The key problem here is not that you have problems, it is that you’ve put the choices that are here to be made on hold. Vitality and engagement in your life does not require you to eliminate your pain first. It requires quite the opposite: opening up to the joy (and pain!) that comes from having your life be about what you really, really want it to be about.
So, here’s a question to ask the person you see in the mirror. What do you want your life to be about? Really?
Chapter 12
Choosing Your Values
Defining what matters to you and actively choosing to pursue that direction is what this book is ultimately all about. Although the defusion, mindfulness, and acceptance exercises you’ve explored up to this point are useful in themselves, this information is an empty shell if it isn’t used in the service of living a meaningful life.
Chapter 11 should have helped you understand what we mean by “values.” Choosing what you value and pursuing that path can make your life rich and meaningful, even in the face of great adversity. This chapter is about doing just that.
THE MASTERS YOU SERVE
To live a valued life is to act in the service of what you value. It was Bob Dylan who wrote, “You’ve got to serve somebody.” The question is: Who (or what) will you serve? Your experience, this book, and your current psychological dilemmas have probably shown you that living in the service of pain reduction is no way to live at all. If your agoraphobia tells you that going outside isn’t an option, when everything else in you knows that going out is the vital thing to do, serving your agoraphobia probably won’t lead you down the path you want to follow.
Understanding this can be a scary place to be in some ways. If you decide that basing your decisions on what your mind gives you isn’t an option, then on what can you base your actions? If you can really be about whatever you choose, how do you know what you want to do? What should your compass point be in this seemingly endless sea of options?
We believe that right now at this very moment, you have all the tools you need to make meaningful and inspiring life choices for yourself. You not only have the opportunity, but the actual ability to live in the service of what you value. That doesn’t mean that circumstances will necessarily allow you to achieve all of your goals; this is not a guarantee about outcome. And it doesn’t mean you have all the skills you need to accomplish your stated goals. But it does mean you have what you need to choose a direction.
The word “values” comes from a Latin root that means “worthy and strong.” It carries an implication of action, which is why that same root leads to the word “wield.” It connotes actually using what is important and strong. Values define not only what you want to pursue from day to day but what you want your life to be about. In some sense, what’s at stake here is a matter of life and death, or at least the difference between a vital life and a deadened life.
EXERCISE: Attending Your Own Funeral
When people die, what is left behind is what they stood for. Think of someone who is no longer alive but whose life you look up to and admire. Think of your heroes. Now see if it isn’t true that what they stood for is now, after their passing, most important. What’s important is neither their material possessions nor their inner doubts. The values reflected in their lives are what’s important.
You have only so much time on this earth, and you don’t know how much. The question “Are you going to live, knowing you will die?” is not fundamentally different than these questions: “Are you going to love, knowing you will be hurt?” Or, “Are you going to commit to living a valued life knowing you will sometimes not meet your commitments?” Or, “Will you reach for success knowing you will sometimes fail?” The potential for pain and the sense of vitality you gain from these experiences go together. If your life is truly going to be about something, it helps to look at it from the perspective of what you would want the path your life leaves behind to mean.
One of the foundations for avoidance is our verbal awareness that life on this planet is finite. We recognize that it might seem macabre to go to the end of your life in imagination and look back. It is not meant to be morbid but to be grounded. If you could live your life so that it is actually about what you would choose to have it be about from here until it is over, what would be evident? That is, what would be clear about the kind of life you led?
This is not a prediction, or guess, or description. The question is not about what you’ve done or expect to do. We ask this question in the form of what you would hope those close to you will see. But this is not a question about social approval; rather, if your values mean something, they will be evident. We are asking only this: What would be evident if you could freely choose what your life stood for?
You may only whisper this question to yourself, but since this is a choice, we are asking you open yourself up to your own yearning to be about something. If your life could be about anything; if it were just between you and your heart; if no one would laugh or say it is impossible; if you were bold about your innermost aspirations, what would you want to be about? And to be that—so powerfully—that it was evident to those around you?
Now, find a place and time in which you can quietly concentrate. Make sure there aren’t too many distractions, and give yourself plenty of time to completely visualize the following scenario, then answer the questions below.
Keep in mind that if you take the time to do this exercise, it can be a powerful and emotional experience. It is not our intention to have this be about “facing your death”; it is about facing your life. Nevertheless, part of what often prevents people from embracing a valued life is that any value carries with it knowledge of how finite our lives are. Avoiding that knowledge means you can’t really, fully be about anything, and see if that’s not too high a price to pay. If you find yourself becoming wrapped up in your emotions and unable to “carry on,” remember the techniques you’ve used throughout this book, implement one or two of them, and know that you are doing this exercise in the service of something potentially very powerful.
Now close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Once you’ve calmed your mind, imagine that you’ve died, but by some miraculous circumstance you are able to witness your own funeral in spirit form. Think about where it would be and what it would be like. Take a few moments to visualize a clear picture of your future funeral services.
In the space below, imagine that a family member or friend is there who has been asked to stand up and say a few words about what you stood for in your life; about what you cared about; about the path you took. You will write this eulogy in two ways.
First write down what you are afraid might be said if the struggle you are currently engaged in continues to dominate in your life, or even grows. Suppose you back off from what you really want to stand for, and instead you follow a path of avoidance, mental entanglement, emotional control, and self-righteousness. Picture your family member or friend. What might he or she say? Write it down, word for word:
_______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Now suppose you could see inside this person’s head in that moment. If no censoring was goin
g on, no playacting, and this person’s thoughts were visible to you, what else would be said (this time just privately to himself or herself) that might not have been said publicly. Write it down, word for word:
_______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ That eulogy was a description of what you fear, and perhaps a description of where your past path has been leading you. If you didn’t like writing what you wrote, channel that pain into the next process.
