Values and Stress

Core Value, Growth, Life 0

Since that first study, dozens of similar experiments have followed. It turns out that writing about your values is one of the most effective psychological interventions ever studied. In the short term, writing about personal values makes people feel more powerful, in control, proud, and strong. It also makes them feel more loving, connected, and empathetic toward others. It increases pain tolerance, enhances self-control, and reduces unhelpful rumination after a stressful experience.

In the long term, writing about values has been shown to boost GPAs, reduce doctor visits, improve mental health, and help with everything from weight loss to quitting smoking and reducing problem drinking. It helps people persevere in the face of discrimination and reduces self-handicapping. In many cases, these benefits are a result of a onetime mindset intervention. People who write about their values once, for ten minutes, show benefits months or even years later.

Why is this one small mindset intervention so powerful? Stanford psychologists Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman analyzed over fifteen years’ worth of studies on this mindset intervention and concluded that the power of writing about values is in how it transforms how you think about stressful experiences and your ability to cope with them. When people are connected to their values, they are more likely to believe that they can improve their situation through effort and the support of others. That makes them more likely to take positive action and less likely to use avoidant coping strategies like procrastination or denial. They also are more likely to view the adversity they are going through as temporary, and less likely to think that the problem reveals something unalterably screwed up about themselves or their lives.

Over time, this new mindset builds on itself, and people begin to see themselves as the kind of person who overcomes difficulties. Cohen and Sherman call this a “narrative of personal adequacy.” In other words, when you reflect on your values, the story you tell yourself about stress shifts. You see yourself as strong and able to grow from adversity. You become more likely to approach challenges than to avoid them. And you are better able to see the meaning in difficult circumstances.

— Kelly McGonigal, The Upside of Stress, p. 70-71

[Photo: Stirling Castle, Scotland, July 2003]

Delight

Core Value, God, Joy 0

It’s hard to like someone who doesn’t return the favor. In order to rejoice in the Lord, it helps to know that He also rejoices in us. More than just rejoicing, He delights in us. Delight is a good, honest word that circumvents any phony spiritualizing of the word rejoice. If we rejoice in the Lord for theological reasons rather than with frank warm-heartedness, we’ll presume that He’s the same way — rejoicing in His people out of covenantal obligation, while in His heart barely able to tolerate our waywardness. How absurd! When the Bible says “The Lord takes delight in his people,” we should picture a big, sloppy smile on God’s face and fireworks going off around His throne — all for you and me!

— Mike Mason, Champagne for the Soul, p. 61

[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 29, 2018]

Spreading Good

Core Value, Growth 0

I value you — a thought to yourself but directed at others — is one of the most powerful statements you can make. In the long run, your contribution to the Web of Emotion will improve family life and help build communities. You will soar above as you make the world a better place. Every area of your life will improve if you wake up each morning thinking, I will spread good in the world today.

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 2018

[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 6, 2018]

Positive Function of Pain

Core Value, Growth, Healing 0

Emotional pain serves the same positive function as its physical counterpart. Feeling disregarded, guilty, devalued, or unlovable prompts you to raise self-regard, compensate for any bad behavior, increase your competence, and be more loving. If you do those things, or merely think about doing them, the pain subsides. If you don’t, it gets worse and worse until it goes numb. I’m not saying that you have to increase loving behavior toward the partner who betrayed you; that would be too risky in the early part of your recovery. To relieve the pain of feeling unlovable, try to be more loving toward your children or parents or friends, or anyone whom you can love with minimal risk.

If you want to exploit the motivational advantage of emotional pain, you cannot view painful memories as punishments inflicted by others or as self-punishments for past mistakes. They are not punishments to be avoided; they are motivations to heal, improve, repair, and grow.

— Steven Stosny, Living and Loving After Betrayal, p. 20-21

[Photo: Keukenhof, Holland, April 17, 2004]

The Valued Self

Connection, Core Value, Relationships 0

Criticism fails in love relationships because it embodies two of the things that most human beings hate the most: It feels like rejection and demands submission. In short, it threatens both autonomy and connection, throwing the Grand Human Contradiction completely out of balance.

