How to Be the Architect of Your Life
The Common Struggle
I see many clients who are struggling with anxiety, depression, or OCD who come to me after numerous attempts to fix their mental health symptoms. Many of these individuals have become their own expert in mindfulness and have been doing a great job at allowing their anxious thoughts and physical symptoms to just be (acceptance), but they continue to not find relief from their malaise. Some of them have also committed to going to a Yoga class, increased their physical activity, switched from coffee to chamomile tea, and on and on.. While some of these changes can be occasionally good, often it can lead us down to a path to engage in activities with the hope that it gets rid of something (anxiety, OCD, depression). Suffers do these types of things because that’s what our culture tells them to do when you are mentally ill. However, when we engage in control efforts to get rid of a symptom we don’t like, we fall into a continued trap of anxiety or depression.
Often when someone has been suffering with a mental illness for sometime, they’ve begun to avoid things in their life that use to bring them meaning, purpose, and joy. When someone begins to avoid activities such as building and maintaining relationships, engaging in the workforce, being playful, tinkering with their hobbies, being adventurous, etc., their lives become small, boring, lonely, and simply unsatisfying. In other words, one can become very isolated from their values, which in itself can create human suffering.
Using Values to Build A Meaningful Life
So what do we do when we’ve mastered mindfulness and attempted activities that are suppose to cure us of our disease but have only failed to do so? In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we engage in a values exercise called “Flavor and Savor.”
How To Identify Your Values
Pick 2-3 values that stick out to you instinctually. Choose from the list of values below (This is the flavor part of the exercise).
Pick a value that you feel you crave (like how you feel when your stomach growls for your favorite food).
It’s important you don’t pick a value that you feel like you should have, or that culture or religion says you should have.
What does this value means to you?
Acting on Your Values
Write out 2-3 sentences about how you will ACT on this value.
Create a SMART goal in order to make acting on our values a little more realistic.
For example, one of my values is growth. What growth means to me is to continuously pursue opportunities to expand my knowledge in business, my therapy practice, my role as a father, and my photography skills. A couple of ways that I ACT on this value is by creating a goal to read books about photography and books on the latest science around mental health, and then incorporate this new knowledge into my sessions with clients or in my photography process.
After you have practiced picking a value (flavoring), at the end of the day reflect on how it felt to intentionally incorporate this value into your day (savoring). You may have noticed a big difference in your day, or maybe you didn’t. Have no fear if you didn’t notice anything, but then try choosing another value to practice incorporating into your day. For more about the difference between values and goals, check out this great video: Values vs. Goals.
Here’s a list of values to start from, excerpted from Brene’s Brown’s book, “Dare to Lead”:
Written by Justin Matthews, LGSW
Justin is a therapist that specializes in helping individuals get relief from anxiety and OCD by teaching them how to be more flexible with their unhelpful thoughts so they can spend more time doing what matters.