In whatever I do with family members, I can strive to be loving, consistent, and patient. In my family relationships, I want to be loving, consistent, and patient. Now that I’m aware of all the different areas where I might have values, it’s time to isolate my specific values for each area. Once I’ve identified these sub-categories that are most important to me, then to really find my values, I have to look at how I want to be in those different areas. Under spirituality and leisure, I may also find hobbies, play, and creativity. For education and work, I might consider the work or school environment, my work or school ethic, and my work or school relationships. Under health and personal growth, I might have the sub-categories of how I think of my body, my relationship with food, how I interact with healthcare, and how I want to interact with the environment and nature. For example, under relationships, I don’t just have one relationship, I also have family relationships, intimate relationships, and friendships. If I zoom into these categories, I will probably find sub-categories. These primary categories may be: relationships, health/personal growth, education/work, spirituality/leisure. To start identifying our values, we begin by looking at the major areas of our lives. For example, values are “being loving,” “being reliable,” “having integrity,” and ”showing respect.” We find values associated with different areas of our lives. Values are not things, but ways of being and doing. Imagine you are heading west from Boston, going west is your value, your goals are stopping in New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, and San Diego. The common metaphor for values is that they are a direction, whereas goals are the stops you make on the way while heading in that direction. They are consistent ways of doing things. So what are values? In Acceptance Commitment Therapy, we talk about how values are not goals. Also, values is one of the six pillars of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Values come up in almost every session and are a wonderful way to ground us in what’s important and how we want to move forward in difficult situations. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is one of the theories that I use the most in my work as an individual and group therapist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |