Rules of Engagement through the VALUE model

Community Guidelines

The VALUE model of engagement is a formula to apply when our community members post their writing, questions, and contribution. This model is designed to create healthy conversations while holding space for others in addition to exercising boundaries. The VALUE model approaches the community with with love and tenderness above all else.   

Before I respond to written pieces or posted creative projects, have I written a response that expresses the principles outlined in the VALUE model?
Do we see the VALUE of their experiences, stories, and personhood?
VALUE is an acronym for upholding self- worth in our work and in others;

V: Have I VALIDATED their realty (or their realm of reality)?
Not everyone has the same life experience and so everyone is speaking from a platform of their personal experience. When we work in shamanic worlds, often the physical and energetic worlds collide. There is no right or wrong way to experience these things. Call it fiction, fantasy, or divine intervention… it matters not. I encourage you to listen and VALIDATE the writer in the landscape of their reality.
We are not here to correct people’s writing, we are here to witness their artistic unfolding.

A: Does this person feel ACCEPTED in their truth? Do I accept this person where they are, as they are? (Furthermore, do I accept myself as I am where I am?) 

L: Can I share my LOVE in an authentic way? Have I created trust that I am willing to be a compassionate witness to their story?
We’ve already spent so much of our lives being shamed, blamed, and berated for who we are.
How can I share a loving response today? With others as well as myself?

U: Do I UNDERSTAND this person has their own complex emotions, experiences and wounds? This person may or may not know the depth of their own experience but it may activate a knowing in me I have not yet explored. So when I respond to a post, can I keep this fundamental truth in mind?
Have I also considered the writer might be either in pain, or responding from pain? (For sensitives/ empaths, you may actually feel the pain in your body. Remember to VALIDATE that experience for yourself! It is real!) and I commit to UNDERSTANDING complex emotions exist in all of us.

More importantly,

➡️ Do I UNDERSTAND any pain written or expressed is not my pain to alleviate? ⬅️ 

I commit here and now to honoring the writer in their journey, just as I honor where I am in mine.

E: Can I release *my* EXPECTATIONS of how this person is “supposed” to process their circumstance? 

Furthermore, can I release my expectations of MYSELF? 

IF you have read the VALUE model and agree to the community terms please agree to the following;

I commit to the VALUE model of engagement. 

On behalf of myself, my facilitator, and my writing community.

I hold space for their VALUE amidst their suffering. 
I hold space for their STORY amidst the chaos.
I hold space for myself as I explore my own vulnerability

I remind myself here and now everyone here VALUABLE.
Everyone’s story is worth being told, witnessed, and heard.
I agree here and now to meet writers with my deepest and sincere love and release ideas of where they are (and not where I think they should be.) 
I also agree here and now to release expectations of myself, my writing, and my creative pursuits and trust I am on the path to where I am meant to be (and not where I think I should be).

I love you, write on, Robin