myself to get comfortable with failure, harm acknowledgment, and heartfelt apologies paired with actionable next steps. This also means intentionally ceding power in spaces where I hold privilege.

Transformation

In the words of Octavia Butler, “All that you touch you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.” As I continue to grow and learn I will inevitably cause harm, and I will need to continually ask for grace. As I ask for grace I also try and lead with grace and expectations of messy and inconsistent transformations from other individuals and organizations. I believe we are all capable and constantly in the process of transformation. Naming our constant and inevitable ability to change keeps me grounded in a space of grace and acceptance for myself and others.