You probably think, values? What does that have to do with health? I’ll explain. Our values guide our decisions, motivate us, make us happy and play a major role in our level of satisfaction in life. They dictate how we spend our time and money. We start developing them from birth and it continues into your 20s. They are an internal representation (picture, feeling, sound) of what is encoded in our unconscious mind as being the most important things to us in an area of our life. Our values then create our beliefs. For example, if you value having success in business, as you think of success you find that you have a number of beliefs about what success looks like, sounds like, feels like, and also whether or not you are able to achieve it and why. This comes from what you have experienced in your youth on your own or from watching others. By becoming consciously aware of your values, you can use them to make more informed decisions and set goals. Your top five values are most important. For instance, if fun, freedom, communication, growth, and love are your key values, and if any one of these are somehow missing in any area of your life, you might feel stagnant, bored, detached, where nothing seems good. Our values guide our behavior. A client would travel most of the year and when home was miserable. Yes she loved travel, but one of her top values is freedom. She realized she wasn’t getting freedom at work, in her relationships or in other areas of her life day to day. She was always trying to do what others told her she “should” do and trying to please them. But when on vacation she had her own schedule and agenda and felt FREE! So that was fulfilling and made her happy. What are your values? Check out your calendar and checkbook to see what you are “choosing” as your values. Do you feel happy and fulfilled in life? If not, maybe you need to focus on bringing your values into your conscious mind and making sure you are living them. If you aren't fulfilled and satisfied in life, your health will suffer. If you are interested in working on this exercise further, let’s talk.