quote:

Interesting how the process, for me, moves more and more towards universal statements about living life. Each aspect that was important has a common underlying theme that comes out more strongly as I filter them.

Always one in the class who has to get ahead of the game .......

quote:

Originally posted by Myschae:
Safety - getting to a place where I feel safe.

Ohmygosh, that's so true for me, too.

Hey P, is it normal to want to add/ change things in this exercise?

I'm not P, but I'm guessing you're allowed to refine things as much as you'd like, Nyn.

quote:

Always one in the class...

And for some reason I'm never the "one" who's the class clown. *sigh*

Class clowns carry a heavy burden, J, because so many of them are hurting inside and using humour to deflect it. I know.

Probably far more serious than you expected. LOL

PS: I agree that I can adapt my list... thanks for the encouragement.

amended list:
perseverance, patience, curiosity, openness, compassion, cooperation, commitment, creativity, vulnerability, courage, engagement, introspection, exospection, aggressiveness, calm , passion, humor, resourcefulness

quote:

Now take each one and use it in this sentence:
I navigate my life with [value] as my guide.

I navigate my life using CHOCOLATE as my guide

quote:

.....introspection, exospection, ......

okay
WHAT is the opposite of introspection?

I navigate my life with ....

emotional intelligence – genuineness, integrity
congruence, compassion, respect for myself and others

Commitment, love, empathy, stick-ability/ tenacity, tolerance, respect, resilience, vulnerability, grace, forgiveness

determination, positive thinking,

reason(ing), curiosity, creativity,

openness, connectedness

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jooolz,

Hypatia
how about

extrospection
n. habitual interest in or examination of matters outside oneself. extrospective, a.
© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2008.


based on the fact that introspection means looking within...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jooolz,

oooo
thank you Joolz

i love words
the ins and outs
their subtle nuances

and get frustrated when I cannot find the right word
lol

thank you very much

I navigate my life with my true self as my guide......

a catch all may be ......?

Hey Mys --- You missed a step, I think.

It will be easier to get to where we're going if you first list your Valu-ABLES external things that are important to you -

Exercise I:

List 3-7 Valu-ABLES - external things in your life which are important to you.

Here's mine (not in any order):
family connectedness
marriage
spiritual path
volunteer work
friendships
my home - physical space
SYMC
activism on issues I care about

Then here's the second exercise which adds the values:

Take your list of valu-ABLES and from that list the character traits necessary to sustain and nourish those things. You'll probably find that these traits tend to be cumulative. By the time you get to the bottom of the list you probably won't find many more to add. If you have a hard time defining it you can work backwards.

Here's mine:

family connectedness: time, openness, cooperation, curiosity, compassion, engagement,

marriage: same as above -- adding -- committment, courage, tenacity,

spiritual path: same as above --

volunteer work: same as above

friendships: ditto

my home - physical space - same as above + creativity

SYMC - same as above

activism on issues I care about - same as above

~~~

J - I wasn't thinking so much of the class clown as I was of ..... say .... Hermione ...

~~~

It's really important to be able to make a clear distinction between external things that are valuABLES and internal traits or aspects that are values before we move onto boundaries and consequences.

We might also differentiate between valuABLES and values by thinking of valuABLES as priorities ... the things we make important in our lives and values as the markers or guideposts ... a compass perhaps .... for deciding how to handle events and situations in our lives.

If we allow our priorities to be mistaken for values it creates a situation where we are very likely to make *things* more important than ... well.... values ... or the bigger picture.

For example -
If I say my most important value is my career. Then it becomes an easy shift for me to make decisions that are harmful to my health or my family because my career is listed as my number one value. (You can do this for any external valuABLE.)

OTOH if I say my career is a priority and a value which supports that is ... mmmm ... let's say responsibility ... it's prett darn difficult to cause harm to my health or my family in the name of my career(priority) and still be navigating with responsibility.

Make sense?

quote:

I navigate my life with my true self as my guide......

a catch all may be ......?

Absolutely! And we still need to define what the true self is by jumping through P's little exercise hoops.

Alrighty. I'm off for a weekend of bug bits and sunburn. Not to mention cranky teens and over zealous hubby.

Next week we're going to really distill our lists of values and then ....

ta dah!....

We're going to begin talking about boundaries.

Wooo hoooo!!! (I'm such a )

P

I jumped through your hoops m'dear read back .........

Silly girl I know you did. I was thinking about someone wandering in 6 months from now and thinking they can skip right to "true self" without first jumping through my pretty colored hoops.

Ok - here's where we left off.

Now we're going to add, subract, distill, and expand.

Here's my list from the point referenced above:

openness, cooperation, curiosity, compassion, engagement, committment, courage, tenacity, creativity

First question - are there any obvious contradictions? (doesn't look like it to me -- anyone see any?)