Although people hate to submit, we actually like to cooperate, which affords balance of the Grand Human Contradiction. (We choose to cooperate, which enhances autonomy, while strengthening the connection.) We have a built-in reward of well-being for cooperation, probably because it was necessary for the survival of the species. Critical people demand submission but they really want cooperation — willing, resentment-free behaviors to further the good of the relationship. They seem oblivious to this key point about human nature: The valued self cooperates; the devalued self resists.

If you want behavior change from a partner, child, relative, or friend, first show value for that person. If you want resistance, criticize.

— Steven Stosny, Empowered Love, p. 35

[Photo: Burg Katz, Rhein River, Germany, July 23, 2006]

Saving the World

Core Value, Joy 0

You can save the world in a very simple way. Value everyone you see, connect your most humane values to theirs, and then let the principles of modeling, mimicry, emotional display, contagion, and reciprocity do their stuff. You don’t even have to make eye contact; it will work if you only do it in your head. Just regard everyone you see as a person of value. This creates a very subtle, mostly unconscious approach motivation, to which most people are likely to respond in kind, with subtle positive regard of the people they subsequently pass on the street. Many of the people you value on the street will take that unconscious, low-grade valuing state with them. They’re more likely to be nicer to their children and more pleasant to the people they see at work. And so will you.

Value every driver you see, even those who behave badly, and you’ll do a great deal to protect the safety of each child and adult with whom you share the road.

This new torrent of transmitting value along the Web of Emotion need not change your overt behavior at all. It will require next to no investment of time and energy. In fact, it will generate energy and give a sense of purpose to your time that might otherwise be empty or wasted. It will help you appreciate a fact that we easily ignore in our rushed and highly structured society; each person you pass on the street is as valuable as anyone in the world.

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 207-208

[Photo: Keukenhof, Holland, April 17, 2004]

You Are Worthy of Love.

Core Value, Love 0

You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that. You don’t have to climb Mt. Everest, write a catchy tune that goes viral on YouTube, or be the CEO of a tech start-up who cooks every meal from scratch using ingredients plucked from your organic garden. If you’ve never received an award and there are no plaques proclaiming your exceptional gifts hanging on your walls, you still deserve all the love in the world. You do not have to earn love. You simply have to exist. When we see ourselves and see life more clearly, we come to rely on that. We remember that we do deserve the blessing of love.

— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 9-10.

[Photo: Portland, Oregon, August 9, 2014.]

Desires vs. Entitlements

Core Value, Love, Relationships 0

Desires feature more positive motivation than entitlements. If what you desire is based on your deeper values, the act of desiring makes you a better person. For example, the desire to love makes you more lovable, that is, more loving and compassionate.

Desire is appreciative, not entitled: if I desire something I am more likely to appreciate it than if I feel entitled to it. I’ll appreciate a bonus for my good work, but I’ll demand my contracted salary. I’ll appreciate gifts, unless I feel entitled to them. I’ll appreciate my partner’s help, praise, reward, affection, and support, which I very much want, as long as I don’t feel entitled to them because I “need” them.

— Steven Stosny, PhD, Empowered Love, p. 29-30

[Photo: Glenveagh, Ireland, July 2001.]

Making the World a Better Place by Loving Yourself

Compassion, Core Value, Love 0

Loving yourself isn’t vain, being selfish, or thinking of yourself as more special than anyone else. Self-love is about valuing and loving who you are. No one is perfect — not me, not you — but if we loved ourselves, we would focus on what we enjoy and are good at and we wouldn’t worry about the things we weren’t good at or felt inadequate about. We would be much less critical of ourselves and others, less likely to run people down. There would be much less jealousy, selfishness, and greed. Our lives would be simpler and more joyful.

We would, in truth, be fully ourselves, the people we have the potential to be at birth, the people God wants us to be.

— Lorna Byrne, Love from Heaven, p. 16