Ever felt like you are being pulled this way and that? How do you resolve the "inner civil war" and get what you really want?
This video is a short excerpt from my (Steve Wells) Values Intensive Workshop, which shows you how to use tapping to release your negative beliefs and resolve your inner values conflicts so that you can experience the valuable feelings you really want more of on a daily basis. Like joy. Peace. Love. Success. Whatever it is for you.
In my case, in this video, it is my highest value of love. Here's how I found more of the love I'd been seeking my whole life but never seemed to get enough of. Below the video is an article which outlines in more detail this simple yet powerful process for applying tapping to your key values to help you get more of what you are seeking.
The Values Intensive Workshop from which this short video came was a 2.5 day workshop on how to use tapping to release your negative beliefs and resolve your inner values conflicts. The recordings of this workshop are now online for you to tap along to at home on your own core beliefs and values! Find out how to gain access here
What follows is an article by Steve Wells on how to do this powerful process:
A Simple Yet Powerful Strategy for Tapping on Values Conflicts
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
-- Ayn Rand
Values are your answers to the question: What's most important?
Ultimately, values are your inner guidance system for success. When you are living congruently with your values you feel happy - at least according to your current inner definition of happiness. On the other hand, if you are unclear about what is most important, or you are living in a way that is inconsistent with your values, such as putting lower value activities ahead of higher value activities, that is likely to be the source of much of your emotional pain and suffering.
“Failure to live your values is not a setback, it is a real failure.” - Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen
The problem is that while we have these internal parts of us that are competing for our time and attention the world outside is also continually trying to hook us into what THEY think is important for us!! It's tough. So let's look more closely at how we can really live our values and how we can release some of that inner emotional push-pull.
Values are Emotional States
At their core, values are actually those states of being which you are trying to achieve in your life; they are the emotional states which you are aiming to experience as a result of what you do and have. So ultimately, at their core, your values are really the ways you want to feel.
Behind all of your goals and choices are the values which are driving you to choose them.
Seek and Avoid Values
The positive values you want to experience are your “seek” or “towards” values because you are attracted towards them, they are the feelings you want to feel. They may be things like love, peace, joy, freedom, security, adventure, among other things. There is another group of emotional states you will do almost anything to avoid – These are your “avoid” or “away from” values because they are the feelings or emotional states which you want to move away from. They may be things like rejection, humiliation, despair, hatred, fear…
Values Conflicts
Conflicts can arise in several different ways within our values:
The most common type of values conflict is a direct conflict between two different – or apparently opposing - values in your “seek” list, such as between security and freedom. With conflicts like these it can feel like one part of us pulling in one direction and another part pulling in another direction. For example, I worked with a client who is constantly fighting the guilt of being at work versus being at home with her family. She's ambitious in building her business because she wants to achieve but she also wants the love and acceptance of her family. The trouble is she feels guilty in BOTH places, like she should be at work when she's with her family and she should be at home when she's at work. So in this case the conflict is between her value of achieving and her value of love.
A second common type of values conflict can be between our seek values and our avoid values. It is common for your top seek values and your top avoid values to be direct conflict with each other. For example, for many years fear of rejection was very high on my avoid list, and making a difference (MAD) and achievement were high on my seek list. However having a big fear of rejection is not such a good thing if you want to be a public seminar presenter and make a major difference in the world! Whilst in the grip of your rejection fear, you take two steps forward and two steps back because a certain amount of rejection comes with the territory. And that's exactly what happened to me for many years. Settling this fear down with tapping really helped me to move forward in my public presentations and workshops and in my business.
A less well known and recognised form of values conflict can occur within a value itself. How so? Even a positive value that you seek, such as love, may actually have become so important to you due to past experiences of lack or even negative experiences where you felt unloved (as was the case for me and as I outlined in the video above ). The challenge in moving forward is that those negative experiences held inside you may be blocking you from receiving and being able to experience the very love you seek.
Tapping on Values Conflicts
Values conflicts like those I've mentioned above can be treated using tapping, and for me personally the tapping work I've done on my values has been some of the most important and transformational self-development work I have ever done.
The first step is to start with a list of your current seek and avoid values. You can ask yourself these questions to determine those values:
Seek Values:
What is most important to me in my life? OR: What feelings or emotional states do I most want to feel or experience?
Avoid Values:
What feelings do I most not want to feel? Or What feelings or emotional states will I do almost anything to avoid?
When you have your values lists, you need to put these in order according to their current importance. Once you have your list of values in order, you can then look for obvious conflicts to target with tapping.
In my Values Intensive Workshop I teach several ways of treating values conflicts. Here I want to outline just one of those strategies which is very simple yet extremely powerful. This is just one way for treating the conflict that may be hidden within any particular positive value:
1. The starting point for this work is to focus on one of your key values at a time. It is best to start with one of your top values.
2. The next step is to focus on, or “tune into” that value and how it fits into your life, and do some tapping on the feelings and thoughts associated with that value as a starting point. Many people are surprised that when they start tapping whilst focusing on a positive value, such as love, or peace, or joy, that sometimes negative feelings come up! Just allow whatever feelings arise to come and keep tapping for a while until you feel ready to take the next step.
3. Next, consider where you learned that value was so important. Ask yourself: Where did I learn this? Where did I experience this in my life? And also: Where did I feel this was missing in my life?
4. Seek to identify some important negative and positive emotional events associated with that value from your past. For me, for example, I was able to identify that some of the experiences where I learned that love is so important were actually where I felt I was not loved, or not being given love in the way that I felt I needed it. They drove me to seek love passionately however my very attachment to those negative experiences and states prevented me from being able to experience it, and also made me very needy.
5. Next, treat these emotional events using the “Tell the story” or “Run the Movie” approaches. This basically involves going through the story of what happened whilst tapping, or making each event into a small movie which you run in your mind, stopping particularly at any intense or emotional parts of the story/movie and tapping on your reactions and associations, until the emotional intensity settles down. Keep doing this until you can go through each memory from a position of calm.
6. Now notice what changes when you again reflect on this value and the experiences where you learned it.
7. Finally, stay open to what changes now happen in your life in relation to this value and your experience of it.
Following this very simple process, many people notice profound shifts in their life.
This is exactly what happened to me when I did this work on my value of love. It was like scales fell from my eyes. I could suddenly see the love that I was previously blind to, both in my younger life and in my present life. I was able to feel compassion for my workaholic father and see that he really did love me and how he'd showed that in his own way (and previously I couldn't see it).
Even more, I was suddenly able to really feel the love all around me, what I was seeking my whole life and somehow couldn't find, I suddenly had in abundance.
I know that if you, like me, get even a small part of those important feelings you really want, that many things in your life will come into a better balance. That’s why I encourage you right now to ask yourself the questions, identify the events, and start to do this work on your own values and values conflicts right now. It will be time well spent.
Where to from here?
The video and the simple process I've outlined above is just one small part of the Values Intensive workshop and just one of the ways you can use tapping on your values. Here's how to go even further:
1. Your can gain access to the entire Values Intensive Live Workshop video recordings online for a fraction of what people paid to attend the workshop! You can watch the 2 1/2 day workshop in the comfort of your own home and at your own pace, tap along with participants, do the exercises, and see your life change. I hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity as I know how life-changing it can be.
Here's where to find more and access these recordings
2. You can also get in depth instructions and examples for working on values and beliefs in my book 100% YES! Get your copy here
3. Come work with me live in one of my upcoming live workshops! I'd love to see you and show you personally how to do this important work. Here's where to get more information on upcoming workshops.