Transforming My Life Through the Application of What I Value

Warning: The following essay is a lengthy humblebrag! Close your browser tab now if you are unable to experience freudenfreude. Close your browser tab now if you do not want to take responsibility for your life and are hurt when others can do so.

Four years ago, something clicked when my wife told me she was pregnant. I had struggled with my mental health for years but was too comfortable to do anything about it; however, that night *click*, I broke through myself and finally accepted with Humility that I had to start facing my inaction, and it was scary as fuck. I’m so thankful for my wife and daughter, who unknowingly gifted me with that moment of incredible inspiration and reflection — wizardry, magic. The Understanding that my life results from my actions and that my efforts will directly influence our child’s life. That night I also gathered the maturity to acknowledge that so far, through most of my last years, I had stood by like a lifeless NPC (non-player character), fumbling through a river of bland decisions and reactions, floating in what I felt was inertia and complacency.

A simple list and check of my daily habits reflected this, and I was on a mission to change it. I started working out and helping out more around the house. Still, my emotional reactions hindered my performance and my family’s satisfaction. “Something’s off,” I remember thinking one day, walking up and down a flight of stairs in our old apartment. Overall, the book Atomic Habits helped me to set up infrastructure in my mind, get organized, and start replacing unhealthy habits with healthy habits. I’ve always been task-oriented, so the serotonin gratification of completing a healthy habit was something I enjoyed. I have replaced side quests in video games with completing healthy habits (tasks) in real life. I’m a fucking nerd. I’ll be a dad soon. I have survived and conquered domestic violence. And now, I will become healthier by changing my daily habits. And during the process, I learned that I valued: Efficiency, Home, Understanding, Learning, Responsibility, Self-discipline, and Usefulness — important values but kinda imbalanced by themselves, as reflected in my interactions with family members and my emotional reactions.

At some point after my miraculous revelation and some weeks of subsequent work on habit changing, my stepson, who used to call me “dad” and now calls me “stepdad” because I’m a fucking idiot — a story for another day — looked at me and pointed out that I had no clue of what I was doing. I remember that day I reacted openly and humbly — not the norm as I would become defensive- and we had a remarkable conversation. It hurt as fuck but guess what? He was 100% correct on the things he pointed out. I was finally able to use empathy and understand him. He told me that I was already a parent, his parent and that I was flawed at it. Holy fucking shit. *click click click click* I have now unlocked the power of Humility and Understanding. I may want to be the most outstanding parent of all time, but I have been such an inconsistent parent. Ouch, it hurts. Accountability hurts AF (at first, anyways, then it’s easy AF). At that moment, shame and regret fell on me like lava spilling over my entire body — my nerves were on lockdown. It was so tough that I couldn’t stand and landed hard on my knees. The NPC is on its knees. Somehow crying helped me feel better so I could feel another wave of shame and pain as soon as possible — like a workout set. At the same time, my internal monologue kept understanding why “you are not the man you think you are Wizards.” Do note that his honest words are fundamental for me for this self-reflection process to start. At that moment, I learned I value him and his opinion of me so much and that being vulnerable with him is helpful. I’m safe — this hurts, but it’s necessary. Honest communication is essential for close and healthy relationships to grow. Who would’ve thought? During our conversation, our eldest told me, eye to eye, “You need to get therapy to deal with your trauma and stop dumping it on us.” *click click click click click click click* I’m being given one truth so actual, for free, and with such compassion. Life-changing stuff. Let’s do better — my mind shifted. I will no longer be an NPC. “I will get therapy. I will get better. Watch,” I told my family; I remember. And I did. That night in bed, something inside me had ripped like a torn muscle stabbing your nerves with so much pain and suffering — my heart was on fire, from lifeless NPC to suffering NPC. Some values mingled with my grief, and I was able to identify them quickly:

Authenticity (Who Am I?)
Responsibility (I Need to Do Better)
Forgiveness (I need to forgive myself for being flawed, it’s OK) - Learning (I will have to learn a ton of things)
Humility (Shut up and start learning — you gotta relearn how to be a man and parent from this point forward)
Truth (You don’t have it, and that’s it, you need to experience it every time)
Understanding (Empathy)
Vulnerability (Necessary for growth and closer personal relationships)

