Knowing and Honoring Your Values are Essential to Your Self Love Practice
How can we break generations of limiting beliefs? How can we boost our confidence and feel more aligned with our purpose? Part of the answer, lies in knowing yourself and knowing your values. Before we get into the good stuff here, grab something to write on and something to write with because we're going to get interactive here, baby!
Once you know yourself and you know your values - you can stand in that power. Knowing and honoring your values is an important part of knowing yourself, loving yourself, and being able to set healthy limits and boundaries. Imagine how good it will feel to trust yourself and
make decisions that you can feel proud of. Imagine if every day you can wake up and say, "I know myself, I love myself, and I respect myself enough to live in alignment." Not only could you say it, but you can feel the truth radiating from you because your actions back up that statement as well. You'd feel free, empowered, and full of love and hope. If those are things you're looking for in your life, I encourage you to keep reading or take your self love journey a step further and contact me so we can start working on a personalized confidence boosting plan.
In this article, I'm going to ask you to take some time to get really clear on what your current values are, if you feel like they align with your current self and purpose, where they might have come from, and how to adjust them if you decide that's necessary. We're also going to discuss the benefits that come with knowing your values and how to stay true to them, how to feel confident and proud enough to vocalize your values and set healthy boundaries for your own wellbeing, even if it seems difficult or scary to do so.
What Values are Important to You?
You may be thinking “Roxanne, I know my values. My parents, my friends, my partner, the media, whoever, already told me what is important to me and they’ve been telling me for years! I know my values”. This may be true, but what percent of what they value do you feel holds true for you? What percent of what they’ve told you feels genuine to who you are and who you want to be? If it's anything less than 100%, I encourage you to take a look at that. What percent holds true and why does the other part not feel so right to you? The trickiest part of answering that question may be meeting yourself with no judgement when you answer, but we'll get into that in another article, so look out for it.
So first, let's identify what your current values are. Values are the things and beliefs that are most important to us, fill us with purpose, and help us feel supported and strong when times are hard. While you're thinking about this definition, some words and some ideas might come to mind. Write them down so you can look at them and decide if those are things that you feel really define your values. Some examples of values are growth, creativity, courage, honesty, family, success, love, learning, spirituality, well-being, and more - if any of those resonated with you jot them down as well.
Brene Brown; author, podcast host, and shame, vulnerability and leadership researcher, highlights some important questions to ask yourself when considering your values –
1. Does this define me? 2. Is this who I am at my best? 3. Is this a filter I use to make hard decisions?
As you read through your list, ask yourselves these questions and even write down your response so you can really decide if that's a value that feels right to you. There's no pressure to have it perfect and set in stone, values are allowed to change - just like you are as you continue to learn and grow. Go with your gut, follow your intuition. If you need help connecting to your intuition and trusting yourself – we'll discuss that in another article so again look out for it, or if you don't want to wait I encourage you to try one of my group classes to practice tuning into your mind-body connection. In the meantime, I'll give you a super quick intuition strengthening exercise;
Strengthen your Intuition
Find a comfy place to sit, set a timer for 3-5 minutes, rest your hands on your lap, close your eyes, and take 3 deep breaths – in through your nose and out through your mouth. Simply ask your body how it is doing and how you are feeling. Any thoughts that come up, other than how your body is feeling or if your thoughts are judging yourself, imagine they're bubbles and you can pop them. Sit in this question for the remainder of the time. Once the timer goes off – take 3 more deep breaths and open your eyes.
What Values Do You Have?
Now that you've taken the time to connect with yourself and clear your mind – your intuition is at least slightly stronger. I now encourage you to revisit the writing exercise and see what's changed, if anything. If you've wrote down a whole BUNCH of words, read through them all. Ask yourself those 3 questions. When a word has you answering yes to all 3 questions; 1. Does this define me 2. Is this who I am at my best 3. Is this a filter I use to make hard decisions - that's one of your values.
This writing exercise is now a place that you can derive confidence from. You have a clear idea on who you are, what's important to you, and what you value WOOHOO!! This is SO liberating and so, so important!
Now, we can work towards using this list of values as a place to derive confidence from. Knowing yourself, knowing your values, and standing in the truth of what's important to you will bring you confidence. You can shift your values into affirmations and tell yourself these regularly. "I am creative. I am growing. I have courage." Frame the value in the present tense "I have, I am" and remind yourself as often as you need.
We can use our list of values as a tool to help make hard decisions and to set limits and boundaries with others. We all have had those moments - somebody asks something of us or we find ourselves in a situation where our gut just KNOWS it isn't the right place or thing to be doing. We feel it so deeply, but because we're concerned with the opinions of others, we're people pleasing, or we just can't verbalize WHY we don't agree with what's happening - we go along with it. This is self-betrayal and it is so, so common! I've done it myself and that type of behavior is nothing but a breeding ground for resentment towards ourselves and others and a break of trust. So how do we stop it? We practice.
We get clear on our values and we pratice admitting them to ourselves. Then we graduate and we pratice admitting them to safe people, people who you know will hear you and respect you. Then we take it a step further and we pratice it with anybody and everybody. We have to remember that it takes patience, you're learning a new skill! It's not going to come instantly, you won't be 100% successful right away and that's perfectly normal. If it feels uncomfortable push through it and keep practicing. Being uncomfortable is where growth happen.
I hope you found this article helpful and empowering. If you need an extra hand on your healing journey - try one of my mindful movement classes or contact me so we can work one-on-one to accelerate your growth. Thank you for taking the time to be here with me and for yourself today. We'll chat soon.
All the Best,
Roxanne
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Instagram @roxanne.move4mind
Email roxanne@move4mind.com
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