#reflection

After chatting with Riley about his explorations with core beliefs and values, I'm curious to try this for myself. The framing is this:

• Your core beliefs are an intrinsic part of you. You do not choose them; they were created throughout your life up until this point. They inform your subconscious and what sorts of outputs (thoughts, emotions) it gives you. Or rather, a set of core beliefs is our way to describe the behaviour of our subconscious, both in terms of what thoughts/emotions we typically experience, but also how we spend our time when we're not present, etc. Your core beliefs may be helpful or harmful. Odds are there are some harmful ones in there, which is why they're worth articulating.
• Your core values are an actively chosen set of values. You can use them to filter or interrogate thoughts, emotions and reactions that arise as a result of your core beliefs. They are allowed to contradict each other. You can use your core values as a more sophisticated machine for deciding how to respond to your subconscious outputs, how to spend your time, and to converge on a more fulfilling life. When you live by your core values, it should fill you with a sense of calm, meaning, happiness or acceptance.

So without further ado, let's hop to it.

What are my core beliefs?

To answer this question, we should look at the thoughts and emotions I typically experience.

Notably, I feel much more like my Higher self when I'm engaged in present conversation with others. When I self-analyse with others, I don't succumb to rumination and I don't lean too heavily on rationality. When I was contemplating breaking up for the first time, I came to very different conclusions about what I should do depending on whether I was analysing by myself; with others, I felt affirmed in my gut feeling that breaking up was best, but with myself, I would deprioritise my own certainty and anxiously belief that I needed to collect more data before acting (even after several months).

I'm going to give myself permission not to delete here, otherwise I'll start focusing on mincing my words.

There's clearly a belief like "my worth comes from others' thoughts of me" or "I put others before myself". This doesn't serve me, and even if my worth did come from prioritising others, this doesn't even serve others; if I'm not able to participate properly in a relationship because my needs aren't being met, I can't meet someone else's needs anyway. I also see this belief when I disappoint others; I feel so shameful and terrible when I upset someone that it has often caused me to shame spiral, perhaps even stopping me from being present for their hurt that I've caused. This belief also shows up when I feel good about pleasing or helping others, though I think that's a helpful presentation of this belief. I also notice that when I'm with someone else (particularly my romantic partner), my brain becomes an NPC and literally stops thinking about the rest of my life (goals, tasks, priorities); it becomes all about centring them. In sex, I really enjoy centring other people's pleasure and helping them explore sensation too (I wonder how else sex is a mirror).

So in short, I really enjoy helping others (especially through curious analysis and introspection), I feel gravely unworthy when I upset others (even when there is no malicious intent on my part), my brain stops thinking about my needs when I'm with someone I care about, and I prioritise (and have learned to get pleasure from) other people's pleasure in sex. If I were to sum this core belief up, I'd say something like "My worth comes from pleasing, helping and not hurting other people".

Should I feel bad when I hurt someone without intent? Well, let's take The Ethical Slut's approach to painful emotions and consider this badness as a signal to help me change my behaviour. Feeling bad is one way to go "hey, maybe this isn't working, let's try something else". But shame spiralling or being stuck in any negative emotion feedback loop just robs me of energy I could use to consider someone else's feelings, apologise, hold space for them, or reflect on my own behaviour. I often ruminate thinking it's helping, but I'm just reimagining hurting the person repeatedly. Something that could be helpful instead is to kindly imagine how I could have prevented this hurt. So to counter this shame spiral, which is deeply tied to "my worth comes from not hurting other people", I'd like to construct a value to combat it. Something like

• "I am not worth any less for causing harm to others, but when I hurt them, I want to hold others how I'd want to be held"
• "I deserve patience and empathy when I encounter problems"
• "I accept that being close to people means "

Alright, another big pattern of behaviour; my busy-ness and my zooming thoughts.

• Why do I keep myself so busy? I'm not sure. I feel that I should excel at things I do, which often leads me to perfectionism. I also tend to fuss over details at the expense of completing projects (or fixating on cutting vegetables when I can smell something's burning when I'm cooking).
• Why do I spend so much time on connections but not feel connected? I'm afraid of being unloved, and spending time with people probably makes me feel like I'm connected even when I'm not.
• Why don't I spend time on my relaxation? I think I'm afraid I'm wasting my life. It's probably internalised capitalism.
• Why do I spend time ruminating on my experiences with others? I believe that I have to learn from my mistakes in order to not harm others. While I'm really grateful for my ability to introspect, I think this time is overspent.

