Category: Living My Inspired Life

Three Tips on Finding Your Values

There are many, but today I’m sharing three tips on finding your values. This step is crucial to living a fulfilled life. For me, I had vague ideas on what was most important to me.

The Three Tips

  1. Understand the concept of values
  2. Explore your personal values
  3. Hone in on your top three to five values

What Are Values Exactly?

I want to be clear, I’m talking about personal values that serve as the basis for our goals toward achieving fulfillment and ultimately our life purpose. This article on Physiopedia.com is an in-depth explanation of personal values and beliefs.

Furthermore, values are what you feel is important to you.

How Do Values Affect Me?

If your thoughts and actions are in synch with your values, you are happier, that is, you are calm, centered, content.

Conversely, if your thoughts and actions are based on the values of others, you may be anxious, unsettled, jittery. Empaths are often unduly influenced by the values of others. My blog about empaths will help you discover if this is your reality.

How Do I Discover My Values?

Here is a list of values with further hints on using it. Now, let’s get to it!

  • Gather a notepad and pen or pencil
  • Find a quiet place and sit upright
  • Close or soften your gaze
  • Take three slow cleansing breaths
  • Relax your neck and shoulders
  • Sink into your hips and feet
  • Notice how your body feels
  • Slowly open your eyes and start reading each value aloud
  • When a word resonates somewhere in your body, write it down

My Three Values as Example

Here are my values; Honesty, Tranquility, and Purpose

If I follow these values in my thoughts and actions, I’m extremely happy and carefree. It’s fairly easy if I’m alone and in complete control of my environment. Rather, since I don’t live a monastic life alone, I often struggle to live these values.

Let’s see examples where I’m successful:

  • Honesty: I use my love of creative cooking to create a healthy, gluten-free, dairy-free salad for lunch.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the Spa channel on Sirius XM, smile, and calmly allow merging traffic to, well.. merge.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent meditating and writing my blog.

Now for the opposite:

  • Honesty: Feeling stressed, I open my overhead kitchen cabinet where ‘fun foods’ like wasabi peas and dark chocolate are stored and grab something, stuffing it in my mouth before anyone sees my loss of control.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the 70’s on 7 channel on Sirius XM, pound my palms on my steering column, and switch lanes over and over to ‘get ahead’.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent checking email, all my social media channels, reading newspaper headlines and getting sucked into someone else’s drama.

Is There a Theme Here?

Absolutely. The theme is self-care. Once I discovered my values, all I needed to do was practice self-care by respecting myself and these values. And yes, I fall off my self-care regimen all the time, forgetting to honor my values. Above all, I start again.

May you explore my three tips on finding your values and use the list of values to discover a calmer way to live with ease.

With honesty, tranquility, and purpose,
Dawn

Oh How I Love Coffee in the Morning

Oh, how I love coffee! To insure I have fresh coffee as soon as possible in the morning, I prepare it the night before. Sometimes I buy beans and grind them just right. Always I draw clear, cool water into a large Pyrex measuring cup; twelve ounces of water per serving, 2 tablespoons of coffee for every twelve ounces of water. Yes, I actually read the directions on the package.

How This Affection Began

My first memory drinking coffee was next door at my grandmother’s dining table. I was probably five years old or so. My Swedish grandparents had coffee and a sweet every afternoon. If I happened to stop playing outdoors and knock on their door from the garage, my grandma would bow down and give me a kiss and hug, inviting me in. Then she’d pour evaporated milk into one of her teacups about halfway, add sugar and then enough hot coffee to stain the mixture a light beige.

I felt so grown up having coffee with them, listening to their conversations in Swedlish.. a combination of Swedish and English that I never learned. Perhaps they preferred the privacy of speaking a language my sister and I didn’t understand. The only words they taught us were “tack så mycket” and “varsågod”. These mean “thank you so much” and “you’re welcome”. My sister and I also learned to count to ten, but I’ve long forgotten that.

My grandmother was born in America, but lived her early life on the farm as if they were still in Sweden. They spoke Swedish, attended church in Swedish, and continued the tradition of fika, the coffee break. The men would eat a hearty breakfast, return to the farmhouse for lunch and then return once again for the afternoon coffee break with a sweet roll. As the oldest child, my grandmother must have learned how to make a Swedish coffee roll at an early age. When I was a little girl, she often made cookies, froze them and pulled one out for me during her afternoon coffee break with my grandfather. It seems they always had a slice of her homemade cinnamon coffee ring.

Coffee Brands We Love

When I realized Swedes drank more coffee than any other ethnic group, except for Finland and the Netherlands, I understood why it was so important in my family.