Your eulogy doesn’t not have to be like that. Imagine that from here forward you’ll live your life connected to that which you most value. This doesn’t mean that all of your goals will be magically attained; it means the direction you are taking in your life is evident, clear, and manifest.
Now imagine who’s at your funeral. Certainly your spouse, children, and closest friends would be there. Perhaps people from work, class, or church (depending on which of these you are involved with) are in attendance as well. Anybody you like can come to this funeral. There are no limits. If you have old friends or have lost contact with people whom you would like to see there, don’t worry about it. They can all make it to this imagined service. Think of all the important people in your life and place them in that space. Look at them. See their faces. Watch them watching your funeral.
Now imagine that someone (you can pick which one) gives a eulogy about you that reflects what all of these people might see if your life had been true to your innermost values. Imagine what you would most want to have manifest in your life. This is not a test. You won’t be judged on this and no one else need ever know what you are thinking.
While you get a clear idea about this, take a few minutes and write out, word for word, what you would want to hear in your eulogy about how you lived your life. Be bold! This is not a prediction. This is not self-praise. Let these words reflect the meaning you would most like to create, the purposes you would most like to reveal about the time you spent on this planet. Picture your family member or friend preparing to speak about you. What might he or she say? Write it down, word for word:
_______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ What was doing this exercise like for you? Besides the strangeness of watching your own funeral, what else came up for you in this exercise?
Now, go back and read what you wrote. If you said anything that seems incomplete, or off the mark, you can rewrite it. Hey, it’s your funeral.
If you really reached for it, you might see inside the words you wrote something of what is already inside you. Can you see some of that which you want to manifest in your life?
The way you would want to be remembered once your life is over should give you a very good idea about what you value now. We don’t know what anyone would say at your funeral, but we do know that your actions today can make a profound difference in how your life works from here. It is not your thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations that your loved ones will remember you by, but the choices you make and the actions you take each day of your life. Couldn’t that begin today? Couldn’t that begin now?
Let’s see if we can use the method of looking back at your life to dig out what is most dear one more time. Let’s try to distill all of this down to a shorter version.
When people are buried, an epitaph is often written. They say things like “Here lies Sue. She loved her family with all her heart.” If the headstone below was yours, what inscription would you like to see on it? How would you most like your life to be characterized? Again, this is neither a description nor a prediction; it is a hope; an aspiration; a wish. It is between you and the person in the mirror. What would you like your life to stand for?
Think about it for a moment, and see if you can distill your innermost values into a short epitaph and write it out on the illustration of the tombstone below.
TAKING IT A STEP FURTHER: TEN VALUED DOMAINS
The short exercises you’ve just completed provide a broad beginning. Hopefully, they’ve stirred up something in you that will allow you to become bolder and clearer about what it is you really want to be about. You are alive, not dead. How to you want to live?
To give this question some structure, consider the following ten domains that might be of some importance to you:
Figure 12.2. What the pain in your head might look like.
Marriage/couple/intimate relationship
Parenting
Family relations (other than intimate relations and parenting)
Friendship/social relations
Career/employment
Education/training/personal growth and development
Recreation/leisure
Spirituality
Citizenship
0Health/physical well-being
What follows is a brief description of each of these domains as well as space for you to describe your own values in that domain. Keep in mind, as you go through this, that values are not specific goals, but general life directions. We’ll get to concrete goals later. If you find yourself writing down material things that can be obtained such as an object, stop and rethink what it is we are asking for; that is, directions that can always be made to manifest but that can never be fully obtained or finished.
Take what you’ve learned about values up to this point in this book and apply that to the following exercise. Remember the eulogy and the epitaph you just wrote, and see whether elements from them apply to one or more of these domains.
As you work through this exercise, you may discover that certain domains are very important to you and others are not. Some domains may be areas in which you are currently doing little. That’s to be expected. It’s not as though you need to value each of these different areas of life to the same degree. Different people have different values. A little later, we’ll help you rate these values for yourself. For the moment, try to find a value that you hold in each domain. If there is an area for which you really can’t think of anything, it’s okay to skip it.
It may also be difficult to distinguish sharp boundary lines in certain areas. For example, some people have a hard time distinguishing between intimate relationships and family relations. Others may find it difficult to mark the difference between leisure and social relations. Read the description of each domain and try to keep the boundaries as clear as you can. If certain entrie
s overlap, or you repeat a value in more than one domain, that’s okay, but we encourage you not to overdo it.
This isn’t a test. You need not show this to anyone if you don’t want to. So be honest and open and give yourself the opportunity to explore what you value. Don’t base this exercise on what you think your friends’, family’s, or society’s expectations are. Write about what you value. There are no right or wrong answers.
Marriage/Couple/Intimate Relationship
For most people, intimate relationships are very important. This is the relationship you have with your “significant other”: your spouse, lover, or partner. If you are not in such a relationship right now, you can still answer these questions in terms of what you aspire to find in such a relationship.
What kind of person would you most like to be in the context of an intimate relationship? It might help to think about specific actions you would like to take, and then use those to dig down to the underlying motives for such actions. What are those underlying motives? How do they reflect what you value in your relationship? Do not put down goals (like “getting married”); there will be an opportunity for those later.
_______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Parenting
Think about what it means to you to be a mother or father. What would you like to be about in this role? If you don’t have children, you can still answer this question. What do you want to be about in supporting this role in others?
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