Why Attend to Your Driver

​Dear Why Team member, 
 
I hope this weeks message finds you well and enjoying Summer!
 
How is tending to your thoughts, my last week’s encouragement, going? 
Tending to our thought creates a higher awareness inside us that’s why this week we consider how our values determine our value. 
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​Because we humans value that in which we invest our thoughts, time and money.  Our values are our attachments.  We attach to that which we value because we find our value in our attachments. Hmm... 
Cause to pause? 
 
There is an old saying, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." 
 
The more temporal our values, the more vulnerable our lives.  
Why?  
Because it hurts to lose what we value.  Loss of something we value makes us feel worth less.  Depending on how significant the loss, we can come to feel so worthless that we believe we our selves have no value.  Through this lens we can see why people emotionally behave the way they do after a significant loss, often seeking to regain quickly their sense of self worth.  A common example is what often happens soon after the loss of romantic love, the rebounding into a new relationship. 
 
Evaluate your values.  
Why?  Because they determine your sense of self worth and value to others.  It makes sense that we would grow attached, coming to value that in which we have invested our time and energy.  Will that which you have invested be there for you through thick and thin?  Let us consider our exposure when we find more of our worth from without than from within.  
 
Our values are our attachments - they have value to us and make up our collective value - when we break our values, behave outside of our values, we feel worth less - less worthy and it hurts.  Adhering to our values feels right, behaving outside of our values gives us concern, as it should, because our sense of self worth is at risk.  A marriage, for example, in which we invest little, will come to be of little value.  It is in moments like these that people are most vulnerable to their emotions driving their behavior, rather than their values driving their behavior. 
 
Recently, I had the great pleasure of hearing psychologist Dr. Jeffery Baker, an expert in neurology, speak of the functioning of the human brain. He spoke of the importance of “one's values driving their bus, not their emotions.”  He said that while emotions are very important and necessary for protecting and serving us, they should be on the bus, but just not driving the bus. If we allow our emotions to drive our bus, we will likely run our lives into a ditch. We need to be aware of our actions and make sure they are representative of our values. I like Stephen Covey’s explanation of the actions/consequences relationship: “while we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions; we can choose to sit in front of a moving train, but we cannot choose what happens when the train hits us. The natural consequences to our basic principles are a fixed result. Choices we made that bring on consequences we wish we could live without are called mistakes.”                 
 
Evaluate your values.  Make it a goal to tend to your thoughts and values. Write them down. Statistics show you are more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down. Establish and/or recommit to those disciplines that keep your values in the drivers seat.  When your values drive your bus, notice how you will more easily stay on the optimal road of life, developing a more secure sense of self worth, for you and those you seek to serve. 
 
Make it a great week, 

Steve Luckenbach