At one time, I subscribed to the Swedish Gevalia coffee club, drank coffee from around the world, earned an airtight ceramic storage canister and loved every minute of the strong coffee, lightened with half and half and sweetened with sugar.

Soon, the chain, Dunkin’ Donuts arrived near me. After my first cup, I was converted from Gevalia to the Dunkin’ house blend. There were times I’d feel the pull of Starbucks when I was living in Denver, but since I had to pay extra to drink a palatable cup, I opted for McDonald’s coffee when I was away from home. You see, I bought Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in bulk before the chain arrived in Denver. I could always brew my favorite cup at home.

Why Somethings Still Matter

Oh, how I love coffee. It’s clear to me why coffee brings me peace, is a type of love in a mug, and will never be replaced by tea. There are too many beautiful memories, aromas, and love mixed up with it.

Do you have a similar experience with coffee, tea, or one particular food? Do you find comfort in it?

I’d love to hear about it in a comment, email or we can continue discussions when you sign-up for my newsletter.

Tack Så Mycket,
Dawn

How Do You Deal With Being an Empath?

Perhaps now you know you’re an empath. How do you deal with being an empath? Still unclear what is an empath? Please, read my blog, How Do You Know if You’re an Empath?

What Can You Do About It?

Prior to my knowing I’m an empath, I’ve been a seeker of knowledge and self-discovery. Furthermore, I’ve come across many mystical / spiritual answers to dealing with the reality of being an empath. Have they helped? Absolutely. Can I recommend one mystical path to find your answer? No way. Hence, this route is one you must discover on your own, listening to your intuition.

What About Traditional Psychological Therapy?

Honestly, I’ve had a half-dozen professional therapists in my life. One, was exactly right for a specific need, others were either useless, helpful, or like my current therapist, Mary Joye, LHMC, a gift from God. Furthermore, I am grateful for Zoom, allowing sessions with Mary from anywhere.

How did I find Mary? I have a morning meditation where I take 3-4 deep cleansing breaths, place my hand on my heart and ask, “What do I need to know today?” For me, it’s like my subconscious gives me messages. I knew I needed to look up a suicide survivor group. That led me to the knowledge I was suffering from trauma with symptoms of PTSD. https://www.winterhavencounseling.com/ about it, which is raw, emotional, and gutsy… it’s a tough read. Finally, a search on Psychology Today, led me to a specialist in trauma… Mary Joye.

Psychotherapy Doesn’t Appeal Me

Okay, that’s a valid feeling. There’s another way you can explore how to survive this life as an empath. Explore the website of Dr. Judith Orloff. She has an online course to support her best selling book, The Empath’s Survival Guide. You will find the course on her empath support page. Of course, you can also buy her book and go through it on your own. We are each unique, seeking the best option for ourselves.

How Do I Know This is Right for Me?

Caution and skepticism are good. As an empath, it can be difficult making good decisions.

Here’s a step-by-step way to clear out the feelings you may have picked up from others. By doing this, you can tune into your real self and make better decisions.

1. Remove yourself to a quiet place where you are alone.
2. Silence your phone and lay it down away from you.
3. Sit upright.
4. Close your eyes.
5. Lightly cover your eyes with your palms, fingertips resting at your hairline.
6. Take three deep breaths, in through your nose, out through your mouth.
7. Slowly move your hands, fingertips tracing your hairline down to behind your ears.
8. Place your hands on your heart.
9. Take three more deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.
10. Ask yourself about your decision, “Is this (insert your situation, purchase, choice, etc.) right for me?”

Your yes / no answer may come in myriad ways; you just know it, you hear the answer, you see a symbol or the actual word “Yes” or “No”, or you feel it in your gut, tingling, goosebumps… whatever is right for you.
Certainly, you can start this exercise with a question where you know the answer.

Test How YOU React

Here’s a testing example for the ‘Clear Out Your Feelings’ exercise:
in #10, ask the yes / no question. “Am I wearing jeans?” Then ask an opposite question. “Am I wearing khakis?” Note how #11 plays out differently between your two known, opposite questions and answers.
Once you’ve mastered this process, you can use it anytime you feel ‘off’. Those times may indicate you have picked up the feelings of others.

In Closing

I hope these ideas help you answer your question, “How do you deal with being an empath?” Since I believe we are the answer to the woes of the world. Does that sound like more responsibility than you desire? Don’t fret. There are many small steps to finding our fulfillment in this role. Through my posts about how we can practice self-care, live life to the fullest, and make a difference in the lives of others, you will find solace. If you believe this is part of your reason for being here, I invite you to sign-up for my weekly newsletter.

See you soon,
Dawn