We often get Values and Goals confused! Goals are achievements, but Values are why we should set Goals in the first place. If we don’t know what our Values are, and then we set Goals there can be problems with achieving those Goals or even an inherent dissatisfaction with the achievement because it may not be in alignment with our true Values.
Living marginally with our Values or even contrary to our Values can cause a strong sense of distraction, inner dissatisfaction, loss of focus, and even anxiety. We have often been taught thru many ways that our Values are not important and that our Societal, Family, or Peer Values or Goals are what we should Focus on. This type of thinking may create a struggle and even unworkable and ineffective action in life, if it runs contrary to our Values.
God is the author of Values. I believe that when we are living into God’s Values we are “renewing our mind”. God is who has made us valuable. I believe that there are some core Values that God wants us to live in so that we can have full Vital lives.
Lives lived in freedom and not slavery to fear! Creative and Beautiful lives that are more than surviving and filled with God’s creative genius!
Below is a NON-Exhaustive List of Values (easily found on many internet sites, and in daily life)
Using the List Below and maybe others that you can find or think of look at what you believe to be the 10 most important Values that you regard as guiding points in your life. At this point it is not about whether you are living in these Values, it is about identifying what they are. I want to be clear, this is about listing what are important Values even if they seem remote to you right now! We are designed to grow to wholeness and this can be a great first step!
We will examine ways to know why you may not be fully living with these Values as well as workable actions to assist with moving you into living in your Values in the next 2 Emails you signed up for so stay tuned.
Let’s Take a Look!
Rank the Value 1-3 in importance and then go back thru and find the top 10 highest Ranked.
Highlight them for use in an upcoming 3 part email series on Values !
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o Acceptance: to be open to and accepting of myself, others, life etc
o Adventure: to be adventurous; to actively seek, create, or explore novel or stimulating experiences
o Assertiveness: to respectfully stand up for my rights and request what I want
o Authenticity: to be authentic, genuine, real; to be true to myself
o Beauty: to appreciate, create, nurture or cultivate beauty in myself, others, the environment etc
o Caring: to be caring towards myself, others, the environment etc
o Challenge: to keep challenging myself to grow, learn, improve
o Compassion: to act with kindness towards those who are suffering
o Connection: to engage fully in whatever I am doing, and be fully present with others
o Contribution: to contribute, help, assist, or make a positive difference to myself or others
o Conformity: to be respectful and obedient of rules and obligations
o Cooperation: to be cooperative and collaborative with others
o Courage: to be courageous or brave; to persist in the face of fear, threat, or difficulty
o Creativity: to be creative or innovative
o Curiosity: to be curious, open-minded and interested; to explore and discover
o Encouragement: to encourage and reward behavior that I value in myself or others
o Equality: to treat others as equal to myself, and vice-versa
o Excitement: to seek, create and engage in activities that are exciting, stimulating or thrilling
o Fairness: to be fair to myself or others
o Fitness: to maintain or improve my fitness; to look after my physical and mental health and wellbeing
o Flexibility: to adjust and adapt readily to changing circumstances
o Freedom: to live freely; to choose how I live and behave, or help others do likewise
o Friendliness: to be friendly, companionable, or agreeable towards others
o Forgiveness: to be forgiving towards myself or others
o Fun: to be fun-loving; to seek, create, and engage in fun-filled activities
o Generosity: to be generous, sharing and giving, to myself or others
o Gratitude: to be grateful for and appreciative of the positive aspects of myself, others and life
o Honesty: to be honest, truthful, and sincere with myself and others
o Humor: to see and appreciate the humorous side of life
o Humility: to be humble or modest; to let my achievements speak for themselves
Knowing what is Valuable can be incredibly helpful in understanding the next steps, overcoming fears, or setting long terms goals in your life!
Remember to sign up for emails of my current Blog Posts and to receive future notifications of upcoming courses and products from 3 Rivers Creative PNW! Thanks, Gene
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
It ironic that I am writing about avoidance when I am late on posting this week ;).
