Positive Energy Guide

All guidance exists not just in relation to what we want but to our values. The most effective and pleasing guidance is tailor-made to the values of the individual receiving it.

We seek guidance when we want or need something–or when we value it. Guidance helps us find a way to get what we want, to release wanting it, to revise what we want, or to find something even more important that uproots what we thought we wanted. This includes states we long to experience or sustain, such as strength. clarity, or equanimity. It includes states of release, such as forgiveness, accepting a death, or deciding to change vocations.

Wanting this or wanting that is related to but a little different than having values. Wanting is not necessarily organized. Desire may provides a temporary direction–toward getting IT–but this direction disappears when we have obtained IT or given IT up. Wanting is not rational. We can WANT to be out of distress, for example, and NOT want to do any of the things that reduce distress or avoid the same distress in the future. Reducing distress may require facing a fear, for example, and the avoidable distress may be a hang over.

Values have consistency and congruence over time. They have a certain rationality and support entire collections of behaviors. The desires supported by values are comprehensive, involving lifestyle. If we value being healthy, for example, we begin to organize our lives to sustain health. We return over and over again to principles and practices that promote health.

Values shape life direction. For this reason values are a an important element of effective guidance.

We organize our lives around what we value. What we choose to care about the most and the qualities we chose to express act like a rudder, giving direction to our lives, especially during times of rapid change. Our values determine how we make important decisions.

What we value provides psychological and emotional structure. Lasting values keep us on a somewhat even keel through life’s inconsistencies. They provide guidelines and motivation around which to rally and focus ourselves when faced with challenges.

Sorting out and clarifying personal values is a delicate and powerful aspect of guidance.

In Part 3 we considered “Doing the Right thing” and traditional values. Bringing different value systems elbow to elbow through travel and technology adds a whole new level of complexity to life. There are so many choices! And to make a choice truly viable we need to accumulate life experience to substantiate its validity in our lives.

Values are stands that we take in order to bring forth what we feel is best in ourselves.

A value is not a standard. It is not an expectation for performance. A value is a powerful and intentional preference, a guide, a horizon goal or ideal we continue to approximate. A lasting value is like gravity. It tells us which way is up and helps us land on our feet, or stand up again if we have fallen. When life structures become uprooted core values serve as guidelines.

The movie “Groundhog’s Day” is a parable about values. We may need to take the same actions over and over and over until we are able to respond to life from our core values—and when we do we feel happy, perhaps even when circumstances are unpleasant.

While lasting values make good guidelines, they do occasionally change. When values are undergoing change we may feel a strange, flat sense of uncertainty and even apathy based on not knowing what really matters any more, what will make a difference, how to use our time, and what things mean to us now.

How do we set a course when we cannot see the stars and don’t know which way it is to land, or when landmarks change? Periods like this call for especially skilled and comprehensive guidance.

“When you meet a virtuous man try to equal him. When you met a man without virtue examine your own shortcomings.” ~Confucius

What inner values do you stand by, that you will stand tall to bring forward because they make you who you are?
Do your desires tend to support or conflict with your values?