Let’s talk about Core values!
Good morning friends, and welcome to this episode of the Be Well Podcast. My name is Kelsy Timas, and this morning let’s talk about Core Values, and first maybe what they are or review like, what are core values? What are our core values? And how this concept, or this principle actually shows up in our lives.
And what’s maybe motivating a little bit of this conversation this morning, is we live our life with reactions and responses to everything. So, everything that is happening in life is either making our day, or breaking our day, is either agitating or uplifting. And this emotional experience that we have, that colors our life, it’s really interesting when we look at how I might respond to an event, and how you might respond to an event.
And no matter how many people are exposed to that event, that is about how many different descriptions of the event or experiences of the event. So, maybe getting curious a little bit about this concept of how we all experience things, and everything, completely unique… and, unique to what? So, the unique experience of our life… It’s always interesting to me how, you know, in your intimate relationships, or your partnerships, or your marriage, or even as a sibling, and you talk about– with siblings, about a prior event, and oftentimes, it’s like, “that’s not how it was at all”. The response is: “I don’t remember that at all!”
And so this translation of life for all of us, that imprints and creates a psychological and mental, emotional, energetic, spiritual, and ultimately, physical, we feel physically all of those other dimensions in our life. And, why is that, and how is that?
So, life experiences can mold our beliefs. It can–what we experience can change the way we see the world, or grow the way we see the world, or develop our experience of ourselves and the world.
So, it both can create it, but it can also change it; it’s a pretty interesting dynamic when an event changes your worldview.
So, creating something can foster your worldview, something can solidify or form your worldview, and then something can change your worldview. So, this organic process of psychosocial development– that’s you know, as a reference, that is just happening all the time.
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But the central part of all of that, the ‘what we’re experiencing’, the how, how something forms or changes– with the genesis of that is rooted in, in our personal core values. So, we have organizational core values, corporate, corporate environments, talk a lot about that. Your favorite brands have in their missions and vision statements. It’s very apparent what their core values are. We publish them. Sometimes we publish them to gather ourselves. And then any grouping we group ourselves based on our core values, and so on.
Why cultural core values, religious core values? And what is that? What is this more specifically on the personal core value, because the group can’t gather in, in harmony or in agreement without it being individual first. So, let’s get really down to the individual personal core value.
And we’ll look at later kind of where those come from, but maybe taking time to just get super curious about what they are, first. What, what are they? So, your personal core values are what encompass your foundational beliefs.
And foundational being like ‘the beginning’, the development, like your character formation. So, environment can have a lot to do with this, but, not everything. You can have a core value, a fundamental core value that you develop on your own, and through autonomy, in an environment that maybe is fostering the opposite.
And so what develops in that can be quite interesting. So, this encompasses your foundational beliefs, which then dictate your behavior, and guide you to make the decisions that you make. So there’s a recognition that there’s always an influence in our consciousness, at a ground level, that is experiencing life with us, and guiding us. So, this interpretation is like we’re experiencing life, and then we’re translating it against this blueprint. And then the feedback of that experience, or the action, the behavior, the decision, even down to the like decision of how I will feel about this… Something as universal as stress, the way that I translate this experience, and the level, whether I see it as positive stress, or negative stress, is rooted in my core value. So, they are always operating in the background.
The core values are always present, always operating in the background of your mind. The- your core value, the main core values are developed, I think, pretty, pretty quickly. And we can reference some psychosocial research on that. But there’s also this ongoing development of it, that happens through our life. And we see through in the later years of our life, that often I’ve heard clients, you know, ask, you know, is they assume that something is wrong, because they’re becoming so intolerant.
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And if we really look at it, is it really that you’re becoming impatient and intolerant? Or grumpy? Or is it that there’s just really no time for bullshit anymore this, my, my core values are very clear, I have years of experience with them that have been affirming them or, or deepening them. And, now it’s really become who I am. And they become very personal, so their personal core values, but they become very personal.
