Successful Relationships Reading Corner
This week, we wrote about why knowing your values is so important for all your relationships. Here are some posts we’ve written about core values.
Why You Need To Know Your Core Values “The point of view that you function from can act to further or hinder the peace that you experience with another. You can choose, for example, to come from the assumption of goodwill, that you and the other person are on the same side, and that there is a connection of support where each wants the best for the other. Or you can assume that you have to be on guard and ready to defend yourself and that you are both separate entities with competing needs and wants. Recently a reader of our blog shared this comment, “I really needed to get this message today because I was tempted to interpret someone’s actions as antagonistic. I was at a crossroad when I read your words and then I could see that I was just assuming the worst.” As you grow, you gain more skill in how you approach your relationships. It is very helpful if, when you start to get a feeling that something is off in a situation, to look inside yourself before pointing the finger at the other person. Ask yourself, “Is this the way I am looking at the situation or is there something there that doesn’t fit with my inner sense of the right path?”
How to Create Peace in Relationships and Life by Knowing Your Core Values “Understanding core values and learning what yours are is foundational to the process we teach for creating peaceful harmonious relationships. We differentiate values from wants and needs on a spectrum of ever-increasing importance. This scale starts with wants which are the most ephemeral, moves through needs which are sometimes difficult to differentiate from values, and then to values which rarely change, even when you formulate them in different words or images. Your core values are those upon which you base your life, your actions and decisions, even when you are not clearly aware of what they are. This can occur because values are often felt rather than thought, and as a result you may not have actually put them into words for yourself. And yet they are so critical to your life, inner peace, and all your relationships. A knowledge and understanding of what yours are can be a great tool for creating mutual solutions to disagreements and misunderstandings in your relationships, as well as finding a more fulfilling way of applying them to what you do and how you do it in your life. We recommend setting aside time to take a deep dive into what yours are and formulating them for yourself. When you have done this, it will give you the opportunity to reflect on whether and how you put them into action.”
What Important Core Values Underlie Your Relationship Wants And Needs? “We have often discussed core values and how they are critical to any successful relationships: partnerships, friendships, mates. If you understand what your basic and fundamental ones are, your deal breakers, and spend time exploring them, this will become your greatest tool for finding mutual decisions and solutions, and will even help you to relate to those who appear to have different values than you do. How can you do that?”