Sunday Sessions | How to feel more connected to your life

Grab a coffee and then let's figure out what to do when you're feeling lost

Hi and welcome,

Come in. I hope you didn’t get caught in the rain.

Take a seat. What brings you here?

I can hear that you’re overwhelmed, just trying to get through the day.

You are feeling unmoored. Lost in your life.

There’s a sense of feeling disconnected from yourself too.

One practice that I’ve found that can anchor you in your days and filter through all the noise is discovering your Values. Is that something you want to spend some time on in today’s session?

Ok, let’s begin

Discovering Your Values:

If you’re disappointed because Values feel like something your company has but often ignores, or you’ve seen it around so much it’s now devoid of meaning and feels like another self-help platitude, I get you. When it came up for me too, I felt a similar emotional eye roll. But stay with me for a moment.

This is how I like to see Values, as: 

• anchor points that keep us grounded rather than stuck, 

• beautiful beacons that light your way as you take steps into the darkness, 

• an effortless navigating system that won’t blip out when you lose the signal or take you down all too narrow country lanes that make you want to vomit. 

Values are decision-making magic.

They point the way to how you want to live your life, what you’d like it to contain, and how you want to spend your time. Even on what and with whom.

Knowing them will help you orientate when you get lost, feel unmoored, or feel stuck.

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Why do Values Matter?

When your Values are being met you are more fulfilled, happier, and centered. But when something conflicts with your Values, life often just feels off. You can feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or unsettled.

Feelings of disconnection, emptiness, anger, or just the sense that something isn't quite right, suggest that those Values you need do not yet have a place in your life. And when we don’t know them at all, that can compound that lost feeling.

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What are Values?

I once heard the idea that Values are something that you can't put in a wheelbarrow — like integrity, wonder, and creativity — but not like money, a new car, that Zara dress, or your bestie — which could be represented by words such as safety, security, status, and belonging instead.

See Values as the ideas and feelings that sit behind words, that bring you to life. They need to resonate and appeal to something at the core of you.

But here's the maddening thing: although our Values are deeply important and are threaded through our lives, often they can be unconscious to us. We may not know what they are even though they are always there.

Values are magical, but like all things illusory they can be fleeting. They are like little sneaky beings that spark all around you. They bring wonder and delight. Openness and promise. When we can grasp hold of them, we can connect with the very thing we need.

But if we’re not careful they disappear and we’re left with a remnant of something vital, a shadow of something possibly beautiful.

Discovering our values can mean making the intangible, tangible.

So, the first step in finding your way is to identify your Values. 

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How to Discover Your Values

Discovering your Values can be a one-off exercise (or a session with an ICF-accredited coach like me) to get you to a small handful of the words you want to live by (Brene Brown swears by having just two).

I’ve found these questions helpful to start thinking about your values:

Think of a time when you were really motivated. Spend a moment to connect with it. What was it about that time that was really important to you?

Look at those times when you were not engaged in your life. When you were actively disengaged. What was missing?

What do you want your life to be about? What are you here for?

Note which words or Values start to surface. Then hold them close, and remember them.

Just note, that discovering your Values can be a life-long search, you’re always a collector of them. Though Values are fundamental to who you are they can also shift, so where once there was curiosity maybe that has moved into connection, or where once there was safety, maybe that now sits in belonging.

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How I use Values when I’m lost in my life

I have a file on my laptop that lists my Values. When something is off, I revisit this list and often it reveals where life has gone out of sight.

• My Values around independence and family can sometimes conflict, and I’m reminded of the need for boundaries.

• When I’m feeling stuck, I need to feed another Value, curiosity.  

• When I’ve gone all in, and too far, with something, I’m brought back to my Value of balance.

• And warmth needs to show up for me — that connects with ideas of safety and belonging but also positivity.

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Life is a lot right now. We can feel like we’re flailing. We run through our days from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep trying to read just one page of the latest bestseller. Knowing your Values will give you something to hold onto. How could becoming more aware of them help you?

We’re almost at time now, so before I close the session is there anything you’d like to capture? What have you learned about yourself today? How do you want to take that into your days so that you feel more connected with your life?

See you next month. Until then take care,

P.S. Let me know what you think about these new style posts. I’m thinking of once a month taking you through a session designed to help us get unlost together. Next month, if you’re into it, I thought we could look at the four narratives that most impact the relationships we have with our emotions: I’ve found this is one of the most impactful ways of shifting how we show up in our own lives and with other people.

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In The Wellery this month, our group session will focus on how to feel more connected to your life by discovering your Values. We’ll go through one of my favorite exercises for eliciting what they are and what to do with them.

If you’re already in this community, I hope to see you there. I’ll send you a special Workbook in advance to get started.

Capture Your Values by joining The Wellery

If you haven’t joined yet, you’ll find that for the price of an oat milk flat white, you get group sessions, personal coaching in our pop-up office hours spots, time to co-journal/ write and a book club where we talk about the best ideas from the latest non-fiction books. If you join in the next couple of days, you’ll get to join our Values Capture session on Tuesday night too!

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