And the, what may be earlier on, is an opportunity to self develop and then to self discover and move into self confidence, can continue to develop and actually become something that divides us, where my core value initially, a core belief was helping me decide what I want to be in the world. And then later on, can can feel like something that causes me not to be able to be one with you, or harmonize with you because you value the opposite, or your actions speak that you value the opposite of what I value.
So, first identifying what they are: what are your core values? I, personally and professionally really like to use the tools that are provided through Brene Brown’s work. And I also like that, her list of core values has this area where you can write your own, you know that they may, if you are reading through a list of core values and don’t see the one that is yours, or that you have, then write it down. It doesn’t necessarily have to be defined first, you can be define– you can be developing one on your own.
And there might be a lot at first. I am, I like to guide or encourage to guide you through to start with a list of everything that is important to you. Whether it’s micro importance or macro importance, whether it’s a hard line, a deal breaker, you know, anything that’s really strong like this is non-negotiable to deal breaker, or something as simple as like ‘I vow I value kindness, I value cleanliness, order, organization’, or ‘beauty’.
And that, that first list, you’ll start to see a bit of your personality, but also, you start to see your connection to things. So, your connection to the work that you do, or the groups of people that you’re drawn to. Because that caught the common denominator for you in the world is rooted in those attractions. And, and then maybe evaluate that list and differentiate between the things that are important to you. And the things that are also important to you that they would be important to others. So for example, like kindness, I don’t necessarily expect that everyone should always be kind, you know, people have a bad day, you know, I’ve been to fundamentally believe that we’re all just trying to do the best that we can and, and when we’re not doing well, you know, where our, our system is not always going to be able to show up as its as its best and, and that there’s a grace for that. But I find that for myself. Kindness is non-negotiable. Even when I’m having a bad day. Even when I’m not feeling my best. Now, for me, that actually is also part of a mindfulness practice. I think it’s a little part of it.
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There’s a secret in that, if I’m not doing well, or struggling, I find that if I meet myself in the world with kindness, I’m able, it’s like a grace to myself. But I don’t expect that everyone would do that. Were something like something, something deeper, like integrity. Integrity is non-negotiable for me. I expect it from myself, I expect it from others, and how, you know, how it shows up in truthfulness, and transparency and clear intent.
And so, I, you know, that’s something that’s non-negotiable. You can be having a bad day. You can, you know, not be, not be you can be street and we’re on the struggle-bus sometimes. But that’s not a hall pass, to be to, not to not be in integrity. So that’s just an example of the difference between those layers of what’s important to you.
And then what’s important to you and important to you that it would be important to others. And then there’s this even deeper layer. And in a way as you’re going through your list, maybe noting the difference between those, and then your core three to five, your top three to five non-negotiable core values that have the greatest impact on your life and the decisions that you make. They will be things that not only do you expect that the world would uphold those or value those, but you would feel violated. If they were, if those core values were not honored. Or if they were violated, it would, it would harm you.
And, if you violated those yourself, you would self judge or even, like shame yourself. And you know, that whole dimension, we’ll spend a lot more time later talking about that the emote– the primary emotions, and, and this process of shame, and even how, how lethal that can be. And so this, when we’ve broken a core, a primary core value, like there’s some work to do, there’s healing that needs to come for that.
So these three layers of how they show up as being important, and then also needing them from others. And then we can even be wounded, if they are broken or feel wounded. It’s an interesting experience that we’re having in the world right now. And, if we were to, to look through, look at the world through this lens of core values, and kind of step away from the argument that’s actually happening, and really see that it’s very clear why we enter conflict.
It’s very clear why we divide, whether it’s relevant or true, or even just perceived a person’s action, when you’re observing that you’re perceiving it through the lens of your core values, and all judgments come from that. So if I’m observing a behavior, observing an action or observing a life event, it’s being filtered through the discernment of my core values.
And I will judge it, judge the act, judge the person; and it often shows up in language like, ‘well, they must not believe or they must not care, or it’s because they are…’.And how do I know that? Like, what is that? I’m able to make that assessment, because of the filter that I have of my core values.
