A Spotlight On Loyalty

For the first day of the daily journal prompts in Dream Create Journal, I decided to start with values. So values. What are they? The dictionary defines them as:

principles or standards of behavior; one's judgement of what is important in life.

Recently, I found myself questioning an aspect of my values. It was a strange place to be in because it happened to be a grey area, so the answer wasn't really straight forward. But I also found it raised another interesting issue.

Motivation For Loyalty

So the grey area and decision I had to make was quite simple in the end. I asked myself which decision is rooted in love, and came up with my answer. As it turned out, my strict authoritarian upbringing affected my choices. Sometimes it puts me in good stead with sticking by my values. Sometimes it just makes me too strict in my decision making process. Something I'm still healing from and learning to release.

But then this situation raised another point. I found I was, at that time, surrounded by people who felt strongly about a situation, strong enough to take action or voice strong opinions. But then a few weeks later, it was like it was forgotten about, and I was left standing alone, sticking by a decision I made based on the value of loyalty. I had remained loyal, but found myself standing alone. 

Deciding to move on, I made some decisions based on the fact that no one had remained loyal, therefore I was free to move forward. Then, after acting on those decisions, it was like those people came back and said "Hey, why did you leave your post? I thought we agreed on this?" Mmmmm, hypocrisy at it's finest.

As if responding to this very fact, a quote popped up one morning which made me think look at the situation with a new perspective. It said;

Don't let your loyalty become slavery.

 The value of loyalty was being put under the spotlight. While at that post, alone, being loyal, I found I needed support. But it wasn't found. This was because I was the safest option to offend because of... my loyalty! True friends support one another. They don't succumb to people pleasing because they think their friend will still be there at the end of the day. It has made me ask the following question:  

Did my loyalty line up with the rest of my values?

Conclusion

I then looked back to all the times I compromised other values, such as making decisions based on love, in order to remain loyal. The conclusion I came to was this. That there's a place for loyalty. But when you find the people you were loyal to have gone, or fail to support you, while you're still standing there, it's time to move forward. Maybe asses whether or not choosing to be loyal compromised your other values.  
If a friend/s reacts to a decision you make because it goes against group mentality, and they exercise harsh judgement on you, then it's time to walk away. This is a subtle form of control. One many don't realise they do. 
I think it will be fitting to end with the following quote: