Values
Ok, so in my last post I said I would start breaking down the conditions needed to thrive.
If we go back to the plant analogy, it needs a good, healthy root system to be thriving.
For us, our roots are our system of values, beliefs and principles.
Let’s first look at values.
When you live a life that is guided by your inner values, you tend to feel happier and more satisfied with your existence. As far as I’m concerned, that is one of the best coping mechanisms. In other words, the best way to hold off The Emptiness is to create the conditions for thriving. Then you will hopefully find yourself more often in The Glow..
So there are two things I’d like to explore from that last paragraph; how do you discover your inner values, and then, how do you live by them?
Let’s look at that first question in this post.
How do you discover your inner values?
There are many ways to determine what your inner values are. There are wonderful websites, questionnaires and professionals that will lead you through the process in a much more thorough way than I can do here. But I’ll try to give you a brief insight into what you would do in that process.
I like this definition which came from typing the word ‘value’ into an online dictionary;
A value is a principle, or standard of behaviour, one’s judgement of what is important in life.
According to Chandry Kant (an Efficacy coach and mentor, who in turn made these observations from the work of Sociologist Morris Massey), we start to form our values at around age 10 and they are pretty much locked in by age 21. That sounds about right, though, personally I think they are open to change in the face of a life changing event.
What it comes down to is, the better we know ourselves, the easier it is to determine what our inner values are. There are some terrific ways to learn more about yourself, including stream of consciousness writing, creative journaling, personality work books, online personality tests and questionnaires or working with a Life Coach.
Here’s a quick look at each one of those methods.
Stream Of Consciousness Writing: In this practice you are encouraged to take a pen and paper and simply write down everything that pops into your head. Even thoughts that are brief or obvious should be recorded. Feeling stupid doing the activity? Write that down. Don’t know what to write? Write that down. Looking at a blue wall. Write it down. What am I doing with my life? Definitely write it down. It’s actually tricky to write as fast as your brain fires thoughts at you. But attempt to keep up and you will soon notice deeper thoughts entering the picture, questions and maybe even answers. It’s best to do it as a practice a few times so you can start to look for patterns in your thoughts. Do you think a lot about money? Or maybe worrying about the kids? Or perhaps you have lots of ideas you need to explore. Those themes start to define where you want to spend your time, and can start to lead you toward your inner values.
Creative Journaling: This will appeal to those of you who enjoy some kind of visual exploration. In Creative Journaling you will take the blank pages of a notebook and fill it with pictures from magazines, doodles or drawings, photos and small items that are important to you (like conert stubbs or a scrap of cloth). It doesn’t take much art skill to print out pictures you admire and glue into a blank book, but it is lots of fun. As with the above example, you will start to notice patterns of images that appear over and over again.
Personality Work Books: If you don’t have the means or the time to work with a professional, there are some written work books to take you through a deeper look at yourself. Oh and I just happen to have written one (shameless self promotion coming up). I wrote and illustrated Colour Your Life as a creative self exploration work book. It has lots of visual interest which will prompt you to explore five key areas; Identity, Social Network, Emotions, Choices and Goals and Dreams. It was designed as a colouring journal, but doesn’t need to be coloured to do the journaling exercises.
But my work book is one of many that you can work through to learn about yourself. Usually they have some personality theory involved and some self exploration exercises to guide you through deeper introspection.
Online Personality Tests and Questionnaires: I’m going to be completely non biased here and not recommend any (as I am not a professional) but it you google personality test, you will be spoilt for choice. These are generally multiple choice questions and will sort you into one of a few different personality types. It depends on the philosophies of the web site as to what they will be. They are useful for giving you a broad look at yourself.
Life Coaching: I recently completed a course with a life coach specifically designed to learn about myself, my values and to help give me a direction in which to focus my energy. This is one of the more costly options, but MUCH more individualised and valuable. A good life coach can help you determine those deep values and explore why you make certain choices, and how to be more intentional with your choices. My life coach sessions is one of the reasons I’m writing this blog!
To finish this rather lengthy post, I will recommend this online article on Knowing Yourself;
Meg Selig
Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/changepower/201603/know-yourself-6-specific-ways-know-who-you-are
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