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And so, it’s not always just opinion; I can have an opinion about something. But if we go deeper, where was that opinion formed? It’s form– it can be formed from experience, we can have an opinion about something we’ve it we have a lot of experience in, or no experience. And so– how–where does that opinion that we have about something that we have no experience in?
It’s then being filtered through a core belief or a fundamental value. So, after identifying, you know, what are my core values? There is a greater sense of understanding who you are, who am I? And the or even who am I becoming? Who am I becoming?, is also rooted in who am I? and my core values and then spend time prioritizing them.
And notice how everything in your life, positive, everything that that in your life that feels empowering, or uplifting, but also everything that is troubling you. The things that trip you up, are directly related to these core values. So, in a process of evaluation, it would be interesting to take a week and every time you felt yourself being pricked, or reacting or escalating, or even feeling stress. If you pause and asked yourself which core value is this directly connected to? Like what is this really saying?
This objective way of evaluating can be quite an experience, and almost immediately deactivates the reactionary nature that we have, because it shifts us into being the observer being having the observing mind, which is a superpower in mindfulness. So, this power of the pause comes from being able to shift back, or step back into the witnessing consciousness of being the observer.
And thinking-mind still really likes to do things, likes to be active. So, if we asked that question of what is this connected to, it kind of gives our mind something to do to help form the connection or inform the connection between this moment, this experience and our core value.
Now, sometimes in that exploration, you might actually identify a wound, that what you feel what it connects to, can be a wound or a trauma, or, or a very, something very sensitive, but even then, if we look at that, that traumatic event, through the lens of the core value, there should be a way to form that connection, what what was that event rooted in?
That is deeply personal for me. So, getting to know yourself a little bit better, and then identifying these patterns, and how they connect and prioritizing, so that you’re clear what your first, second and third, to meet life with an understanding of those three core values. It’s much like being in a really healthy and supportive relationship where you can communicate to someone you know, we’re like, who you are, like, Listen, you know, I just, you got to know this about me in some of the best relationships in life, those conversations have happened like you need to know this about me, you know, this, this one thing, you know, tread lightly, this one thing or you know, in order to really love and support me, I value I value this the most. So, we start to entrust life with what is precious to us, what we value the most. And then ultimately, this helps to shift what we are experiencing.
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And we can even be proactive and make a list, or or set goals or actions that are in alignment with fostering that which is important to us, or communicating that which is important to us, or even deepening our connection to that which is important to us. Living a life in a more purposeful way, and more fulfilling way. This process happens somewhat automatically, especially when we have had either life changing or, or trauma or traumatizing events.
Whenever life stops when ‘life as it is’, comes to an abrupt stop, and there’s a big moment of life that we’re in, it is often an invitation to either come back to, that which is important to us, or to or to connect with a core value, or make something a core value moving forward. And we all, there’s also this incredible resilience in our nature that when something has been traumatizing, goes through a level of healing, or process of healing.
We become at we become advocates for that thing. So, it’s like through hope and inspiration, we will begin to invest ourselves and our time into creating things that can restore hope and support others that might walk through that experience after us.
And that’s a pretty exceptional thing also, when, when our stress or even post-traumatic stress becomes growth, and what, the growth that comes from that. So, it’s an interesting thing to be able to look at– is the connection, really, with the core, the personal core value that exists already, or that through that life experience, we develop one, it becomes something valuable to us, now.
So, I hope you’ll take some time on that exercise and, and have a little fun with that. Some self discovery, maybe laugh a little bit at some of those connections, learning yourself a little bit more. And then look forward kind of at the world, like first look at yourself and your own behavior. And then notice how when you look at the world, how you’re noticing the way the world is showing up and the behaviors in the world, what they’re coming from.
And if you’re able to identify that as values as a little experiment, and how much easier maybe it is to be clear about your response when you can observe it as a value, versus an adversary. So, thank you again for spending this time with me, and I look forward to spending more time forming our aspirations for the future, from a place of congruency, from authentic connection, clarity, and alignment.
Have a great day. Be well.
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