Most people have some sort of avoidance mechanism in their life. Other words for it might be procrastination, distraction, busyness, or plain old fear. For some people there is healthy avoidance, it’s a moment of quiet to regroup ( stepping away, taking a breather, playing a brief game on your phone), and for others it disrupts their life on a regular basis (unopened mail, hours of screen time, overworking, even substance abuse).
There are literally hundreds of books on how to overcome procrastination, avoidance, and other descriptors for distraction, and yet it seems that it is still a pervasive human experience. While I don’t have the all-inclusive solution for all avoidance issues I would like to distill it down into a few thought-provoking questions, and an activity that will allow for a look at the good, the bad of avoidance, and a way to start stopping avoiding;).
In 1992 I decided to go back to college and I enrolled in community college to become an audio engineer. I liked the “idea” of being an engineer and my girlfriend at the time was a singer so I thought in my 20-year-old brain that this would seal the deal, so to say, about our future together.
I soon found myself floundering in a sea of incomplete tasks, homework that was done poorly or not at all, and poor grades. The truth again was that even with my new audio engineer idea, I had no vision or passion for what I was pursuing and no external support to hold me accountable to completion. Instead of doing homework I would watch television, or other activities that were not really about becoming and audio engineer. I was avoiding, because my goals were out of touch with values. I new deep down that vocation was not really what I was called to.
After one term I quit school and worked part-time. I took the incomplete and several D’s as a sign that my audio career was not to be. What happened over the next 9 months was multi faceted, but essentially I became aligned with my values again.
were values that were very important to me.
In September of 1993 I enrolled in school with a new “idea” and vision of becoming a counselor which I did achieve. It was long and hard and I had to make some changes.
I learned quickly that television was not a good idea if I was to complete homework. I set up a space in front of a window and set specific times that I would engage math specifically. I did not have a home computer at that time so I went to the computer lab at the college and spent many hours typing English papers in a less distracted environment.
Most importantly I had a vision, and at that point people who saw that vision in me as my future. I have to confess that it was not and has not been easy as I am easily distractible from what it is that I am doing, but I have learned that this distractibility, and avoidance can be based in some definable fears.
Finally, an experiment for you this week;
Avoidance isn’t all bad, sometimes we just need a course correction, a vision of the values that are steering us, goals as markers along the road to those values, and sometimes we just need a break to breath. Avoidance (breaks) can serve a purpose when it is managed as a tool of rest, refocus, and rejuvenation just don’t let that purpose turn into something negative such as being stuck, consistently frozen in fear, and/or detached from your values.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
So males; got it all together? No anxiety here! Money in bank, stable job, solid relationship, God on speed dial just in case? It’s easy to see that this is a fallacy of the highest degree, but I hope it got your attention.
I am a man, a follower of Christ, and I am a long time anxiety experiencer. Certainly anxiety is not gender specific or limited, but I write today as a male because I have talked with so many men who are isolated and miserable in their internal world. They think that they are the only one (or only one of a few). Anxiety has in the long past been almost debilitating in my life, but I have learned one important fact. I experience anxiety, but I do not want it to define me; I am not anxiety! Thru communicating with others, counsel and prayer, I experience it, but I can make the choice about the relationship that I have with it in my life. It only directs my day if I let it do that.
Predispositions to anxiety, historical trauma, and acute and chronic depression are just a few of the factors that can influence how, when, and how severely anxiety is experienced. Lets face it, we want to life to be predictable so we aren’t scared about the future, and yet so many of us walk around scared and anxious because of unresolved or undiscussed past experiences.
So many men who are locked up inside with all sorts of trauma, fear, and depression.
