Uncovering Your Core Values for a Fulfilling Life
As wives and mothers, identifying our core values and understanding how they affect our life’s experiences can help reduce the stresses we experience in our lives. In this blog post, I’m talking about discovering our core values and giving strategies for overcoming core value conflicts.
Living Aligned To Your Core Values
We saw in Tara’s story the importance of core value work. Her story illustrates how core values provide a framework for decision making, foster consistency and integrity, enhance our emotional well-being, and promote personal growth and resilience. In her story we saw that what Tara needed were strategies for overcoming the core value conflicts creating the distress in her life.
By recognizing the role that core values play, we can enhance our overall quality of life. Once we understand how we’re wired, we can effectively find solutions that are better for us and also for our family.Unawareness leaves us blind and floundering. Awareness brings empowerment and the ability to choose. No choice equals feelings of being jerked around by life. Choice equals feelings of being the driver and crafter of your life.
When we live aligned to our values, we experience more peace no matter what life brings our way. Instead of feeling jerked around by circumstances outside of our control, we can take charge of what we need, which helps us retain peace and also not feel powerless in less than ideal situations. Once we know what’s truly important to us, we can show up for ourselves, our children, and our spouse in the ways we wanted to but weren’t capable of before.
Since our core values operate unconsciously, influencing our behavior and decisions without us even realizing it, identifying them takes a journey of self-discovery. This requires introspection, reflection and self-honesty. It’s worth mentioning we don’t choose our core values. Although with work and time we can change them. It would be fantastic and very convenient if we could make a list and select five or ten things that we wanted to live our lives by, then do so. But core values don’t work like that.
Core Value Formation
All of us reach adulthood with varying levels of self-awareness. Research suggests that individuals who face significant trauma in their early years struggle to identify their core values more than those who have a relatively trauma-free childhood. But, self-awareness is a personal journey that isn’t soley determined by past trauma. Your personality, support systems, resilience, and personal growth all play a role in your self-comprehension and core value discovery.
For myself, I was spectacularly ignorant of who I was and what mattered to me. It’s a common experience for mothers to slowly waken to the realization that after years of motherhood, they feel they don’t know themselves anymore. And many women take a self-REdiscovery journey when their children are established in their adult lives.
However, a growing portion of women are reaching that point in life and realizing not only have they “lost themselves”, they never really knew who they were to begin with. I was one of these women. When I got married, I’d spent seventeen of my twenty-two years in an insular, communal, deeply religious, legalistic environment. We weren’t encouraged to develop our own self identity, but to meld into the communal whole for the benefit and strength of all. They believed the collective was more important than its individual members, and that the spiritual family took precedence over our natural ones. Individuality and forms of self expression were akin to sin.
In settings where a child experiences nothing outside of their insular world, it’s very difficult to develop a healthy sense of self. As far as I knew at twenty-two, my core values aligned with my way of life and with the teachings I’d been under since I had solid memories. Untangling those core values I’d unconscioulsy assimilated and/or adopted as my own during my growing up years, while discovering my actual, authentic core values, has been a long journey.
Untangling Core Value Conflicts
If you’re in a similar situation, a grown woman, a wife, and a mother but just beginning to know yourself- be encouraged! It’s never too late to reap the rewards of knowing who you are and what you value most. You’re on a journey. Embrace it and give yourself compassion. Journeys take time.
A good place to start this journey is to uncover what you value most. Below are some steps that can help you discover your authentic core values. I put the step I found most helpful first, in case, like me, you need to begin with some framework in place. I was so disconnected from myself that the other six on this list weren’t that helpful in the beginning. However, each of the steps plays a role in revealing our core values.
While you might have many values you consider important, typically we have 5 to 10 core values that guide our behavior and decision-making and form the foundation of our beliefs and priorities. As you identify your core values, think about 5-10 that are the most important to you.
Seven Ways To Uncover Core Values
1) Use Value Lists:
Reviewing lists of common values can help you identify which ones resonate with you. Rank these values in order of importance to gain clarity on your priorities. This is a value list to get you started.
2) Reflect on Past Experiences:
Consider significant experiences and decisions in your life. Reflecting on moments of happiness, pride, and fulfillment can reveal core values that are most important to you.
3) Identify What Angers You:
Consider situations that have caused you anger or frustration. Negative reactions can reveal values that are being violated or unmet in our lives.
4) Consider Your Passions:
What are you passionate about? Your passions often align with your core values, showing what you care about most deeply. If you don’t know what you’re passionate about, skip this for now. It’s been my experience that women who grow up in highly religious homes can have trouble with this one.
5) Examine Role Models:
Think about people you admire and respect. What qualities and values do they embody? The traits you admire in others often reflect core values that are important to you.
6) Seek Feedback:
Ask your husband or best friend for their perspective on your values. Sometimes others can provide insights you may not have considered.
7) Reflect Regularly:
Make it a habit to reflect on your core values. Making time for self-reflection will help your values stay aligned with your current life stage and circumstances.
Examples of Core Value Conflicts
So what does a conflict of values look like?
Honesty vs. Kindness: You value honesty and kindness equally. You face a dilemma if telling the truth could hurt someone you care about. The dilemma of being honest or being kind is stressful, particularly when you see no way of being both.
Independence vs. Connection: You value independence/personal freedom, but you equally value relationship and connection. Balancing the value of independence with the value of connection is a common challenge for stay-at-home wives and mothers.
Financial Stability vs. Being Present: You value financial stability and contributing to the household income but also value being present for your children and managing your household. Balancing the need for financial stability with the need to be fully present in our homes and children’s lives often creates a large amount of stress.
Discipline vs. Nurturing: You’re a mother who values teaching her children discipline and responsibility, but also values nurturing and providing a supportive and loving environment. It can be stressful to find the right balance between being firm and being gentle. This can lead to uncertainty in your parenting decisions, which can also be stressful.