Through these cycles, I’ve learned that we can grow so much from suffering and pain. I’m learning because I’m coming out of these bouts with improved stability and with provable clarity and drive. My daily habits are changing. It’s like I’m using my wizard powers to transmute suffering and pain through self-reflection and crying — like an exercise for emotional growth. Crying from the heart, without reservations, feels like I’m healing, like when the muscle rips doing weights so that it can heal stronger. Who would’ve thought? Adaptability. Use that pain and make some magic out of it. Confidence. I can do this, but I need to get help. In my case, our son made it very easy for me. I knew what I had to do, and I did just that. I subscribed to weekly therapy sessions immediately. NPCs go around scripted and being inconsequential. I was done with that and got the help I needed — a coach in my corner. I’m about to become my own person, which will be glorious.

A “Do Better” used to hurt me and made me cry in anger letting my wild mind react and get the best of who I want to be — oh, the injustice. The world made me do it. After months of weekly therapy, I made “Do Better” my motto. I own it now. Why? Because therapy forces you to be honest with yourself, open up, and be vulnerable with this professional trying to dissect your behavior and thoughts so that he may guide you into living a healthier and more fulfilling life.

I want to mention something right away. I believe that if you go to a therapist and lack honesty, you will be wasting your money. Luckily, I want to be an honest person. Our eldest’s honesty aided me so much. Being honest is inexpensive, too; it’s liberating, it’s adventurous. It’s lazy. It lets me own integrity and accountability. Plus, I don’t have to think about the webs of lies and make-believe nonsense that we tell ourselves to keep going on when we are unhappy, complacent, procrastinating, or unethical. Through therapy, I noticed that I lied frequently. More frequently than I would’ve liked to admit. This changes once you own up to this if that’s what you want. See, that’s the important thing that I’ve noticed. All of these items only work for you if you value them. If you value honesty, you will push through. If not, your actions will show quickly. Am I getting through? Understanding that which you value will change your life.

Actions that reflect what I value make me feel fulfilled. With that fulfillment comes happiness and many other emotions. Activities or experiences that are contrary to my values make me feel questionable. And through learning how I think and the amalgam of human emotions, I can manage them efficiently in milliseconds — no lag. This is the power of therapy, and practicing what I learn in treatment gives me. I am no longer an NPC. I am now a maker and doer of ideas and things. Creator of healthy and positive environments for my family and myself —work in progress.

In other words, weekly therapy has me working on learning what I value. What I enjoy. What makes me happy. What makes me sad. What are the things I’m feeling and understanding why and how can I manage them. It’s like getting freaking superpowers. Holy shit. I went from Understanding and using a daily vocabulary of 2–5 human emotions to learning and understanding around 60 human emotions and experiences through my quest for mental health and balance. My speech, mind, feelings, responses, and thoughts are all scrambled each week in therapy to feel better, atoning for my past and present grievances and planting the day’s grain of sand of improvement and learning. It’s chaotic, and it’s beautiful, and it’s mine. This is my life, and now I have a coach in my corner. As I align with my values through hard work, the environment around me gets shaped to my liking. I have stopped trying to control others; I can only control my thoughts and actions. I can only control what I can control; everything else is outside or excluded from my bad valuables. This radical acceptance is fundamental to being free from the judgment of others and focusing on being oneself with openness, candidly, and self-express without regret. Clear communication is the key to healthy relationships at work, school, home, romantic stuff, team sports, and everywhere you want to thrive, man. Nobody can get at it alone!

Therapy is teaching me to nurture peace and harmony by applying empathy and cognitive reframing within myself first so that I can share all the positive everything with others around me.

