Back in May, my therapist had me complete a values exercise.

It was desperately needed, and felt like learning how to do addition for the first time after doing my level best through college calculus.

I didn’t know what my values were. I really didn’t. I swung between adopting my parent/family values, the values of the LDS church, the values of the conservative west, values of millennials, and ultimately trying to have ALL THE VALUES.

They’re ALL good. I value them ALL.

The problem is that it doesn’t work like that. Value means some things are heavier, pricier, stronger, and more important than others. If they all have value, none do. In addition, I found, you’ll be torn apart trying to value everything all the time. All morality is relative.

Be kind. Well, do you value kindness more than boundaries? What if being kind to one person comes at the expense of another? What does “be kind” mean to you? Your mom? The stranger in the store you’re attempting to “be kind” to?

True crime podcasts have taught me that even murder isn’t black and white. We value life. And that seems pretty cut-and-dry. But even that value will come into conflict and demands examination, classification. Which lives? When? The life of the mother or the life of the baby?

The only way to make it in this life is to figure out which values are MOST important to you. What does your particular flavor of morality say? What hits different for you? Pain arises when we focus on values that aren’t our own, or living outside accordance with the values that we do have.

My first brush with values was in therapy 7 years ago this month. The particular issue was the ways in which my husband differed from my family of origin, and the points of friction I was feeling from it. My black-and-white brain was telling stories of “right” and “wrong,” “correct” and “incorrect,” “good” and “bad.” No wonder I was in therapy.

Week by week, my therapist helped me to dismantle all of those obstructions clouding my view. What if it’s not a right/wrong, but a values difference? The way my family did/does things is not objectively, emphatically, conclusively the “right” way.

It’s ok if Ryan does something my family wouldn’t do, especially if I’m ok with it. That’s realizing that I don’t subscribe to ~all of my family’s values at the same level.

It’s ok if Ryan does something my family wouldn’t do, and I’m not ok with it. That’s realizing that it’s a value I DO care about, and means some unpacking, communicating, and partnership is afoot.

I was not differentiated AT ALL. I was trying to simultaneously adopt and hold all the values I saw all around me. Family, church, friends, teachers, fictional characters. Gretchen Rubin calls this being an Upholder. I call it misery.

Because you CAN’T. I was failing at all of them and frequently feeling out of alignment, confused, and internally uncomfortable.

Leaving the church has been the greatest arena for facing my values crisis. It wiped clean a slate that was handed to me with carefully delineated values. (I can still recite the Young Women’s Theme, the 13th Article of Faith, and countless Mormon quips.) I returned to therapy this year so EXHAUSTED by trying to be all of the best things, all of the time, to the very best of my ability. The Mormon list had been long, but even a long list terminates at some point. No list? No limit.

So we sat on the floor and scattered a deck of cards for a game of values slapjack. I narrowed down 100 cards to 20, then painstakingly, haltingly, whittled that down to 10. Ten values that, in my core, matter to me.

They’re the kind of person I want to be, and the characteristics I am desperate to instill in my children.

They’re the things that bother me most when lacking in other people, and the things that keep me up at night when I’m falling short in them myself.

{SIDEBAR} If you’re having a hard time figuring out your values, if they all sound important and good and admirable… look at what you hate. The things you’re complaining about, the people you can’t stand, the wounds that take longest to heal? It’s a reflection of your values not being met. That’s the only way I learned which values rose to the top for me. 

2024 Values

• Responsibility
• Wisdom
• Curiosity
• Genuineness
• Generosity
• Equality
• Humor
• Self-Awareness
• Independence
• Order

I think it’s ok if these shift. One hour on the floor of my therapist’s office does not an ironclad diagnosis make. But these rang true. Bulbs on a string of Christmas lights in my chest, individually lighting up as I turned my attention to each. Yes, you value me. I am here. I am important.

Next, she said the work would be to figure out what these mean for me. What does wisdom mean? How does humor show up in my life? When should I practice generosity, with what limits? Where’s the line between self-awareness and neuroticism?

Is this combination of values just the girl from Short Skirt, Long Jacket?

Ten values to meditate on, to write about, to discuss at length, to internalize in a way that brings me to myself. I am nothing if not a student, so my pen is poised.

Alexa, play Short Skirt, Long Jacket.