Are You Living Your Own Life?
Are You Living Your Own Life?
Fulfillment in life comes from living in alignment with what’s truly important to you. It’s a simple statement, but one that can take a lifetime to live into. Acknowledging areas of our life where our values and actions feel misalignment is a process we have to do over and over again to stay in alignment.
As an exercise, think about each of the statements below and consider how true or false they are on a scale of one to five. You might like to have this conversation with a friend who knows you well and can reflect back to you what they’ve seen and heard.
Evaluating where you may be misaligned
- I have spent time thinking about what’s important to me, and I can articulate those things.
- While I have been influenced by my parents, teachers, society and other outside forces, I have not simply adopted their values and beliefs. My own values and beliefs come from deep inside.
- I am not easily swayed by others’ opinions. I know my own mind.
In order to remain open and flexible, I am willing to re-examine my opinions and beliefs to determine whether something is still true for me. I am interested in other points of view. - My spouse/partner is a good match for me. We share in a way that pleases me and have an ideal amount of separate space. We don’t have to agree on everything.
- I chose my occupation, or choose to remain in it, because it most closely utilizes my skills, strengths and passions.
- I also choose my friends. I don’t go along with a friendship that doesn’t feel right just because that person pursued me.
My spiritual practices feed my soul. - I have aspirations. I spend time thinking about them and taking action toward those that are most important to me.
- Someone looking at my life from the outside would recognize what I value.
- When I or a family member is sick, I listen to the appropriate health care provider. If the advice doesn’t feel right, I get a second opinion.
- On the rare occasion when I let someone break a boundary or persuade me to do something I don’t want to do, as soon as I’m aware of it, I take steps to stop and correct the situation.
Do your decisions emerge from the essence of who you are or from who you think you should be? If your answers were more false more than true, you may want to spend time evaluating what is really important to you.
Once you’ve articulated what you value, consider ways to bring your life choices into alignment with those values. You may not change your life situation, but changing your approach will enable you to make choices based on the strength of your convictions — to live your life.
Author’s content used under license, © Claire Communications
Next Steps
Despite our best intentions, we may find ourselves swimming against currents that feel beyond our control. Unresolved experiences of trauma, neglect or emotional distress are forces that hold us back from being able to live in alignment with what we value. If you’re struggling to live the life you want, you may need to ask for help.
Therapies like EMDR can help clear out these barriers and release the power of those negative experiences. Having the freedom to make real choices based on what we want and value, can make our lives and relationships more meaningful.
If you’d like to work with one of the counselors at Simmeth Counseling Group, you can all our office for a free, 15-minute consultation.