Therapy is also complimenting my physical training. It’s definitely a Chicken and Egg situation. Now that I value strength and movement and my habits are showing this, I feel therapy is even more manageable, and as time passes by, it feels like my brain is feeding my emotions, and my feelings are feeding how I think (managed with techniques I’ve learned through the years of behavioral therapy and cognitive reframing) and how I feel is supporting my training and the training is nurturing my soul with metric tons of confidence, and the cycle goes on. From NPC to living creature. From a certified weakling and closeted bully to an involved human being, present and conscious, ripped to shreds, that trains and works hard for oneself. For myself. Living is about experiences and doing things. And if one loves oneself, one will do things for oneself. Hard things. Easy things. I value and love myself, so I wash my teeth, floss them, and train hard to keep a healthy body and mind. Stay away from lies to keep my conscience clear and straightforward. Express my needs clearly. Setup boundaries. Cut down on the noise. Therapy gives me the path; I have to take action. I value action.

Anyway, that is more or less my origin story. Now…

I want to be such an involved parent. I need so much energy to provide what I want to deliver. I want to be able to keep up with them until I draw my last breath. My power keeps growing, and so do my duties and feelings of fulfillment. Each week, my body comes closer to our end goal of looking like Garou from One Punch Man, and our temperament more and more like an earlier Vegeta — who is clearly in therapy but unhappy about having to share too much deep intimacy with other non-Saiyan adults.

Having a beef with myself for being so fucking acquiescent these last 15 years is also a great motivator and valuable tool. I felt like an NPC, and we are steadily and consistently (~4 years now) chipping away at our goals and taking control of our lives with all of this bottled-up frustration and anger and turning the suffering and pain into sweat, blood, and tears so that we can destroy and heal, stronger. So we are getting there, and learning, comprehending, openly discussing, and acting on what we value is the fuel driving this sweet transformation. Changing habit by habit, improving every day. Resting. Slowing down and being patient.

Not everything about our journey is peaches, honey, and cream. As I shift my energy, concentration, and time toward myself, I naturally neglect responsibilities less aligned with the type of man I wish to become. With this neglect comes some hurt and suffering for others around me. I take full Responsibility for this and communicate and express carefully to mitigate. I am aware, so I can be accountable and remediate. Thankfully, so far, no children have been harmed during the creation of our current condition; they are benefiting the most from this positive human being that is cultivating skills, tasty and healthy food, financial healthiness, and strength to provide them with whatever they need and require.

When I started weekly therapy a year ago, I chose the following 33 Values as my guiding principles: Accountability, Adaptability, Authenticity, Balance, Confidence, Cooperation, Efficiency, Financial Stability, Forgiveness, Fun, Gratitude, Growth, Harmony, Health, Home, Honesty, Humility, Humor, Independence, Integrity, Joy, Kindness, Learning, Love, Parenthood, Patience, Responsibility, Self-discipline, Self- expression, Truth, Understanding, Usefulness, Vulnerability. I have marked in bold what I believe my core values are.

Yo Wizards, why on Earth did you pick 33 Core Values? I don’t know; I seriously thought this was who I wanted to be.

After selecting these values and discussing them with my therapist and family, I then went into self-reflection mode and asked myself the following questions:

Are my daily habits reflecting this? Hell, no, they did not.
How much do I have to change to evolve on this list? A lot.
Are you willing and able to commit to whatever changes we decide so that we may evolve on this list? I need to; I need to improve for myself and our children.
Can you list the habits that must be added to align with your values? Yes. Listed.
Can you list the habits that need removal to better align with your values? Yes. Listed.
Can you list the habits that need improvement to align with your values? Yes. Listed.

Do notice that answering the above questions truthfully requires naked Accountability, Authenticity, Honesty, Humility, Integrity, Responsibility, Truth, and Vulnerability. But if done honestly (and continuously), the payment for this exercise would be that you know who you want to be and can list a plan of action for your days. It’s a way to create a continuous improvement plan. This is how I want to spend my days. These are the things that don’t make me feel positive about myself. These are the people I spend the most time with and the activities that consume much of my energy. So this is who I am and what I need to become to feel fulfilled with my life and align with my values.

Habits that we have removed since learning more about our Values:

We are no longer waking up and lingering on the phone
We have stopped drinking alcoholic beverages.
We have stopped eating processed food like Brand cereals, candy with nonsense ingredients, and others.
We have stopped doing “retail therapy.” and locked down on our discretionary spending.
We have stopped reacting. We now take our time to respond to external stimuli.

