True facts: I used chatGPT to help me identify my core values. I told it to ask me questions to help me identify them and then boil it down to 5. I can get way in my head, spiraling down on accuracy (enneagram 1 confessions) and I found it a helpful process. So here they are…as honestly as I can give them.
1. Compassionate Service: A commitment to serving others, particularly marginalized groups, and using my gifts to benefit the world.
2. Authenticity: Valuing vulnerability, honesty, genuineness, and reciprocity in relationships, fostering deep and meaningful connections.
3. Spiritual Connection: Prioritizing a relationship with God and engaging in spiritual practices that nurture my inner self and sense of purpose.
4. Personal Wellness: Emphasizing self-care and balance, recognizing the importance of caring for oneself to be able to care for others effectively.
5. Loving Relationships: Fostering love and connection within my family, community, and friendships, aiming to love and support others well.
When I violate them – its usually because I’m not tending to them. Particularly personal wellness and spiritual connection. I let some outside source indicate that I’m not doing enough, meeting a standard, living up to expectations – fears that echo my internal critic amplifies them – and I start trying to catch up, be enough, prove myself. That’s when I can fall into resentment and over functioning which fuel that cycle. So, I have to do the counter intuitive thing – falteringly, when I can – when I feel myself spiraling, I have to go back to my values and engage the practices that fuel them instead. Its a challenging act of resistance to tune out the critics and invite slowness, gentleness, rest, and prioritizing wellness.
5 comments
I loved your naming the need to ‘tend to’ our values. Such a beautiful image – I imagine a garden that is always growing and always losing the plot a little. We must tenderly tend to what we want our garden to be like. Thank you!
Katy, thanks for sharing what you value with each of us! The word that jumped off the page at me was “over functioning”. I have this image of Matthew 11:28-30 and being yoked to Jesus but I am trying to take the lead, which we all know isn’t going to end well. So I will take this as the Holy Spirit speaking through you to me for some needed reflection and correction!
May it be so! I venture a guess that many of us peacemakers in progress fall victim to over functioning.
Katy, I did the same thing with ChatGPT and it was crazy and a little scary how well it knew me just based on other things I’ve asked it in the past! Thanks for honestly sharing yours. I like the concept that not tending to our values can lead to violating them.
You basically made ChatGPT your coach, and it was free! Way to go! When I’m really mad at people, I use ChatGPT to write limericks about them… and they are *very* validating. Then I destroy them after reading. Though transparently sometimes I really do want to send them to the people…
Appreciate you naming your values– many of them resonate with me. I also love the imagery of “tending” to our values. That causes me to pause and wonder what does that tending look like? How are we wise stewards over our own internal resources?