Value noun
- The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something:
- Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is essential in life:
By even the finer definition, can we hold value without judgement? Does judgement have value within itself? Is it in the judgement of our values that change their shape and feel to take on new forms within us?
These are the current question running through my mind as I sit and reflect on where my current values lie and how they impact me positively and, to be honest, negatively. I feel like it is a big play on words because value without judgement, values would not hold weight within the body; they would exist but not have value. The action of thinking, planning, and evaluating gives us both buy and judgement.
The first time I sat with what I considered at the time to be my values was during the early days of my self-development journey. Initially, my approach to values felt more like a goal list, aspects of who I was and the goal’s emotion or weight of the dream I ultimately wanted to achieve. This was new and felt entirely different from the concept of values that I had been teaching within the classroom for many years before. Where value was significant, the lesson focused on moving students away from the monetary value and possession towards qualities of self, character strengths and habits of mind. Even as I write them down now, they feel very structural/ clinical and from a systematical place of control. Control is one of those love-hate relationships with my value; I would still like to experience less. But in truth, there is a lot of value in control and it has a beautiful flow-on effect of freedom when the perception of power is maintained.
But the big question is, how do we as adults define our values? When is the best time to acknowledge that they have changed and hold a different weight within our physical posture? At what point can we call it an “older and wiser” teachable moment? When can we look backwards towards our past and feel into the moment we decide that our values must become rigid to protect us or “keep us safe”? And in this moment, can we “stop it” and appreciate the good intention behind our amygdala response within the time that we decided to react, and now release whatever we have held subconsciously help on to and move on? And finally, why does this feel counterintuitive and consciously objective when all the above is decided in a split second with no honest articulation or conscious problem-solving involvement?
Values are essential in all self-development, personal coaching, and energetic work. The attitude of the mind has long been connected and understood to express itself through the physical body. My most common example is any value of self, self-esteem, self-worth, self-appreciation, and self-reflection, which have been connected to illnesses and body system imbalances, with autoimmune illnesses expressing this. “Attacking” oneself from the inside initially came from Lousie Hay’s original work and continues to make an impact still today.
There would not be any coach, healer or even light worker who does not know the importance of individual reflections, assessment, ranking and hopefully balancing of values (You can see here how judgement can be a positive asset to the reflection process).
In this next section of the post, I will walk you through a simple value balance you can do at home in the comfort of your own space. A combination of values balances I have joined together over time, and I enjoy the simplicity of the balance and the depth of the change it brings.
STEP 1:
One of the easiest ways to start is to brainstorm all your values that you can think of now. It could look like a mind map or even a simple list. If this was the first time you were doing this, it could take some time to think deeply enough, get into a flow state or feel safe enough to release your actual core values once you have the list size them up against each other and prioritise them.
- Which value is more important?
- Which value would cause more problems in its absence?
- Which value have you held onto for longer?
- Which values stop you from reaching your goals?
- Which values have assisted you in achieving your goals?
- Which value would you want to change more?
- Which value do you want to keep more?
This can be quickly done by picking 2 different words at a time and reflecting on each question. Having the values written on cards will also help you physically hold and move them around. It would be normal to move back and forth on each of these, and feelings behind the values will change when they are paired up differently.
The last part of this step is to list your top 5 or 10 values by priority preference. Once you have completed your list, sit with it, read it out loud so that you can hear it or share it with a loved one.
Here is an example of the first time I completed this task myself; my list looked like this:
- Health
- Family
- Success
- Friendship connection
- Wealth
And for anyone who knows me, this list ultimately reflects the last 10 years. Finding this list and sitting with it as an older, wiser version of myself brought me back to reassessing my values as this list and, more particularly, the order no longer served me. But reflecting here on my past values for the purpose of learning. So 10 years ago, I put my health first, the easiest decision I have ever made, prioritising health, specifically my own health and wellbeing. Health has become the cornerstone of our whole family, nutrition, self-development and crazy ideas such as buying a sauna in a 2 bedroom apartment all became justifiable and validated. Gaining, improving and prioritising health has energised and motivated me naturally. Family and the families’ health have very much been a close second. I can also identify with the feeling of success without the reflective wealth, reflecting priority order. Success and feelings of success were more closely sort after, causing more emotional toll on me than the loss of friendships that didn’t align with my priority values list. Decisions to put wealth gains above family needs were tough and felt unnatural and awful to my core (But remember that is all a reflection from an older and wiser standpoint). So think this through as it is a “be careful what you wish for” moment.
STEP 2
This process step is more self-reflection and evaluation of how past values have influenced you. Which value has been your easiest to achieve over the last few years? What comes easiest? Sit with this, as it will be the qualities within the value that you can use to help bring forth values of more complexity to fruition. It’s time to reflect on your most positive values that make you feel fantastic and naturally happen around you without the need to focus or put in the effort. These values allow a state of flow to be achieved easily; you might lose track of time and perform at your best.
Sit quietly and connect to the positive value of mind. Be in your body and your heart while you are thinking of this. Move through the list of questions below and record/ circle the response that resonates most, don’t overthink it; go with the flow.
Visual characteristics
Is the value
- Near or Far
- Bright or Dull
- Landscape or Portrait
- Colour or Tonal
- 3D or Flat
- Movie or Still
Auditory characteristics
Is the value
- Loud or Soft
- Internal or External
- Fast or Slow
- High or Low
- Spoken or Heard
Kinetic characteristics
Is the value
- Internal or External
- Intense or subtle
- Pressure or heat
- Steady or Speratical
- Heavy or Light
Once you have run through the list with a few positive, easily achieved values, you should have a general picture of where your values sit within you, how you process them, acknowledge them and connect to them. This essentially becomes your values sales pitch to yourself.
STEP 3
This is a follow-up from the two steps before combining your priority and success values. The idea here is to manipulate, change, and anchor in the new values with all the positive submodalities of your success values. This step will rely more on you than the instructions, but I will give you an example to make sense of the activity’s outcome and aim.
Okay, so Health is one of the most accessible values for me to achieve. When I run through the submodalities, health is a near, bright, portrait, black and white, soft, internal, low, internal, subtle, steady, and light. Now, if I were to run through my submodalities for wealth, they are far, bright, black and white, hard, external, low, subtle, sporadic, and light. Some are the same, but the focus is on what is different. Circle, write, mind map, or talk it out, whatever is needed to come up with a list of mental changes that need to be implemented in the habits of the mind. So, first up on the rank is making wealth near – pulling it in closer, soft – softening it into the view and feeling, internal – anchoring in the sense of wealth internal to myself and my thoughts, steady – pulling in a consistent feeling of wealth over waves. Pick three differences at a time to visualise and mentally rehearse the values with the new qualities.
STEP 4
Jose Silver Mind Control Method – Alfa state of mind. https://youtu.be/hMacMeEU8hQ is my favourite clip right now as it walks you through the steps in the meditation needed to anchor in the new submodalities of your chosen new values. Take time to visualise your value list from a new perspective. This could be as simple as turning an image into a black-and-white still picture if that is what can come up during step 3. Once you have a mental idea with your new values sales pitch, you drop into the Jose Silver youtube meditation clip to anchor the new goal/ value into your timeline.