Self-Care vs. Sacrifice: You value self-care and maintaining your well-being, but also value self-sacrifice for the benefit of your family. This conflict can feel very confusing and cause a significant amount of turmoil. The consequence, if left unresolved, can be self-estrangement.
Cultural/Traditional Roles vs. Modern Beliefs: You may value traditional beliefs about the role of a wife and mother, but also value modern views on sharing chores and parental responsibilities. This conflict can feel overwhelming and produce a feeling of failure as you try to satisfy both values.
Impact of Core Value Conflicts
Now that we’ve seen some examples of value conflicts, let’s look at how deeply affected we can be when our core values collide. These conflicts produce loads of emotional distress, which can manifest as anxiety, irritability or feeling continually overloaded.
- We’ll often experience persistent internal stress from the continuous struggle to reconcile opposing values, which feels overwhelming, and leaves us drained and tired all the time.
- Feelings of guilt or shame sometimes arise when our actions contradict a deeply held value. Intense frustration or anger can signal that an important value is being compromised or unmet.
- Experiencing constant internal debates or second-guessing of decisions can suggest a value conflict. Difficulty deciding, especially between things that seem equally important but pull in different directions, is a clear sign of a core value collision.
- Regretting decisions can reveal an underlying value conflict. After making a decision that favors one value over another, you may feel a sense of loss or regret for not honoring the other value. This can cause doubts about whether you made the right decision.
- Core value conflicts also affect our health. Headaches, insomnia, stomach problems, muscle tension, brain fog, fatigue, a heightened fight-or-flight feeling can all result, particularly if we experience a prolonged value conflict.
- Even our marriages can be affected. Frequent arguments and misunderstandings can stem from our value conflicts. We may then find it easier to just stop trying and pull away. If you’re constantly fatigued, feeling stressed and unwell, it’s often easier to withdraw.
Eight Strategies for Core Value Conflict Resolution
Recognizing a conflict of core values is the first step toward resolving it. Some value conflicts are easier to resolve than others. While some can be resolved through re-prioritizing our values so they better align with our goals or current life stage, others are more complex and require a rigorous relearning process in order to resolve them. If you find yourself in a core value conflict, implementing the following can be helpful.
1) Prioritize and Seek Balance in Your Values:
Determine the importance of each conflicting value in your current situation. Base your decisions on which value aligns most closely with your current goals and/or stage of life. Strive for balance rather than an all-or-nothing approach.
2) Develop a Personal Mission Statement:
Create a statement that conveys your key values and goals. This can provide clarity and serve as a guide when making decisions that involve conflicting values.
3) Boundary Setting:
Set clear boundaries to protect your time and energy. Setting boundaries helps to clarify our priorities, reduce stress, enhance our focus, improve our relationships, enhances our self-care and empowers our decision making.
4) Visualize Outcomes:
Picture the potential results of different decisions or choices. This can help you foresee the impact of prioritizing one value over another and make a more informed choice.
5) Journal:
Keep a journal and write about your experiences with value conflicts. Reflective writing can help you process your thoughts and emotions, which produces greater clarity.
6) Create a Support Network:
Build a network of friends, family, and older wives and moms who understand your values and who can provide emotional support and practical advice when conflicts arise.
7) Practice Self-Compassion:
Be kind to yourself during this process. It’s normal to face value conflicts, and working through them is a sign of personal growth.
8) Reflect and Reevaluate:
Frequently reflect on your values and how they apply to the life stage or circumstance you’re currently in. Be open to reevaluating and adjusting as needed.
Replacing A Core Value
Like I mentioned before, sometimes, we discover we’re holding a core value that isn’t actually authentically ours. Or one that doesn’t serve us anymore, and even possibly is harming us. If that’s the case, what should we do?
This is a more difficult situation because unlearning and replacing core values involves changing ingrained beliefs. This is an emotionally challenging process and takes time. It also requires significant self-reflection and new ways of thinking, as well as behavioral changes.
Seven Steps to Replace a Core Value
Here are the steps you can take to replace a core value no longer serving you.
1) Identify the Core Value to Change:
Spend some time considering the value you think is no longer helping you. Understand how it influences your thoughts, behaviors, and decisions. Recognize the negative impact this value has on your life. Be clear on why it needs to change.
2) Define the New Core Value:
Decide on the new value you would like to adopt. Make sure it matches your goals and the life you envision. Describe the ways this new value will improve your life and enhance your well-being.
3) Educate Yourself:
Read books, articles, and other resources that support the new value. Challenge your old belief by seeking information that contradicts the old value and supports the new one.
4) Surround Yourself with Support:
Connect with people who already live by this new value. Notice how they behave and their attitudes towards different situations. Engage with others who reinforce the new value.
5) Practice New Behaviors:
Begin implementing actions that reflect the new value in your everyday actions. Begin with small, manageable things. Reinforce the new value by practicing these behaviors. Regular repetition is key to ingraining new beliefs.
6) Reflect and Adjust:
Take a moment and think about how you’re doing. Pay attention to any shifts in your thoughts, actions, and emotions. Keep an open mind and be willing to adjust your approach. Overcoming an ingrained belief takes effort and time.
7) Practice Self-Compassion:
Be kind to yourself when you have setbacks. Change takes time. It’s normal to get discouraged and even fail when trying to grow. Acknowledge and celebrate your progress, no matter how small.
As you can see, discovering our core values is an essential undertaking as stay-at-home wives and mothers. Our core values provide a foundation for our decision-making and life satisfaction. By understanding and embracing our core values, we can know ourselves, lead ourselves, and love ourselves into a more intentional, fulfilling, and balanced life.
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