In our Pause The Week session this Wednesday, we used Brene Brown's list of core values to help us get to know ourselves better.
Unexpectedly, this week's session ended up being a one-to-one coaching session, which was beautiful and allowed for a very in-depth and personalised discussion. However, this feels like very important work, so I will revisit it once the numbers recover. Due to the nature of a one-to-one session, it feels important to keep the content of our discussions between us, but I will share my (current) core values in case it is of interest, and you can undergo the process yourself by following my guide here.
As you'll see from my journal above, initially, I landed on 14 core values, eventually whittling them down to 3:
Health - because without my health, I have nothing
Courage - to be kind and patient
Learning - because I am inherently curious and hungry for knowledge
The exciting part is when you are vulnerable enough to ask those around you what they think your core values are. My husband and several friends immediately said that Kindness is integral to who I am. I protested, 'But it sometimes takes a lot of courage for me to stay in that kind energy,' and then my husband said, 'But the Kindness is the real you. The bit that makes it hard for you to be kind in stressful moments is something else not from you.'
This took a few hours of processing time, but I realised that, yes, Kindness trumps Courage for me. Kindness is a thread that runs through me on a very deep level, and trauma creates a layer over it in moments of stress or anxiety, putting me into fight-or-flight, and that's where Courage has to come in.
So, I now identify Health, Kindness, and Learning as my core values, and that feels like it fits.
If you would like to join us for the next session, I hope to re-run this theme with more people. Due to travel, there is no session next week (25th September), so the next availability is Wednesday, 2nd October.
This weekly session runs every Wednesday between 7.30 and 8.30 at The Midwives Circle and Wellness Centre in Kettering. It is a donation-based offering, and you can find out more here. There are a maximum of 8 people, so it is a small and very welcoming group.
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