This week I did a values clarification sessions with one of
my clients. After watching my client struggle away at trying to identify his
top core values I walked out of the session thinking wow that was the biggest
flop of a session ever. But when I sat down and thought through what had
happened it was actually far from a flop. Until the first time we did a values
clarification session in lectures one day I had never sat done and really
identified what my values are. Ya I know what values are, I had heard of them,
probably had a few conversations centred around them but I had never thought
about what mine actually are. It was the same for my client, he had battled and
found the activity hard because he like many people walking around today had
never really given much thought into “what are my values”. Just because he had
struggled to do the activity in my session did not mean the session was a
complete fail. After the day when we did values clarification at varsity I
became consciously aware of the decisions I made, the choices I made and the
way I was behaving and how they related back to what I had identified as my
values that day. We never think about why we behave the way we do or why we
make the choices we do. It all boils down to our values and what we place
importance upon. For someone like my client who is sitting at a place in his
life where he knows that change needs to occur but is still wary of how to
bring about that change, identifying his values or even just beginning the
process of identifying and thinking about his values is such a big and
important step to take. Gaining insight into what is important to him is one of
the first stepping stones towards leading the life he is yearning to live. But even
though it is important for people like him to do values clarification I strongly
believe we could all do with some clarity on these kinds of things in life not
only the drug addicts or alcoholics. Everybody will find a values clarification
activity hard because everybody has an idea in their head of how they want to
live and who they want to be but when you really take a closer look you will
find that what you are actually doing, the decisions and choices you are
actually making may reflect some underlying values you didn’t even know you
had.
Experiences in life or life situations can sometimes change our values, when I saw this video I just had to post it - moving to Durban to study OT and being away from my family has made me value time with my family and my dogs so much more than I used to. This is pretty much what my dog does when I go home. I think its safe to say I am one of her top values :):)
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