Some choose to self medicate by doing destructive things to themselves, and destructive things to others. Some lose their health to all sorts of chronic illnesses exasperated by stress, and still others commit suicide. Many of these scenarios have built to there painful crescendo in an isolation of a distorted view of manhood as a wall of unemotional strength, power and/or control. Help and seeking help is for the weak. Pursuits such as money, sex, and a whole host of unhealthy distractions eclipse life and eclipse the creativity of God that exists within it really is the difference between thriving and surviving.
I have even heard it said in some Christian circles that “anxiety is sin”! As if we needed another thing to be anxious about. Yes, it does say in paraphrase “Don’t be anxious” 20+ times in the Gospels, but Christ is expressing this as a concern and an affirmation of God’s desire for our wholeness and God’s providence for us. It is a wholeness of peace that grows in relationship to God, and as we relate to other believers (our proximity to relationship effects our Christian walk profoundly). “Please don’t be anxious I will take care of you!”
According to one statistic in Men’s Health Forum, in 2014, in America, most of the suicides by men were in the age range of 45-59 and the risk factors identified were age and socioeconomic status. I will not fill this article with large quantities of statistics. For this purpose it is enough to say that we have a significant suicide problem. I am not writing today to figure out all of the etiology of why some men, women, adolescents, or even children commit suicide or slide into deep depression and struggle day after day with debilitating anxiety. There are far to many varied reasons for me cover in this article.
Being the strong silent type doesn’t work. Isolation and silence is our enemy. Out of isolation comes all sorts of suffering and struggle. Out of internal isolation and bottling things up all kinds of poor relational actions take place that effect us, and those around us. We live in misery with our anxiety afraid to voice it lest we be called weak or broken.
There is a great Acceptance and Commitment Therapy metaphor image, by Russ Harris that talks about acceptance vs striving and resistance:
Your life could be like a house that you purchased on a beautiful street and you desire for all your new neighbors to come over and visit. After all you want relationships that you can share your life with right. You post a flier inviting those around you over for visit. The guests arrive and you send them to the beautiful backyard for food and drinks. 1/2 hour into the party the bell rings, and you open to find your next door neighbor Anxious Smith standing there. We will call him A. Smith for short. A. Smith pushes his way past you, and out to the backyard which is fine except that most the guests are dressed pretty nice and A. Smith is dressed in filthy clothes, talks really loud, coughs a lot, and eats with his mouth open (all of the shrimp cocktail). The Party becomes very uncomfortable …for you.
You usher A. Smith into the kitchen which he try’s to push his way out of again. Alone in the Kitchen holding the door you battle with A. Smith. Hours go by, and the party dwindles. The happy attendees leave the party and so does A. Smith. Exhausted and alone you wait by the front door watching the guests leave and a new guest, Depression Smith approach. Looks like he will take the night shift in your home.
Sound familiar? Maybe, maybe not? I don’t know about you, but isolation can look a lot like this. Tons of energy keeping whatever that anxiety is about contained, and hidden. Putting on the best face, all the time stuck in the kitchen worried that the guests in our lives will see A. Smith and run screaming out of our lives. We can be alone in the crowds and miserable.
Lets try this from a different perspective. Think now about your “life” house on your street, and the party with all the neighbors there and A. Smith shows up, dirty, coughing and eating all the shrimp cocktail, but instead of pushing him into the kitchen you follow him into the backyard and introduce him to a few people. A. Smith still isn’t really any more attractive, or fun, but you just allow him to be in the space. He floats from group to group and you continue to enjoy your party. You aren’t isolated anymore hiding in the kitchen battling by yourself because you are no longer living alone in your experience. Life becomes more connected and A. Smith may be there, but you give him less attention then you once did.
Talking with trusted people and allowing them to know you, is taking back your life by stopping the avoidance and engaging in activities that make meaning in your life. That action steers you towards what is valuable to you which is fulfilling relationships. Anxiety Smith and Depression Smith will both try to tell you that keeping them secret is the best way to avoid rejection or shame. These are just thoughts to try to keep you safe, but they actually keep you stuck and put you in more danger because they don’t work.
