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When Worlds Collide

Oct 112010
 

Last week, I talked about how the uniqueness of our individual values, and explained how if our core truths remain unrecognised or unrealised by others, we can feel frustrated, disappointed or angry. A conflict with your loved one can often be a result of the struggle to align your own set of values with theirs – so clearly, it’s vital that we obtain a clear picture of what’s most important to us, so we can communicate our needs with each other, and make sense of any situation where our values are clashing with another’s.

This week, I’m going to help you figure out your own values, and understand the bedrock of principles that guide you through life – so here’s an exercise for you to do. If it helps, you can do this with a lover or a friend.

Step 1: Write down 5-10 values that are most important in your life. For instance, they might include: partnership, freedom, love, trust, wealth, stability, family, nature etc. Think about how you like to spend your time, what you’re passionate about, what you fill your life with, what you think and talk about, and your goals. There’s a more comprehensive list at the end of this blog, if you need a few more ideas!

Step 2: List those values in order of priority. Then, when you’ve found your top five values, ask yourself what each means for you personally. For instance, when you drill down into the value of ‘partnership’, it might mean ‘stability’, and in turn that might mean ‘trust’. In another example, ‘career’ for you may mean ‘freedom’, or it could also mean ‘prosperity’ or ‘wealth’ or ‘security’. Keep exploring until you instinctively feel that you’ve made it to the core ‘truth’ behind a particular value. Be aware that if you’re struggling to drill down any further into a value’s meaning, it might already be a core value. By now you should have identified the 5 core values that are most important in your life.

Step 3: Take a moment to reflect on how closely you’re living your life in line with your newly discovered core values. Ask yourself “how closely, from 1-10 am I living in alignment with this value?” (with 1 being ‘not at all’ and 10 being ‘completely’). Make note of how closely your life is matching your values, and you’ll gain some insights into the areas of your life that need some extra work to bring you into alignment.

This exercise can be invaluable in giving you greater awareness in problematic areas of your life. For instance, you may disagree over your partner’s decision to go away on their own for a few days, until you realise that it’s not the relationship that’s under threat, but your own core value of trust… and that’s because (for whatever reason) the issue of trust is higher on your radar than it may be on your partner’s.

This insight into the key motivators that drive your actions and behaviours can help you to understand why you (or someone close to you) can sometimes react so strongly to something that can seem unimportant to others.

This kind of knowledge can help us to find new solutions that better support our values, while also helping us get to the root of a problem, instead of struggling to understand a different point of view. What’s even more exciting is the realisation that when we gain greater awareness of our key values, we can immediately recognise why we’re so ‘charged up’, and choose to react in a different way, diffusing any tension, misunderstandings and overreactions before they even begin.

Happy exploring!

In love and light,

Taranga

Values list:

Adventure
Affection

Authenticity

Balance
Beauty

Belonging

Bliss

Challenge

Commitment

Communication

Confidence
Control
Creativity

Dignity
Discipline
Ecstasy

Energy

Education
Excitement

Faith
Family
Fitness

Friends
Freedom
Fulfilment
Forgiveness
Fun
Generosity

God
Growth
Happiness
Health
Hope
Honesty
Humour
Independence
Integrity
Intelligence

Intimacy

Intuition

Joy

Kindness
Knowledge
Love (romantic)

Love (unconditional)

Marriage
Mindfulness

Nature

Optimism

Partnership

Passion

Peace of mind
Pleasure

Popularity

Power
Progress

Prosperity
Reason
Respect

Security
Self-reliance
Sensitivity

Service
Sexuality

Spirituality
Strength
Success
Trust

Truth
Wealth

Winning

Wisdom

 
http://www.victoryag.org/faith.htm

Special Needs

Oct 112010
 

Last week’s blog hopefully got you thinking about your values, helping you to understand the bedrock of unique principles that guide you through life. This week, we’re going to look at another set of principles that drives our actions and behaviours, and which can lead to relationship clashes if they’re not aligned – our needs.

Of course, we all share the same basic human needs. They’re things like oxygen, food, water and sleep, the need to feel safe and secure, and to have love and belonging in our lives. Yet beyond this, there are all kinds of ‘sub-needs’ that are as individual as we are.

Our ‘sub-needs’ play a huge influence in how we connect with others, especially within intimate relationships. In figuring out what these are, we can enter into situations and relationships with greater awareness, and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls and dramas that arise when those needs aren’t met.

So, here are some broad categories designed to get you thinking about where YOU fit in. Knowing your sub-needs will help you to more clearly decide whether they’re being met, and enable you to express them to others when you need to.

Read through each list and decide which of them apply most strongly to you, within either your love relationship, or your friendship or family dynamics (where applicable!). Try and be selective and choose the top three that feel like your most important needs. It can even be useful to adapt them and make them more personal to you, writing them down as you go.

Need 1: Safety

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need to feel secure

– The need to feel connected

– The need to feel comfortable

– The need to feel peaceful

– The need to have support during hard times

– The need to feel cared for

– The need to spend time together

Need 2: Acceptance

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need to feel valued and appreciated

– The need to receive physical affection

– The need to be heard

– The need to feel understood

– The need to feel desired

– The need to feel respected

– The need to be openly vulnerable

– The need to feel strong

Need 3: Belonging

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need to enjoy shared interests

– The need to share daily life

– The need to be totally present and in the moment with another

– The need for spiritual awareness

– The need for loyalty

– The need for trust

– The need for strong communication

– The need for playfulness, laughter and joy

Need 4: Space

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need to preserve my own identity

– The need to space outside the relationship

– The need for privacy

– The need for clear boundaries

– The need to nurture individual interests

– The need for my own friendships

Need 5: Influence

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need to feel useful

– The need to feel like I matter

– The need to feel like I make a difference

– The need to help other heal

– The need to care for others

– The need to motivate others

– The need to help others change and grow

– The need to help others through hard times

– The need to create safety for others

– The need to create comfort for others

Need 6: Love

Common sub-needs here include:

– The need for touch, hugs and affection

– The need for sex, play and pleasure

– The need to give or receive unconditional love

– The need to have or surrender control

– The need to feel passionate

– The need for kindness and caring

– The need for emotional intimacy

This exercise can be a valuable tool for relationship maintenance, as you discuss with a partner, friend or family member what drives you, and work out where there’s room for improvement, compromise or greater understanding of what makes each other tick.

It’s worth spending time on, because when we have greater awareness of the needs that often subconsciously drive us, we can more clearly express and be guided by them – leading to happier, healthier, more meaningful relationships all round.

In love and light,

Taranga

http://www.theinnocents.org/

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