Category Archives: Mindset

What Are Your Values?

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I assumed I knew what my values were, but when the subject came up in therapy recently, I froze. Values? Huh. What the bleep are my values?

For the next few days, I thought, Oh fuck, I’m forty years old and I don’t know what my values are. Sure, I can rattle off a few big important words like “love” and “joy” but seriously, what the eff are my values???

I started journaling about my values, convinced it would take me years to sort this out. But after a month of work, I am feeling better. I have a better understanding of what my values actually are. Or, more accurately, I subconsciously knew what many of my values were, but I had not yet taken the time to think and classify them as such. It feels good to have done that work.

In no particular order, here is my current list of values:

  1. Being healthy and fit. For me, “being healthy” includes physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual health.
  2. Paying attention and being curious.
  3. Living my life consciously and intentionally.
  4. Being authentic.
  5. Answering my inner divine call.
  6. Doing the work! By “work,” I mean the work that I must do in order to be my best self.
  7. Doing my best, whatever that means at any given moment.
  8. Being compassionate and merciful with others and myself.
  9. Going slow and with the flow. (Though I am still figuring out when I want to go with the flow, and when I need to be conscious and intentional about directing the flow of my life.)
  10. Being connected to others.
  11. Embracing change and uncertainty.
  12. Being impeccable with my word.

I do not think these are all of my values. Now that I am curious about my values (see Value #2), I expect I’ll keep adding values to the list. Also, as I accumulate life experiences, I’ll have more wisdom to draw upon, and that wisdom will shed further light on what I do and do not value.

I am also far from living my values my perfectly. (Value #1, ahem, needs considerable work.) But now that I have a better handle on my values, I have noticed in my journaling that when I feel uncomfortable, it is often because my actions are not in line with my values. Hopefully by knowing my values, I can get better at consciously and intentionally (Value #3!) living in line with them.

But always, I try to remember Value #8: being compassionate and merciful with others and myself. I am going to make mistakes. Lots and lots of messy mistakes. When I make a mistake and life in discord with my values, I hope I can be compassionate and merciful with myself, take a deep breath, and keep trying to do my best (Value #7).

Enough!

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Words are powerful, even magical. The words I use affect the way I feel. I can feel this most powerfully when I am journaling. When I write words like “effervescent” and “radiant,” my energy starts to flow and I feel as if I am in fact effervescent and radiant. When I write words that have negative charges, though, I feel my energy get heavy and slow.

I am paying attention to the words that feel right and the words that feel “ick!” when I am journaling. I want to use more of the words that lift me up and avoid the words that drag me down. Through journaling, I have discovered a word that is very important to me: Enough.

As a stay at home mom of a preschooler and first grader, I often feel rushed. There is not enough time to do all the things I want to do. Not enough time to exercise! Write! Run errands! Do all the things! I start to gripe – not enough, not enough! – and I get whipped into a frantic frenzy.

Except.

There is enough.

I have enough time to write. Sure, I could easily spend three or four hours each day writing my novel. But whatever I get, that’s enough. (J.K. Rowling got the idea for Harry Potter in 1990, but the first book was not published in 1997. So slow writing might actually be better than fast.)

I have enough time to exercise. Sure, I could do hot yoga every day. But so long as I wear my Fitbit and make an effort to walk, I get enough exercise. (Besides, it’s nice to give my body time to get in shape slowly. If I had time to do vigorous daily exercise, I might blow out my knee.)

I have enough time to read and stretch and paint and snuggle with my kids. If I am conscious and intentional with my time, than I have enough.

The more I pay attention to the word “enough,” the more I see how it resonates with my life.

I have enough money.

Our house is big enough.

I have enough friends. If sometimes I feel a little lonely, then I just need to make more effort to see the friends I already have, and when I see my friends, I need to make the effort to be authentic instead of struggling to be the person I think I am supposed to be.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

If I stop worrying and griping, and really look around at my life, I have enough of all the things I need and want. Right now. This moment. This place. This life. I do not have to hold my breath until Julian is in kindergarten or until Pippa can do homework by herself or until I hit some other mothering milestone. Already I have enough.

It’s amazing how one word can make me feel so alive and blessed.