Defining Core Values

[DaddyBear77]

Hey everyone,

Some of you know me from the Relationship Boards, and you know I've been struggling to find a direction for my relationship and, in fact, my life in general.

Something I've been thinking about for a long time is, What are my "Core Values"?

I started this journey by searching for "Lists of Core Values" and, wow, there are a ton of lists, and a ton of different values to "choose" from.

I started to go through each one and say "Yep, this is me" and "Nope, not me" but then I got frustrated because I saw similar ones and I said "This one or that one?" and I also noticed that some of them looked like values I SHOULD have, so I tried to fit them in.

What I needed was some sort of coaching, a method, a process, SOMEthing to help get me going in the right direction.

I found several websites that had promising step-by-step processes to follow, and I decided to follow this one:
https://scottjeffrey.com/personal-core-values/

I'm in no way advocating this particular one, but for me, the result of following a process instead of picking and choosing was pretty amazing!

In a little over an hour, I was able to get together this list, which has been eluding me for months:

• Accomplishment (Achievement, Recognition, Ownership, Success, Pride, Acceptance)
• Love (Connected, Sex, Compassionate, Admired, Appreciated)
• Responsibility (Commitment, Obligation, Considerate, Duty)
• Family (Togetherness)
• Respect (Self Respect, Worthiness)
• Adventure (Travel, Exploration, Curiosity)
• Safety (Protection, Health)
• Honesty (Integrety)
• Autonomy (Independence)

I'm not sure if this list will continue to stay the same when I come back to it in 24 or 48 hours, but for now, it seems pretty spot on!

Have any of you done something similar? Are there other websites, methods, coaches, etc, that have helped you?

[impromptus]

Hi DaddyBear77,

Looks interesting! I'll be checking out that website.

For me what works is just taking a single dimension and working with that, one at a time. So not approaching all values but just the one or two that I can simultaneously think about. Most of them are somehow connected, more of a spectrum than individual points.

For instance I value honesty, it is the one I am struggling with at the moment.

My ex-pwBPD kept twisting the truth and I found out that this is a major issue for me. Not that she did this very knowingly, she just defended whatever position she was currently in, disregarding previous positions altogether.
I also discovered that I did not confront her on a multitude of issues to "spare her the pain of my rational thinking". This is, of course, not because she literally asked me to not burden her with painful conversation but (a) something I have learned from people's reactions in general and women's in particular and (b) something she has covertly demanded through emotional punishment (via emotional pressuring, blackmail and abuse).

I also value justice, equality, fairness. Tremendously.

It may be one of the weak spots, one of the primary reasons I was attracted to her in the first place. I have something to give, she has something to take. This restores justice in the world.
But of course a relationship doesn't work like that long-term. When I started rebelling against that order by no longer accepting blame for instance, she became even more distant. Recognizing that her emotional still-facing was extremely painful to me, I hypothesized that her reaction (injecting more emotional distance right after I began to be succesfull in detaching from the artificial drama) was most likely an attempt to restore the skewed "balance" we had before (and therefore try to subvert my struggle for more equality and justice).

With these in mind, I trace paths in my mind, weigh how I think they fit (or not), test them and try them. Because even though the relationship is over and she may have overloaded me with a lot of crap, she also gave me a chance to grow, really start thinking about personal boundaries, core values. Basically her behaviour and her attempts to "keep" me, pushed me towards men's rights and moderate mgtow. That's a huge step for me. No longer having to be the white knight, the rescuer of women in need. Not fixing what is broken, not helping unless asked to help (and even then only in situations I deem acceptable). Really a good outcome of a pretty bad episode in my life. That's the core value of freedom. Real, individual freedom.

Okay, a lot of text, more than I intended, but that's my way of dealing with the quest for values. An ongoing journey to better ourselves, and better understand ourselves in the process.

[incadove]

Yes!  I sort of do a list every 3-4 months (I do it when I feel a bit lost, and find it was that long since the last time) of core values I want to focus on right now (it changes, sometimes its more love/caring and sometimes its more responsibility/respect or honesty/openness, depends what has been going on), patterns that I want to implement, and then next steps I want to take.  I find doing that on paper in a notebook I can look back on is really helpful to keep me grounded. 

I wish schools talked about core values with kids around middle school!  I would love to run a optional class called something like 'Models and Morals' and not tell kids what to think, but help guide discussions around it, because it is worth thinking about.  Though maybe its too private for schools, I'm not sure - I think class like that should be optional but available to all kids growing up.