By Steve Wells
Love is my number one value, but that doesn’t mean I have always been a loving person. I haven’t always felt loved, nor have I always acted in loving ways. Actually, when I look back I see that in many ways I was quite needy, always looking for confirmation that I was loved from my wife and family… and even when they met my exacting criteria, the feeling didn’t last. That all changed the day I decided to “do my own workshop” and apply the techniques I’d learned to love as my most important value.
Here’s what happened:
I was feeling a bit down one day so I decided to sit down and work on my values using some of the processes I teach in my workshops. I started with my number one value, which is love. I started by asking myself where I learned that love was so important to me, and as I began to go through memories in my mind I realised in an instant that most of those experiences were ones where I felt un-loved! Once I had identified some key events, I then started treating them in turn using SET tapping, going through the story of what happened in my mind and body, and applying tapping to all the emotionally intense connections…
That single session of tapping on memories of my childhood where I felt unloved resulted in one of the most profound experiences of my life.
My initial experience as I tapped through the memories and feelings was that I progressively reprocessed and reinterpreted many of those negative past events. I realised not just intellectually but experientially (meaning I felt it) that my parents really did love me; they just weren’t able to say it, or show it in a way that I understood at that time. I began to gain perspective on my father’s life in particular and some of the reasons why he was unable to show love in the ways I felt I needed back then. I also started to feel more forgiving towards him and felt better about our relationship generally. Given his background which included his own father leaving when he was just 10 or 11 years old, it was amazing he was able to provide for our family in the ways he did. And even though he had passed away I felt that we had been given a second chance at connecting.
But the biggest shift was to come a few days later, on the morning of my 42nd birthday….
I was lying in bed that morning with my wife and the kids all shuffled in to give me my presents. I opened up the first present and it was a beautiful photo book with pictures of everyone in the family to take with me on my travels. My wife had compiled the book and my eldest son Josh had typed some funny captions next to each picture, interspersed with some lovely quotes on love and being a father. I started to smile. Then my daughter Olivia who was standing next to the bed said, “We need to get Dad breakfast in bed!” And Callum, my youngest, started jumping up and down on top of me calling out excitedly, “I love my Daddy! I love my Daddy!” And that's when I lost it.
In that moment I was filled with the most wonderful feeling of love and warmth and joy that I have ever experienced in my life. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement! It was a full 45 minutes before the tears would stop streaming down my face, I was so filled with feelings of joy and love. And, yes, relief. I realised in that moment that everything I could ever want I’ve already got, that what I’ve really always wanted most was right here all the time, that I don’t need to achieve greatness or go searching all over the world for love and approval when I have it all right here.
I saw in an instant that the things we all really want are truly right in front of us, but sometimes we are emotionally blocked from seeing them and experiencing them. And I realised how easily we can receive what we want when we release those emotional blocks.
I’ve since shared these values processes with many people, along with some additional distinctions I’ve since learned for resolving internal values conflicts. Like me, my clients and workshop participants have found this to be some of the most important self-development work a person can do.
In my workshops with business owners, CEO's, managers, employees, and people at all levels I've found there are very common values conflicts which many people have such as between work and family, achievement and health, freedom and security which are causing people all kinds of angst, exhaustion, and pain.
The key is to identify what the true source of your life energy, and align with that. And this process starts with asking what is most important to you, what is it you really want? Then make sure that what is most important is what you focus on.
What could be more important than what is most important to you? If you can’t make time for that, then what is your life really about? If you're not doing what's most important, either because you don't know what that is or you are held back from being able to experience it (as I was), then you are headed for misery and depression. So doing this kind of work is crucial for you to be and feel happy and successful.
Failure to live your values is not a setback, it is a real failure.
- Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen
I know that if you, like me, can experience even a little bit of the good 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 start this work by doing just as I did: List your highest values, look to the experiences where you learned your current values, and start tapping on the emotionally intense learnings they represent to you! It will be time well spent.
I put all this into a workshop I called the Values Intensive, and it is still one of the finest and most rewarding workshops I've ever run. I haven't run one of these for a couple of years, and now as we look towards a New Year I'm thinking of offering some workshops which incorporate these powerful techniques. If you are interested, please let me know. If I have a strong enough response, I'll put it on the agenda. If you want me to come to your area, feel free to make contact as we do have a couple of time-windows.
I also realise that for whatever reason some of you won't be able to come to a workshop, no matter where it is, so I want to offer an opportunity for you to do this without even having to leave your own home. So for the next 3 days I'm offering 25 copies of my Values Intensive DVD set at a massively reduced rate of $99 (plus shipping), instead of the regular rate of $175. That is for the entire 2.5 day workshop, which people originally paid up to $695 to attend.
Once you have the DVD's, you can work through the sessions and complete the exercises at your own rate and in your own time. I know from experience that when you do this the rewards that flow to you personally can be massive.
I'm making just 25 copies available at this rate, so it is first in first served. Find out more here