Values

I recently was at a professional development institute on leadership.  One of my favorite assignments was to identify eight values that I navigate my life by.  After lots of thinking and feeling, I identified these eight:  Authenticity, Vulnerability, Connection, Courage, Joy, Creativity, Family, and Love.  They are not in any particular order of importance.  They are all important. Well, I then was asked to cross off five from the list.  I ended up with these three: Joy, Creativity, and Connection.  It was so hard to narrow it down to three, as they all are important to me.  Once I culled it to those three, I had to eliminate one more!  I did.  My final two were Joy and creativity.  Amazing really to go through this process.  It is revealing and clarifying to me  to know how much value I place on both of these personal values.  When I think about my life, my family, my work, my friendships, I think these are a perfect nutshell.  You sort of can't have creativity without courage, authenticity, vulnerability, and connection.  They are all wrapped up in if for me, part of the creative formula.  And JOY...well my family is absolutely full of joy...and that's because of the big love we have.  I made a promise to myself a few years back to live wide open, awake, with full on love.  I think it's how I orient my parenting and how Anna and I both operate.  I liked this experience very much.  It is somewhat like a map....a values map, that keeps me on the right track, lest I stray from what really matters to my heart and soul.