How Will Clarity About My Values Help Me as a Practitioner?
When we work with clients, there are many moments when we need to make decisions – to decide what to say, to decide what to share, to decide where to touch and how, to decide also when we cannot work and when we should instead send our clients to a different professional. Those questions are often answered by finding clarity around our values. What we believe in, motivates us to make our decisions about our actions.
The Pantarei School can teach you techniques, attitude, the ‘what to do’, the practice itself, but your values are yours alone. They are not only a philosophic idea, but rather a practical guide showing you the direction.
Things to consider when looking for your own values
Values are not theoretical ideas. You constantly act upon them, even if you aren’t aware of doing so. You can of course, read over a list of values somebody else wrote and think about which ones speak to you, but I believe that our real personal values move us and direct us on a daily base.
The description of your values doesn’t have to be short. It is not about finding the ‘one word’ that will express all you want to say. In the process of making your own values personal, you might find yourself writing about them, drawing them, or talking about them. There is no need to save on words when you describe your own values – it has to be meaningful for you and bring clarity to you alone.
The values of others are similar, but they are not exactly the same as yours. Sometimes when we hear values of other people, we can easily say – that is my value too. I challenge you to always find your own way to say it though, even if you believe that it is the same. One of the values of the Pantarei Approach is respect. But if I ever wish to make this word mine as a practitioner, I’ll need to invest in describing what respecting others means to me, as if I am the first person who thinks about it.
Personal values are not so different from professional values. In the domain of working with people, the difference between your own personal values and the ones you will chose in your professional life is small. If you value honesty in life, you will also value it in working with your clients. If you value people’s individuality, you will keep this also in your professional work and so on.
There is no need to be in a hurry when you look into your own values. It might take time until you will be happy with what you described. And even then, your values would probably continue to shape themselves, to become clearer, to update themselves. New values you haven’t thought about will become important, and others would lose their significance, or become clearer and sharper.
The questions to ask about how to find your own values
It might be useful to answer these two questions as a base for thinking about your values. You can write the answers, talk about them, draw or think about them. Each of us has our own way to create further clarity for ourselves:
- What do you appreciate about life? What makes you feel that this is how life should be? (E.g. does kindness make you happy? Do you appreciate good and friendly service? Are you impressed when somebody goes after their passion?)
- What are the situations in life when you feel the opposite? When do you get upset? What kinds of things made you turn away from something in the past? (E.g. did you ever quit a job because of power games? Did you ever separate from a partner because you felt that they didn’t allow you to be simply who you are?)
Those answers often will show you the direction your life path takes you. It will show you what you are willing to fight for. Ask yourself also about your professional life with your clients:
- Why do you do the work you do?
- What is important for you when you give sessions?
- What is it that fills your heart with gratitude after sessions?
- What are those moments that you are touched by and want more of?
If after a session you take the time to close your eyes and feel the experience, you often discover unexpected clarity around some of the questions that were asked above. Let yourself feel what touched you. Think about what those special, beautiful moments were in the session that reached all the way to your soul.
Your values and things you appreciate are right there in the sessions you give and the beauty you experience when working with your clients and accompanying them in reaching their personal goals.
