Are you experiencing a large amount of pressure and/or stress in your day-to-day life and feel as though you are losing control of the direction of your own life? You don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it and feel as though your own desires or decisions no longer matter.
Do you sense that you are no longer the one navigating the ship of your own existence? Rather, you are blown back and forth across the sea of life by the winds of your responsibilities.
Our identity—that is, the thing that we perceive and understand as the “self”—is the aggregation of everything we value. Values are the fundamental component of our psychological make-up and our identity. We are defined by what we choose to find important and prioritise in our lives. If money matters more than anything, then that will come to define who we are. If we believe we don’t deserve love, success, or intimacy, then that will also come to define who we are—through our actions, our words, and our decisions.
Any change in self is a change in the configuration of our values. When something tragic happens, it devastates us because not only do we feel sadness, but because we lose something we value. And when we lose enough of what we value, we begin to question the value of life itself. We valued our partner, our job, our friendship and now they’re gone. And that crushes us. It calls into question who we are, our value as a human, and what we know about the world. It throws us into an existential crisis, an identity crisis, because we don’t know what to believe, feel, or do anymore.
When they people say they need to “find themselves”: they are running away somewhere to re-evaluate their values. You leave, get perspective on what in your life matters to you, what should matter more, what should matter less, and then return and get on with it. By returning and changing your priorities, you change your values, and you come back “a new person.”
This change in identity composition is true for positive events as well though. When something incredible happens, we don’t just experience the joy of winning or achieving some goal, we also go through a change in valuation for ourselves—we come to see ourselves as more valuable, as more deserving. Meaning is added to the world. Our life vibrates with increased intensity. And that is what is so powerful.
Do you actually want the life that you have. Is this who you are? Is this what you care about?
Book in for a FREE 15 minute Values TRACK session and get perspective in what really matters to you.