Habits that we have grown since learning more about our Values:

We now wake up at 5:30 AM. We spring out of bed without hesitation for personal hygiene and cook breakfast and lunch for the children to take to school (Parenthood, Accountability, Responsibility, Self- discipline)
We are now exercising ~15 hours a week. ~10 hours of strength and endurance training. ~2.5 hour of flexibility and mobility and ~2.5 hours of basketball or jogging
We cook and eat whole foods (protein, fruits, vegetables) multiple times daily.
We have started saving 20% of our income.
We are sleeping at least 8 hours each night.
We are now spending any time we have available for leisure with our children as a priority.
We now manage our emotions through therapeutic exercises such as writing, grounding, meditation, and mindfulness.
We are now taking cold plunges regularly to assist with physical recovery.
We are now setting up concrete and achievable boundaries and expressing them appropriately with kindness and firmness to their recipients.
We are now video gaming for less than 4 hours per week. Don’t miss it because we are now playing basketball in real life!
We are now accepting Responsibility like hotcakes for multiple situations. Any interaction with us means we are 50% responsible for half of the exchange — this acceptance is empowering! And with the blessing of Responsibility, we can now self-reflect diligently and hammer down anything that needs to be processed. The queue of issues and baggage becomes lighter with less load with every session. We are now kinder and more conscious about using compassion and empathy.
We now express ourselves freely throughout the day, especially at home or with close people.
We are now dancing to the beat of music whenever it comes up.
We are now practicing kindness to ourselves by not feeling shame for other people’s comments. Only I have permission to shame myself. We do laundry chores every other day to keep clothing, towers, and bed sheets organized and available.
We are now picking up the children’s room to model the behaviors we want, and it becomes imprinted on their developing brains. When they are ready to do these themselves, we are confident they will.
We are now reading one book at a time versus having 5–10 open book projects simultaneously.
We are now actively listening more and with an improved attention span.
We are attacking chores and responsibilities with haste, contrasting our previous procrastinative tendencies.
We can now identify what an anxious thought is.
We are aware of our conscious and unconscious biases now and act accordingly.

Am I being true to my core values? You bet! Does this make me an excellent person? I have no clue, but I see direct and indirect benefits for myself and my children. I will keep going and keep learning about life, its experience, and how to value it even more. And another truth of mine now is that I’m so happy. Feeling powerful makes me happy; I value strength, determination, and accomplishing challenging tasks. The exercise and emotional work might be me running away from further complications and issues yet to be discovered in therapy. Still, today I have the confidence and the drive to keep grinding and working on myself with kindness, compassion, and persistence.

Sometimes I might be going overboard or doing too much. Still, I will keep going as long as my children are safe and healthy, feel comfortable at home, and react favorably to my improvements and evolution. Abs shredded and arms of still so that I may cook with love, play hoops, and be young with our children. Selfishly, today I am still determining what my limit is. But I intend to find out. Plus Ultra.

Changing is possible. I am changing, and if you knew and saw my evolution closely, you would trust that the path is simple and that healing your inner child through therapy and compassion is possible. Loving oneself through actions. And seriously, whoever tells you you cannot change is shitting in your mouth without remorse. Fuck those people. You got this!

Power is achievable if you put your mind, body, and soul (and time) into it; I am living this.

And last but not least, I have to admit that I possess so much privilege in our society; I can afford therapy and time to think, read, write, and work on myself. Most of us can’t even afford the time or the economic means to do so. This is so fucked up and is why we are so broken down as a society and even more reason to work even harder in yourself and love yourself — accepting yourself as is. I could not accept myself as I was because I was imbalanced and unfulfilled. I admit it. I had to transform because I hated that NPC dude; now, I accept myself with open arms because my actions align with what I value. I wish our governments, systems, and powers that would be aligned to values that benefit us directly and indirectly. I wish I could do more, like Garou or Saitama. Dreams are nice.

Food for thought.

This article was originally published on Medium. I’m sharing it here as part of my journey of self-reflection and growth, hoping it might resonate with others on a similar path.