Value Alignment
So let’s get honest… do any of these apply to you?
You are in a job/relationship/friendship/ that you aren’t happy in.
You feel unhappy/low/demotivated a lot of the time without an obvious cause.
You feel envious of others people’s lives, wishing that you were brave enough to be more like them?
You’re stuck in behaviours that don´t make you happy but don´t know how to stop.
You want to change an element of your life but are struggling to stick to it.
You pretend to be happy and find it difficult to show or tell people how you really feel.
You think other people’s needs are more important than yours.
If any of these apply to you- you aren’t alone.
The truth is just because we perceive others as having the time of their life, doesn’t mean this is the reality. If you are faking it, how do you know that they aren’t too?
In our online lives, it’s much easier to edit out the imperfections.
Why is it difficult to be honest?
Children are completely reliant on their parents and caregivers for all their emotional and physical needs. If we have experiences where we internalise that the real us is somehow unlovable or unacceptable, we learn to adapt ourselves to fit ourselves into something where we can get or needs met.
This might include pleasing others, keeping our real needs and feelings hidden, and portraying a self we believe in more acceptable. To show up as you really are in your career, relationship, friendship group comes with the risk that we will again be rejected. So for some, it feels safer to stay hidden.
What’s the cost?
I am this + but I should be this instead = misery
When we create a gap between what we really value and how we are behaving we create value dissonance. The bigger the gap, the worse the pain.
Value Realignment:
Write down every value that is important to you e.g. kindness, love, honesty, trust, money, flexibility.
Halve this list, and keep doing this until you get down to 6. These are your core values.
For the next week delete “should, must, have to” from your vocabulary and instead when you find yourself doing that, replace it with, “what’s really important to me is…” and do these things instead.
This is a chance for you to be honest with yourself and others about how you are and what you like. If there are areas in your life that don’t fit with your values, note it down and ask yourself - how could you change it to be fitting of who you are as a person?
This takes time. You don’t have to do everything at once - this is an ongoing process. As we get to know ourselves better, we are more able to instinctively attract the things that fit in with our values and let go of the things that don´t.
The real truth is…
There is no competition if we recognise our unique worth.
The real you, under all the ‘shoulds, musts, have to’s’ is amazing. You have something to offer the world that no one else has.
When we get honest about who we are and what we want; when we can bare the truth, we can redefine the rules of our life.
So, this month, challenge yourself to practice honesty, to love yourself enough to speak your truth and celebrate the incredible, unique being that you are.
May you start to realise just how valuable you are and create a life that is based on your unique worth.
Love, Ismene xxx