ACTualized living W/ Erik

All right. We are live this Friday afternoon. m. Here in Minnesota. And I'm going to give it a few minutes, as I usually do, to hopefully let some people hop on and get the notification that we're live and we're getting started. And once we have a few minutes here, we will get jumping into what is our topic today, which, if you read the description, is values. Values. Values. Values. So in this time, as people are rolling in, put this on you for a second. When I say values, what comes to mind? What place in your life does this term, this word, values, play in your day to day life decision making, the things that you prioritize or don't prioritize?

What is a value? What do you think of? And we'll be discussing the role that values play in our wellness and taking actual change steps towards change in our lives. And so, having it been maybe a minute now, I'll dive in here. When we talk about value, the first place we need to start is why would we even consider a conversation around values? Why would it be a topic of focus as we're on this page talking about wellness and mental health and life improvement, whatever, you know, those things bring to mind.

The first thing we need to acknowledge is that often, especially in this day and age, this. This overwhelming sense of stuckness enters our lives. Hey, how's it going? Welcome. Speak, wonder. Glad to have you here. This overall sense of stuckness can get into our lives. And the stuckness often contributes itself, or at least is some way tied to many different thoughts and emotions, ways in which we process and judge our life and the circumstances we have in our lives. And the stuckness, right? If we can imagine a jail cell, a place where we're stuck, we don't have the freedom to just move and do what we want to do is the result of our idea of how we fit on the spectrum of being human, the identifiers we use to tag ourselves with and the things that we really want to be and the things we really don't want to be.

And those things become the reason for our stuckness. Right? For example, if I prioritize my identity, my identity being I'm a very strong person, I might avoid situations that might expose times when I'm weak, when I'm not strong, vice versa. Maybe I see myself as a very weak person, and that's going to influence the decisions I make on a day to day basis, making me feel like I don't have options, that I truly do all this to say that stuckness comes from thoughts and emotions dictating our behaviors, our choices.

So how do we break through that stuckness? How do we get unstuck? Well, unstuckness is giving ourselves space to be human, first and foremost, to let ourselves try something and fail, and not being an indication of who we are as people, but a necessary process to the lives we want to be living, the new things we want to encounter in our lives. So that's one thing. Another thing is identifying our values. So once we acknowledge that we are human and part of being human is facing struggles, having problems, making mistakes, that those things are not only necessary, but valuable parts of our lives, then we identify what are the things that I choose are worth struggling towards.

That's where we find our values. Right? And so some examples here to give you an example of this concept. Let's imagine I'm going to paint a little picture. Let's imagine we have Bob. And Bob is really fascinated, is really stuck on this idea that the most important thing about who he is is that he's really smart, this identifier. And so because of this, Bob goes and joins a spelling bee so that he can show the world how smart he truly is. And Bob gets up there, and he's watched by his peers and family and friends.

And in the first round, Bob misspells a word and is asked to leave the competition. Now, Bob's reaction to this is maybe very strong emotionally, because his whole stake is put into proving to others, showing others, showing the world that he's good enough. Through his intellect, what ensues is maybe immense sadness, disappointment, you name it. Now, let's put bob on hold for a second, and let's bring up JerRY. And Jerry, rather than being motivated and finding it important how other people see him, he finds it valuable to discover.

He's motivated by discovery, this value of discovery. And so him, too, out of this desire to discover, joins the spelling BEE. And just like Bob, in the first round, spells the word wrong, and he is asked to leave the spelling BEE. But unlike BOb, doesn't have an emotional response to that experience. And it's not because he's a better person. It's because he's prioritized his value of discovery over his identity, knowing that as a Human, he's fully capable of keeping getting things right and getting things wrong sometimes.

And as a part of that, now, he sees the opportunity to spell a word wrong as an opportunity for discovery, for growth. Maybe he goes home and studies the root of the word that he spelled wrong. The historical ancestry of where that word come from and how it was first used. And now he gets to fulfill what is his value, despite the rightness or wrongness of how he encountered that opportunity. The difference between prioritizing our identity over our value. And so in places where you feel stuck today, look for those areas where identity is being prioritized is my most important thing in my job right now, proving to my coworkers my competency, or is there an underlying value that I can engage in that supersedes whether or not I'm fill in the blank?

Values are the reason we would get up in front of a stage, on a stage, despite our fear of public speaking, to share about something that fascinates us, that we think contributes maybe to the community. So I encourage you, what are some values? Right? What are those values that are going to underline, that are going to supersede the identifiers that often get in the way of us allowing ourselves to be human, to make mistakes, to try, and in that, be open to what comes? That is what I got for you today.

And down here, I see. Okay. Chronic people pleaser. Right? When we talk about people pleasing, that's a very human thing, right? We want to fit into the community. We want to be liked by others. But when we prioritize our likeness by others over what's actually important to us in life, we often give away our time and space to things that we don't want to be doing. Right? And hence the. The people pleaser trajectory. And the reality is that we can't control how people view us. There may be things that I do or say here that doesn't align with a culture or practice on the other side of the world.

And I may be labeled in a certain way. I can't control that, right? And yet, as a human, I want to be liked. And when our focus is on being liked, we lose our opportunity for trying, for letting ourselves be human, making mistakes, accidentally stepping on the toes of others as we pursue maybe connection. So, as a people pleaser, one thing I would consider is, what does the value of connection look like in your life? What does it mean to prioritize connection with others as a two way street and not just a one way road that may change your perspective of who you see yourself being in your own eyes as well as in the eyes of others?

Let's start at average human. Identify what's important to you. Take action despite of what cannot be controlled. All right, well, that's my time here. I gotta get moving on, and it's been really great to be able to connect with you all and the speak wonder user. Thank you for engaging. I appreciate it. I hope that there's something in this that you resonate with. That's a place to go off of and explore this week and to give yourself the space to be curious about what things look different when we pursue values.

m. Take care. Happy holidays. I hope wherever you are, you get a white Christmas, and if not,