Why Are Your Core Values Important for Having Peaceful Relationships?

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MAUDE: What is at the center of your heart, your actions, your decisions? Have you taken a deep dive within to reflect on these questions recently? I am referring to what we call Core Values. We have been surprised during our courses at how many people have not searched for their answers to those questions.

And yet, these values are the building blocks that all our connections, relationships, decisions, and actions are based on. As such, they become an important area to reflect upon in creating and maintaining peaceful relationships. So, how can you get a handle on what yours are?

There are charts all over the internet of core values, and most of these are lists of words that try to describe a value. When we are working with people examining their core values, we always suggest using descriptive phrases rather than a catchword.

These values are very deep inside us, and are felt long before they are described, coming into our consciousness as words. If you want to formulate them for yourself, reach for those feelings that connect you to your sense of that which is real, vital, and foundational to your sense of the world.

When I do this, it always revolves around my connection to others, and that I see us all as being members of one family. This sense leads to the knowing that loving others and being loving toward them (and to myself) is how I wish to be. I also know that it is core to my being to live in peace, to be peaceful, and to cause no harm purposefully. I have not achieved the full living practice of these core values, but it is my intention to do so.

My relationships are built on these values, and I seek out people who have the same or complementary ones. Phil and I share that sense of matching values, although we use different words and a different manner to talk about them. And yet, we both agree that they constitute a reality that we both live and connect in. I can freely say that all my deep relationships have this in common.

If, in a relationship, you have too large a divergence in these values, it is likely that you will encounter deal breakers; things that you find yourself not being able to overcome or change. This is not about the specifics of how you describe them, but how you feel them, and how you choose to live as a result.

For this reason, it is critical to become aware of and friendly with your core values. The more you know about yourself and can share with others, the more peaceful your relationships will be. You will tend less and less to build connections upon differing values. We can all change, and hopefully we grow. In the area of your basic values, there is usually little change. You may learn to express them in different ways, but you will experience discomfort and a lack of ‘rightness’ if you stray too far from your inner truth.

PHIL: In looking at our relationship, we came to understand that we have shared core values, and that these have allowed us to live peacefully because, when we have differences, we can examine what is behind our desires and keep looking deeper until we reach a place that is true for both of us. In a course we taught, we offered a list of possible core values for people to reflect on: caring, commitment, communication, compassion, etc., but I now think that our values are how we feel about people and more, and the words are simply names we give to those feelings. You might think that I am validating the use of those words, but I am saying that you have to look beyond the words: does it sit right within you?

I would love to think that we all have the same core values, but I suspect not. Take Biff, the bully in “Back to the Future.” (Heads up, it’s leaving Netflix next week.) Perhaps he grew up with an alcoholic father who would beat him on a whim and a bipolar mother who alternated between love, criticism, and absence, so Biff’s core value is self-reliance, and that makes all his relationships transactional.

In contrast, Maude sees core values as being real and universal. But the difference between Maude’s understanding and mine doesn’t affect how we are with each other. They are just words, after all, and our relationship is at base an experience, part of which is the sense that our values are in complete agreement.

I am coming to see words, more and more, as imperfect labels for an underlying reality. That place is where our values reside.

Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: Sharing peace in the woods

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