How ALIVE or VITAL is your life feeling right now? How meaningful does your day-to-day feel? How confident are you that you’re showing up most of the time in a way you’re proud of?
A sense of vitality in your life means that you feel profoundly and deeply energized, clear, connected, purposeful, and contented a majority of the time.
Values Bring Vitality
How connected are you to an inner compass that can guide you to this type of living? This inner compass, my friend, is comprised of your core values.
Here’s the thing. We change and grow over time. Our life circumstances change. Our perspectives change. Our priorities change. We need new things in new seasons of life. And guess what, your values change over time too.
Raise your hand if your life looks a little different now than it did a year ago? Yep. I thought so.
It’s important to take a little time out every now and then to thoughtfully consider: Who and what do I want to be about in this season of my life?
Time really has a way of ticking by doesn’t it? It’s normal to get into a groove, keep plugging away, do what you need to do to keep things moving forward, and try to squeeze in as much of the good in as you can. Normal human stuff.
But my friends. Being LUMINARY means you’re not trying to be normal.
You’re striving to live with intention. To navigate this human life as skillfully as you can. So you can be awake and alive to what makes you thrive. What makes you feel more connected. And what gives you purpose.
So every now and again you have to reconnect with your values. You have to consciously choose new (or repeating) values you think will support your journey in the direction you most want to head.
I hope right now you’re thinking to yourself, “ok, so what does that word, “values”, actually mean?”
Values are your heart’s deepest desires for the way you want to interact with the world, other people, and yourself during your brief time on this planet.
They’re what you want to stand for in life, how you want to behave, what sort of a person you want to be, and the types of strengths and qualities you want to develop.
I like to use the inner compass metaphor because the most skillful among us use our most important values to help make decisions, to illuminate how we want to show up in our relationships with our bodies, minds, emotions, our treasured relationships, and our work in the world. Values bring direction to our lives.
A value is something you believe in, above all else. When you’re living in alignment with your values it means you’re in touch with what really matters in the big picture.
If you aren’t consciously clarifying our values, spending time uncovering and choosing the things that are truly most important to you, then you’re living by your inherited or unconscious values.
Inherited or Unconscious Values
Our inherited or unconscious values are naturally going to be either HELPFUL or UNHELPFUL as guides to our most meaningful lives.
For example, the culture that I’m a part of says that women should always look young, unwrinkled, and slim – but not too slim!, and toned – but not too bulky! I need to look perfect in order to be good enough. So I’ve inherited these values: perfectionism, control, and conditional acceptance. These are all values I’ve unconsciously acquired simply by nature of being born in our society.
While I DO care about my body and want to invest in feeling and looking my best but my most meaningful life isn’t one where these values guide my inner compass. I DON’T want perfectionism, control, and conditional acceptance to be at the core of everything I do, everything I think about, the basis of what I stand for, or how I show up in the world (or how I show up for and treat my body).
What’s more important to me are values like: compassion, generosity, presence, and integrity. I want to live my life and treat my body in alignment with these values. And I know that my life has more abundance, connection, and vitality when I do so.
Let’s take a few minutes to clarify what values ARE NOT.
Values Are Not:
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- GOALS OR OUTCOMES. Goals are things you can obtain or achieve. Goals are concrete events, situations, or objects. They can be completed, possessed or finished. Values are a direction we move in, not something we complete. There are ALWAYS steps you can take to move toward your values.
- FEELINGS. Values aren’t about wanting to feel happy, or excited, or loved. Values are specific qualities or characteristics that you want to guide your behavior, regardless of how you feel. So, If connecting with others is an important value to me, I may still feel afraid and vulnerable when I take steps in that direction. But my value of connection, rather than my feelings, is what I’m using to guide my behavior.
- SOMETHING IN THE FUTURE. Values describe how you want to behave on an ongoing basis. So they’re always available to you in any moment. Values are meant to be lived and expressed in the present. Your values are always available to you, regardless of your external circumstances.
- SOMETHING YOU NEED TO JUSTIFY. Values are like your taste in ice cream- you don’t need to justify why you like mint chocolate chip, strawberry, or vanilla. Values are simply statement about what’s meaningful to you; and you never need to justify that to anyone else. Values are beyond right or wrong, good or bad. They are simply expressions of what matters to you. And you should expect that your values will sometimes be different than the values of the other people around you.
- SOMETHING TO EXPRESS ONLY TOWARD OTHERS. An important aspect of living a values driven life, is the need to use your inner compass both to guide your behavior towards others and also toward yourself. For some of us, treating ourselves with the same care and consideration that we treat others doesn’t come naturally and needs extra intention and work.
Uncover Your Core Values
Do you know what your consciously chosen core values are for this season of your life?
We go in-depth on values exploration in both our Luminary Leadership Workshops and in our Cultivate Change online course. So if you want a top notch values clarifying experience, sign up to be on the waitlist for when we open Cultivate Change Course enrollment again. Or take a look at our upcoming workshop opportunities.
But for now, here’s a Values Exploration Handout to get you headed in the right direction.
When we align our actions with our values in simple, small ways every day, we’re inherently engaging with our lives in a fulfilling way.
We’re connected to the present moment. Able to find direction when the going gets rough. And able to find richness and meaning in our lives in our day to day choices and actions.
Feel free to comment below and tell me, what are YOUR core values? How do you want to use them to help you move forward in a meaningful way? I’d love to hear about it.
With love,
Cara
