Core Values

Before I understood what core values are, I already had negative ones. I have had it rough for most of my life so bitterness had already made camp inside me. Warming up to negative was automatic for me... it was easier for my soul back then.

For a very long time, I believed that I deserved pain or misfortunes because it is what I saw happen to me more often than not. I stayed in an abusive marriage ignoring my pain and happiness while expecting different results. To my unaware mind, I was powerless to change my gloomy situation or survive the brutality of this world.

Cold relatives made me assume that no other soul out there was loving or caring. I cruised through my days drenched in suffocating anger, constantly questioning my existence. My kind belonged in the graveyard or so I thought but I was too much of a coward to take my life.

Change.

It came unexpectedly when I was in prison. I usually say that the government handed me compulsory solitude for one and a half years which oddly gave me an opportunity to start looking for myself. What I was truly made of. The fundamental beliefs that make up my essence or being. My core values!

After avoiding solitude for years -I hated being alone which helped me stay preoccupied and find ways to ignore my reeking pain- we met behind bars and got acquainted. I had to deal with a lot and that translated into long nights and even longer days.

My weight dropped to 47 kilograms at the time but I could feel a small flame of something I didn't recognize as a part of me burning fiercely within me. It amplified my NOs and reaffirmed my YESes. Defiance started building up against a system my minimal education could rat out and the will to live and be more than I was followed suit.

I remember the fear that came with walking through those prison gates -It is the largest women correctional facility in Kenya and East Africa- unaware that I'd find whatever unlocked who I am today. I didn't enjoy my stay in prison, nobody ever does but I am thankful that I did go through it.

That year and a few awakened my being from some grave within me. My faith in humanity and community was restored by the sisterhood I experienced when I was in prison. My core values became apparent to me around the same time. It is also where I started my healing journey :)

(Recent Spear Course Training at Langata Women Maximum Prison by the team I work with at Clean Start Kenya. My boss is the gorgeous tall soul in navy blue somewhere in between. This is the same place I served my sentence!)

This monologic piece was inspired by @kimberlylane hosted by the amazing @mariannewest through the prompt, core values.

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