You are invited to join the SW Intenders Circle

Tuesday, January 24th at 6:30-8:30
11283 West Rice Place, Littleton, 80127
The HOA does not allow street parking - please park in the driveway or visitor parking throughout the complex.  RSVP's are always appreciated!

Topic:  Personal Values / Self Worth

From Psychology Today Magazine:
Self Worth: Not enough self-regard can lead people to become depressed, to fall short of their potential, or to tolerate abusive situations and relationships. Too much self-love, on the other hand, results in an off-putting sense of entitlement and an inability to learn from failures. (And it's occasionally a sign of clinical narcissism.)

Taken from an article by Vaishali:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vaishali/meaning-of-value_b_1199823.html

Well over 100 years ago, the great spiritual teacher and literary genius Oscar Wilde, after visiting America, wrote, "Americans know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Oscar Wilde's wisdom, insight and penchant for truth are as accurate and sobering now as they were over 10 decades ago. Okay, so maybe nowadays even the idea that we recognize the "price of everything" seems to be legitimately in question. But the "value" side seems to have deteriorated even more! Do we recognize the value of spending more time with our children or loved ones, or reading a book? We may see the value in personal accomplishments or being productive and "getting things done," but then again, we're talking about ego-based value... not exactly the "value" Oscar had in mind. I suspect that if he were here to visit us now, he would find these same words damning us with faint praise.

So, where and how did our value sensibilities get so polluted, diluted and distorted? Could it be that there is a connection between understanding our own spiritual worth and power and how we perceive the value and power of money? Another Wilde quote that takes us closer to this idea is, "Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you."

How many of us relate to ourselves and value ourselves as infinitely precious? How many of us correlate our power with our spiritual identity, of being pure love and nothing else? I suspect that most of us relate to ourselves in the same way that we would a commodity -- that any value, power and worth we claim is the sum total of our materialistic possessions and our earning potential. From our perspective, if it wasn't earned, deserved and bestowed upon us, it has no value. When the truth of the matter is that as divine love, we do not have value, power and worth, we are value power and worth. And no one and no thing on the planet has the power to change that. Deserving and worthy is not even an issue. It never has been, and never really will be, because we do not have it -- we are it.

If we have not realized our own true authentic oneness with value, power and worth, is it any real surprise that relationships outside ourselves, being less intimate than the one we have with ourselves, lacks clarity and explicitness? If we do not recognize our own value, power and worth, will we not simply project that ignorance out on to everything else in our lives? Then, whatever manifests outside of us, especially that which represents value, power and worth, takes the brunt of that perspective perversion: I barely make enough money to pay my bills... I have no value; I lost my job... I have no power; I didn't get the promotion... I have no worth. Or conversely, I made partner at the firm... I have value; I just bought a new BMW... I have power; I won the lottery... I have worth. What messages are we sending to ourselves about what is infinitely precious, and how does that affect our connection to the other aspects of our lives?

Checklist for Personal Values

By C. Roberts, Fifth Dicsipline Fieldbook

This exercise is designed to help you reach a better understanding of your most significant values.

Step 1: What I Value Most...
From this list of values (both work and personal), select the ten that are most important to you-as guides for how to behave, or as components of a valued way of life. Feel free to add any values of your own to this list.

Now that you have identified ten, imagine that you are only permitted to have five values. Which five would you give up? Cross them off.

Now imagine that you are only permitted four. Which would you give up? Cross it off.

Now cross off another, to bring our list down to three.

And another, to bring our list down to two.

Finally cross off one of your two values. Which is the one item on the lst that you care most about?
See you Tuesday?