Sisterhood: The Value-Aligned Friendships
When clients start working with me, the first thing we do is reflect on personal values. What are values? Values reflect what is important to us in life. They are often referred to as our guiding principles. While we may have a variety of short-term goals that are specific to a situation, like hitting a financial goal, or running a marathon, our values are life-goals that are not specific to any one situation. Values guide our behaviour in all aspects of our lives, including our home lives, our work lives and our social lives.
8 times out of 10, when a client comes to me and they are feeling frustrated, upset or an array of negative emotions, it is because they are not living in alignment to their values, or their values are conflicting/shifting.
Values allow us to recognise how we want to spend our time and who we want to spend our time with. As you grow, particularly for those that are committed to personal growth and development, your values may shift or you may become more attuned to them. For example, you may not have previously thought about your values and as you start to think about them you realise why certain situations, world affairs, politics, relationships feel better than others. This means you are becoming more attuned to them. To others, this might feel that you are changing, you might be setting boundaries more or aligning yourself with different spaces. Society and conditioning has made us believe that changing is negative, seeing it as something that is disloyal to who we are and those around this.
I always challenge this and say the more we become ourselves and feel confident in ourselves and who we are, the happier we become and the more we recognise what we want from ourselves, society, work and our relationships.
If you haven’t done this before, have a go at the exercise below:
Guidance:
Step 1: start by capturing your overall values - these could be family, justice, peace, equality, equity, confidence etc.
Step 2: Refine the long list of values to your top 5 key values
Step 3: Jot down the beliefs you have that support these values
Step 4: Jot down your behaviours that support these values
This year, I have worked with several individuals and have had conversations with many people in my circle and networks around friendships. And how, as we grow and we become more attuned to our values and beliefs, some friendships aren’t able to come with us. Many people root this in priorities shifting, some becoming parents, for example, with that becoming a priority. However, through understanding human behaviour, I’d argue that it is not a shift in priorities (of course it’s part of it), but it’s because values are misaligned.
The more rooted we are in our values, the more likely we are to attract value-aligned individuals; however, we are also more likely to lose those that are not. It feels uncomfortable, heart-wrenching and almost like we’ve done something wrong. However, the same way you would not stay in a romantic relationship that is negatively impacting you, the same goes for a friendship.
So, I titled this newsletter “Sisterhood: the value-aligned friendships”. Level Up London is rooted in the idea of sisterhood - the coming together of women, particularly women from global majority backgrounds who have a shared value system.
As we grow, that sisterhood (and I mean, I am sure we can have friends from other genders too…) might get smaller and that’s okay too, but let’s get comfortable in the sisterhood being value-aligned.
What are your values? How do these values align with those in your circle?
Also, you might realise that your circle is incredibly value aligned and some of your circle align with different versions of your values. That can and should be celebrated.
Use the exercise in this newsletter to start thinking about them. If you’d like to unpack it further in a one-off values-based coaching session, get in touch with me here.
What we’ve been up to:
On the 1st of June, the Level Up Community (which I’d like to think is rooted in sisterhood) took a trip to Coventry to watch Swim Aunty Swim:
Level Up Community members headed to Coventry to show out and support one of our talented and inspirational community members @sianaarrgh @sianabanguraproductions writer and producer of play Swim Aunty Swim and what a play it was. Emotive, thought-provoking and FUN. Seeing seasoned women on the stage, in swimming costumes looking fab, acting fierce and just being all round Bad B aunties, covering heavy themes whilst still bringing joy and being authentic to their culture, religion and traditions was so refreshing and NEEDED.
On the 3rd of June we held our monthly Empower Hour to strategise and plan for the month ahead. Such a beautiful space to share with value-aligned women every month and soak up inspiration and motivation.
What we have coming up:
July 15th: Empower Hour 7- 8:30pm
August 28th: An evening with Jyoti Patel - A Level Up London Book Club and Coaching Event. Please contact me at info@levelupldn.co.uk for details
Recent Client Reviews:
I would strongly recommend Trisha for anyone considering coaching - she’s the best! She has provided me with great clarity on my own identity, making me take the time to think deeply and critically about my values and who I want to show up in the world as. Trisha has helped me gain a better understanding of my own behaviours based on the social conditioning women of colour have grown up with. She has helped me to transform from someone who would simply accept these injustices to someone who will actively speak up and openly challenge these social norms. Trisha has helped me to improve my self confidence immensely and I’m so grateful for her for helping me become a better version of myself. Through working with Trisha I now feel I am able to better set boundaries, talk openly and honestly about the challenges I face and clearly see the direction I want to take my life in. I also found her gratitude walk incredibly enlightening and is now something I actively include in my grounding routine. Some of my achievements through working with Trisha include - moving home, getting a new job, improving my physical and mental wellbeing and rediscovering my love for travel.
Thank you Trisha for your endless support and I’m so excited to watch the Level Up Community grow! - Annika Chauhan
Wishing everyone a wonderful month ahead. BTW. It’s Free Palestine every day until Palestine is free and all other countries, spaces, people that are facing oppression at Level Up HQ. In case you forgot ;) x