beautiful information

I was working with my coach, Yael of https://bechiracoaching.com and she gave me this fantastic exercise to help me discover my core strengths and values. (By the way, everyone should have a coach and a therapist, in my humble opinion. The therapist helps us explore and understand our past, and the coach helps us analyze and understand how we want to move forward.) Why should I know what my superpowers are, and how can this help me? Knowing my core strengths and values helps me make choices that align with what I value the most. These core strengths and values help me connect to everyone in my life in a meaningful way.

The things we are passionate about reflect our purpose for being alive. And I want to live true to my passions, don't you? I want to feel fulfilled, inspired, and happy with my choices, and I want them to resonate with my mind, body, and spirit. So here's what I did.

First: I took the VIA Strengths free assessment found here: https://www.viacharacter.org

And out of twenty-five strengths, you can see my top five here.

Second: To find my values, I started with a list like this one. I read each word and quietly reflected on how each felt to my mind, heart, and spirit. And I began to narrow down the list to which words resonated as the most meaningful to me.

Third: Here are my notes where you can see me in the process of narrowing them down.

Fourth: I narrowed down forty values I liked to five that were essential to me. Then I created clusters of values that, in my mind, belonged together. This is the exciting part. This reduced list is my unique perspective on myself...these are my core values and how I see them in relationship to each other. And when I read through them, I was amazed. It was like seeing myself in a whole new light that made perfect sense.

For example, out in Nature, I see openness as a lesson when I see trees reaching upwards towards the sky, meadows, ocean, and desert. I learn patience in how things naturally grow. I see how everything in nature is connected in relationship to everything else around it. That's why I chose to cluster Nature with openness, patience, and relationship. And I only used the values I circled on the previous page for my cluster choices.

Fifth: I feel inspired just knowing my core strengths and values. Now, anytime I need to make a choice or a decision about anything, I can reflect back on these and see what is most meaningful to me and use them to guide my choices, like for starters, am I practicing them? Isn't that amazing? Simple and yet so revealing. So essential. Okay, now it's your turn. Have fun!