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Your Values
There is one significant aspect of your makeup:
This is your values. In fact, most of your other patterns are
directly related to your value system. It is in your first twenty
years that the largest part of your entire value system is developed
and integrated.
Your value system is a mostly unconscious but
strongly internalised framework for forming judgements about, and
reactions to, the events of your life. Through your value system,
you make determinations about each and every experience you have,
evaluating what is normal and what is not normal, good or bad, right
or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, important or trivial. All of
us must make judgements about our experiences in order to have a
meaningful way of relating to them.
On the basis of your value system, you are
likely to seek out one type of desirable experience, thereby
precluding another type of experience. You develop certain abilities
that seem important or worthwhile, and you ignore others viewed as
less necessary or valuable. You can't be everywhere learning
everything! This is a simple, but significant concept, particularly
in viewing depression as often arising from incomplete or incorrect
learning.
The things you don't know how to do can cause
depression. Ultimately, mental health is the ability to adapt your
abilities skilfully to the varied situations that you face in life.
Explore:
Think about the values you hold and how
deeply you hold them.
The question to ask is: "What is it that is
important to me about what I do?"
(This is significant because values can create
rigidities that put you at risk for depression if those values are
challenged in some way. Periods of crisis in an individual's life
that may show up as acute, serious depressions usually occur with
the failure of the value system on which the person has based his or
her life.)
Well before depression hits, the risk factors
that lead up to it are usually in place. Too often, people notice
and respond only to the most obvious triggering event for an
episode, and never see the invisible risk factors (such as their
values) that made them vulnerable in the first place. This point has
tremendous preventive value. It is imperative, therefore, to examine
your values in order to know the strengths that each permits you, as
well as any associated limitations that may put you at risk later.
In order to live life well, you must
acknowledge your values and seek to maintain a lifestyle that
reflects them consistently. However, to feel good, it is also
important to acknowledge the value of experiences that life outside
the boundaries of your previous experiences. Learning to do so is
how you can develop a greater degree of flexibility.
Maintaining balance in your life means being
able to change effectively with the changing times, comfortably
adjusting to circumstances as the need dictates.
Explore:
Ask yourself: "Do my values fit with my
current realities?"
Also remember that the values you learned early
in your life may have little to do with living life well today. When
what you are doing doesn't work, you have to adjust to the reality
of the circumstances and do something else!