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August 2019 | REDONLINE.CO.UKI
magine it’s your 80th birthday. You think you’re going for a
quiet family meal, but your family surprise you, instead driving
you to a village hall. You walk in and a cheer goes up – the room
is packed full of everyone you have ever loved. You’re helped on
to the stage, where three of those people are going to say what
your life has been about. What would you want them to say?
The answers may be more revealing than you imagine. In fact,
when I tried this exercise with my therapist, Kim Lyons, I uncovered
layers of myself I never knew existed. The purpose is to discover your
core values, a key branch of a fascinating area of psychology called
acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). ACT is the practice of
learning to accept what is out of your control and living a fulfilling life
by working out what is meaningful to you – your values. These could
be curiosity, spirituality, gratitude, flexibility, power; the list goes on.
Values are fundamental principles and morals we hold closest to our
hearts. ‘Ultimately, values are a way of understanding what’s importantT
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Three years ago,
Ella Dove had a
devastating accident.
For a long time, she
resisted psychological
support – then she
discovered an exercise
that changed her life.
And it could do the
same for you, too...