Next - are there duplicates or things I could combine? (ditto but I'm open to suggestions if you see any)

Third - are there things I really want to have that I didn't put in there? (Mmmmmm ....yesssss.... I think hospitality, kindness, and courtesy could be added.)

Fourth - are the additions essential or are they inherent in what's already there? (Well, poo. I think I'll make it simply kindness. One could say that's part of compassion and I would not disagree. I'm going to say, for my list, kindness is the active side of compassion and I'd like to keep it on the list. And ... hum... I think responsibility needs to go on there.)

[updated list: openness, cooperation, curiosity, compassion, engagement, committment, courage, tenacity, creativity, kindness, responsibility]

Fifth - Are there items on your which need balancing? (I have, for example, tenacity and creativity which play nicely together ... AND I have compassion and kindness which keeps those from running roughshod over others.)

Got all that?

If you want to get really difficult and distill closer to the point of True Self ... remove all that require balancing and see what's left.

(I'm kicking and screaming having to give some up .... and here's my distilled list ... cooperation, curiosity, compassion, engagement, committment, courage, kindness, responsibility. I'm debating if cooperation and curiosity need balancing ... courage too maybe. What do you think?)

P

My amended list:

Honour, care, cooperation, communication, tenacity, patience, hope, commitment, respect, faith, creativity, humour, and optimism.

First question - are there any obvious contradictions?

No.

Next - are there duplicates or things I could combine?

Hmmm... I don't think so.

Third - are there things I really want to have that I didn't put in there?

I like your word hospitality, P, but to me, care and creativity might overlap it.

So, I'm going to say no.

Fourth - are the additions essential or are they inherent in what's already there?

Since I didn't add anything... no.

Fifth - Are there items on your which need balancing?

My humour sometimes runs over care, respect, patience and optimism. IE: I can be a mean kind of funny and it isn't really that fuuny at all. Is that what you mean? If so, do I remove all of those?

Got all that?

Kinda.

If I'm understanding, my list now looks like this:

Honour, cooperation, communication, tenacity, hope, commitment, faith, creativity.

Am I in the ball park? ANY ball park?

quote:

My humour sometimes runs over care, respect, patience and optimism. IE: I can be a mean kind of funny and it isn't really that fuuny at all. Is that what you mean? If so, do I remove all of those?

You can remove them or you can make sure you have things that balance. The most distilled True Self will have only things that do not need qualifiers or balancers. Either way will work. Having a shorter list with no balancers needed is most authentic .... and .... not easy to get to. I *really* did not want to remove stuff from my list. Really did not.

It's not necessarily patience and optimism that need balancers, though, in your example. It's humor -- that's the one that likes to run over others.

Does that help?

Yes, that DOES help. So my list now looks like this:

Honour, care, cooperation, communication, tenacity, patience, hope, commitment, respect, faith, creativity, and optimism.

PS: I'm getting scared. Seriously. I thought humour was vitally important and now it's gone. Really interesting.

So let's talk about boundaries while we're mulling that over.

Dictionary.com says this about 'boundary':

1. something that indicates bounds or limits; a limiting or bounding line.
2. Also called frontier. Mathematics. the collection of all points of a given set having the property that every neighborhood of each point contains points in the set and in the complement of the set.
3. Cricket. a hit in which the ball reaches or crosses the boundary line of the field on one or more bounces, counting four runs for the batsman. Compare six (def. 5).

Mmmm - k. We're not even having the mathematics conversation . I'm sure it's relevant and all ... and it makes my head hurt just to read it. And, although I'm sure it's great fun, cricket is probably not what we're after either. But .. the first definition is .... just right.

something that indicates bounds or limits; a limiting or bounding line

A boundary, for this conversation, is a statement of limits.

And it's all about you and your values.

Not an action. Not a threat. Not about anyone else. Just a statement indicating bounds or limits.

Soooo ... a completely mundane example of a boundary is: shoes are not allowed to be worn in my house. Another might be: veggies before dessert.

Just a statement.

Well Penny,

Here is my first attempt at my values (moved from RN to here). I spent quite a lot of time working on these, but after talking to you yesterday, I feel there may be more work necessary. First, the current list:

Spirituality
Marriage
Humanitarian
Father
Friendships
Health
Rewarding career
Environmental steward

As I look at this list, I feel that some may be inherently part of others, but I will wait to hear feedback from others working on this exercise before I change it significantly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: stevenkd,

Hi stevenkd!!

Alrighty -- off you go to Exercise One

And then -- Exercise Two

Defining first valuABLES and then defining the values that support and nurture them. Your list has a mixture of both right now ... they'll need to be sorted in order to work through this exercise.

Have fun!

P