I also often struggle to get into a state of play. I'll deal with the infinite logistics or invent problems in the every day instead of letting myself just be present. An example of this is doing some nutrition research or deciding to shop for an elaborate meal to nourish myself instead of having a simple known meal and creating time to play music. I think this might be my fear of failure.

I summarised my beliefs in Personal IKEA Manual#📢 Core beliefs.

I wonder if there are other core beliefs. I should ask Caro what she reckons they are. Actually, no; I've decided that this is a personal process, and I want to realise these things for myself. This is ultimately about how I see myself, not how others see me.

This is something I wrote in my Personal IKEA Manual originally. Known insecurities, aka "things my brain says that has unnaturally high volume for how (not) true it is".

1. That I am not interesting enough. This pattern shows up in a few thoughts:
2. "When people don't listen to me, it's a sign of my low worth as a human being."
3. "I don't have enough hobbies or interests, so I'm doomed to not connect with people over more than surface-level things."

This is interesting, because it speaks to all of the core beliefs I've articulated; I fear I'm not interesting enough because I believe my worth depends on my value (interest) to others; I need to have hobbies and interests to be interesting and therefore attract others; I don't make time to explore interests genuinely because I do not make time to relax or play.

Core values

So having distilled my core beliefs, how do I define the core values which embed how I aspire to live?

Well, sitting in my higher self, let's prattle for a little bit.

I believe that the world sucks right now, but people are awesome. Few people are evil or think they're acting in bad faith, but we continue to do bad things because we're ignorant of the consequences whether that's through a lack of empathy (and ability to compute the consequences) or wilfully not considering them (as with routine meat consumption). And my interactions with people generally leads me to believe they're good people; I feel safe to hitch hike, chat to strangers and receive help from others (like when I forget my bag at a cafe). To distill this: the world might feel like it sucks, but people are generally awesome.

I also believe that I have a right to joy and presence in the everyday. Stress or projects that take away from presence should be temporary, calculated escapes from the stable orbit of a present life. Ultimately, my drive for bettering the world through economic reform and more sustainable food production come from a desire for more people to spend more time being present with themselves and others. I love to create reflective spaces for people to see themselves and talk about their fears and desires; vulnerability is a beautiful biproduct of presence with another person. Music and creative expression are also wonderful side effects of presence. I believe that the best parts of life (laughter, art, correcting course, etc) come from presence. So to distill this: everyone deserves presence, joy and creative expression, including myself. To achieve this, I need good exercise, food, time with people and myself (free from rumination).

I'm struggling to think of other values. Let's think about memories where I've felt immensely fulfilled or content.

I felt amazing on 2025-07-16 having started the day with exercise, good food, sun, and mindful engagement in something. This fits into the previous value.

I felt really good practicing guitar everyday in preparation for open mic at Bar Oussou, and I met some amazing people there. I felt really good at Food Not Bombs too in the chaos of the kitchen and feeling like my initiative was appreciated and the teamwork was flourishing.

I feel really good when I share things and have people engage over a common interest or enjoy my stuff. This risks placing my self-esteem on others' validation; I should share from a place of curiosity and fullness (in my self already), and not from a place of need or lacking.

I feel fantastic when I converse with people and the discussion meanders through various topics. This is the state of flow in conversation with another person. To echo an earlier value; I feel my best when I am in a state of presence (or flow).

Okay, I'm in a mood to prattle from the subconscious again.

I would rather create something flawed than not create anything at all. This value speaks to the belief that my worth comes from providing value (in the form of excellent work) to others. It also speaks to my ADHD which finds it easy to put off or not resume important work when it's tedious or boring (or simply when I am dissociated). To steal a quote, The best is the mortal enemy of the good.

Alright, let's try to articulate our values and make a little playbook in our IKEA manual. Personal IKEA Manual#⚓ Core values

Fantastic. I think I'm done with this exercise, and the results are neatly in my IKEA manual. Goodbye for now.