The Value of Remembering Your Core Values

This month's focus group continued from conversations at our recent Retreat, to fully know who we are and then say yes to ourselves. Our February Focus Group revisited our Core Values and how they shape us as individuals. Those Core Values are intrinsically part and parcel of who we are, who we aspire to be and who we determine not to be. Yet, all too often, they are hidden from our view. We often bury them or maybe use different words to name them.

Remembering a story or situation in a deliberate and focused way can, however, often unearth these values, so our Focus Group meeting was deliberately delivered in a less formal manner, to enable a much richer and deeper mining of our core values to be brought to the surface from each of our members. It was not a matter of us reciting what our core values were, but instead, they acted as the invisible, non-verbal yeast, allowing our memories centre-stage, all the while directing the performance and slowly revealing themselves at the conclusion of our stories.  

To achieve this, Tisiola used our Retreat as the springboard for us to intentionally recall how we had felt during the process of enacting the Rumi play we engaged in at the time.

This was an interesting exercise, because it affirmed to me and others the importance of reflection and how it can reveal to us things that may be etched far beneath our consciousness. How our core values can be at the very root of our behaviour and reactions to things about which we are not even conscious of.

Through this process of remembering and then voicing our experiences, personal core values which have been shrouded in the cloth of life slowly appeared from the midst of our stories:

·      Self-Honesty

·      Integrity

·      Being Oneself

·      Peacefulness

·      Boundaries

·      Justice

·      Compassion

·      Authenticity

·      Honesty

·      Resilience

·      Self-Love and Acceptance

·      Personal Responsibility

·      Self-worth

This way of eliciting core values from our stories was a different and very powerful way of enabling us to draw from our depths, perhaps even our unconscious states, and to reveal not only to the group, but more importantly to ourselves, what some of our truest values are.

As for myself, it became obvious in remembering that I still feel scarred from historical external lack of belief in my abilities. The cut remains, buried beneath the scar! Has that caused me a lack of self-belief?  Until recently, I thought it had. But no, I now believe, that experience actually reinforced an existing self-belief, and created a very strong sense of my self-worth.  

In some cases, the quest to find one’s own voice, honesty and authenticity has been a lifelong journey, and maintaining and living it now is highly valued.

For others, they are beginning to understand that being themselves is well and truly enough. They do not have to live up to anyone else’s values. They can ditch the weighty anger they’ve carried for years because they have been taught to watch their P’s and Q’s, rather than freely expressing themselves. Peace within is more important.  Being labelled ‘opinionated’ because they care so deeply about justice and fairness for all is just someone else’s worthless opinion.  Although ageing changes us in outward appearance, caring about what other people think about it is wasting precious time. Practicing self-love is far more important.  

And so once more, the value of remembering, hearing and using stories to reveal more of who we really are to others, as well as ourselves, was clearly demonstrated and understood.

What wasn’t remembered that night was my main dish for the communal table. I did, however, remember the sauces that were to accompany it.  And more importantly, I remember the night and her revelations, and that’s the main thing.  

Toodle pip for now

Bella.h.

February 2026