The key is not to change the thought, but to change your relationship with the thought, and place what is valuable in front of you as a guide. In this case relationship, freedom, and intimacy. Usually secrets aren’t helpful values to live your life by!
Let me tell you, there are places and people to help. If you have been telling yourself that your anxiety (or depression) is ridiculous and just trying to suppress it down by yourself let me ask, “How is that working”? Same thoughts and feelings just a different day. Try something new if you want something new.
Whatever is feeding your anxiety there are methods that can help you change your relationship with it. Historical trauma can feed a great deal of anxiety and finding and participating in a counseling relationship can go far to unpack and heal those experiences.
Other routes for removing isolation are to confide in a trusted friend, but if that doesn’t fit then a counselor or pastor to confide and talk to is a good option. Finding the right body of Christian believers to be involved in can be a huge help. First and foremost, pray and ask God to show you people to build relationships with so that you can shed the isolation myth. This may take time, but ask around for groups of men (or women if you are a woman reading this) that meet to support one another in the community, or in a Church. Pastors or counselors can usually point you in the right direction. You can live a life that is vital and abundant in spite of anxiety.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
“My Story isn’t very interesting it doesn’t convey anything that others would want to know”.
What is interesting about this statement is that up until that moment, as the person was talking, they were mentioning many things that connected them to a broader human experience, and demonstrated the Creator at work within their life.
I was that person not to many years ago. I would listen to someone talk about their redemption from a drug addicted violent life and I would think that person can talk all day about how God changed them, how successful they now were, and people will listen and be in awe. “That person” has a powerful story and I have a boring story.
Raised in church, went to a Christian school, parents were Christians and so on a so forth. This was the so-called boring story I had in my head about myself.
My view was all wrong, and so was my motivation. The story wasn’t for me it was others to see how much God cared, because my story was and is laced with redemptions, creativity, and pain.
We all have amazing stories that have a person somewhere waiting to hear them, but the first person that needs hear that story is you.
Most all human beings share the same fundamental ability to engage in the stories of others.
One of the fundamental desires of people is to be known. When people don’t feel known they live in dissonance or disconnection between their outer lives, and their inner lives. Hiding sometimes in a pseudo intimate fashion in their relationships (being only partially known). People deep down want to be known, but are afraid for many reasons to reveal themselves for fear of rejection, criticism, or abandonment.
If your heart is passionate about something……..anything…… then what does that tell about you. You didn’t get that passion by accident. Iit grew out of your story. Your life sometimes seems “to normal” because that is what you have known for so long.
I am here to tell you that your life is full of amazing things that can help you and others live more vital lives. Like a singer who suddenly gets found and made famous, you too have a story inside of you waiting to be told to someone.
Some people do not tell their stories because they don’t want to be seen as “narcissistic” or they don’t want to be “vulnerable” to those around them. Your story can be a gift of life for someone out their. We live in an increasingly isolated, and anxious society that needs connection and human interaction desperately. Your story can be that connection.
In learning to be counselor I was asked to explore my own story in as much detail as possible and recognize my own journey as valuable, vulnerable, and in need of recognition….by me. I learned that having a mother with schizophrenia and a father who did not finish 8th grade was a way for me to understand and connect to some people who struggled with mental illness and poverty. I learned that my stories of loss created more compassion and empathy for others experiencing loss.
I learned to forgive for things that had happened to me, as I told my story to myself first, and saw that God worked in many ways to help me to become a new person despite what I saw as significant limitations. I learned that my story when told to others helped me and God within me to be known and not hidden. It helped me to be free.
It is important to understand the sometimes telling your story will take time, and may uncover events that are hard to process due to the pain that occurred from them. I would encourage you not to give up, but to take that uncovering as a motivation to find someone trustworthy such as a counselor or pastor to work thru those parts of your story, so that you can find healing and vitality.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
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