Be You

The Science of Becoming the Self You Were Born to Be

Senka Holzer

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781631956089
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Santé mentale et bien-être

For decades, psychologists, and researchers have studied core values, what Dr. Senka Holzer's calls "psychological DNA." These core values are the things that light people up, gives them pure joy—they are what matters most. When one's life is aligned with their core values, they are at their best. Yet despite what popular psychology says, understanding one's core values isn't enough to guarantee fulfillment. Senka's research reveals something new: that people operate with not one, but two different sets of values. In addition to core values, everyone absorbs values from outside sources—family, friends, the media, their generation, and their culture. Senka calls these acquired values, and most people aren't even aware of them. Here's why acquired values are important: it's our awareness of our acquired values that determines our ultimate fulfillment. Without this knowledge, people may spend precious time and energy attempting to align themselves with values that are not even their own. In Be You, Senka draws on her award-winning research as a real-life scientist with a day job in molecular medicine and heart physiology at a major international research hospital. Throughout Be You, readers can be confident that science—evidence, facts, research, and logic—are the foundation of her work. But it is also inspired by Senka's life-long fascination with human psychology and mind-body connection. She has years of certified personal and professional coaching experience and she is committed to turning "hard" science into a deeply intuitive and empathetic model for self-transformation and fulfillment. Senka writes from the heart, in every sense of the word!

IV.

Transforming Your World

Chapter 9

Becoming the Self You Were Born to Be

(This is the longest chapter, but that’s why you bought the book, right?)

Before we can talk about how to bring more of what we are naturally driven to into our life, we need to work through the process of peeling back the different layers of our acquired values. Why? Because our unexamined acquired values are what holds us back from dedicating ourselves to our core values.

Let’s recap: As we strive for positive change, we encounter acquired values that may have been getting in our way for many years. We bring those values from childhood into adulthood as a sort of “carry-on baggage.” We’ve packed our baggage full of the advice, opinions, and beliefs we acquired from the surroundings in which we grew up, nicely folded in the form of life values. Opening the baggage that we’ve been filling since we were born is not an easy task. It requires disrupting the safe order we’ve created. Analyzing each compartment of our “luggage” will likely create more of a mess than we currently have, and from that disorderly pile of stuff, we’ll need to choose what to keep and what to discard, restoring the unnecessary and broken pieces and reassembling the new structure to accommodate our joy and happiness. Reprogramming our old patterns may take months or even years of effortful thinking and acting because peeling off the layers of our acquired values is—as I’ve learned in my practice— quite a complex process.

When we decide that we want to improve an aspect of our life, we often look for big changes right away. What we’d really like is a quick fix, something we can get that’ll make our lives good and keep them that way. This is understandable because it’s the story we have been sold. “Buy this pill and feel better instantly. Read this book and feel better instantly. Take this class and feel better instantly.” But those promises are not real; there is no pill, book, or class that will work in the long run if it’s not followed by intrinsically-motivated hard work. The hard work required to fight the social forces of our acquired values may be messy and complicated (instead of sexy and glamorous like we might have hoped for). Instead of immediate gratification or quick fixes, we need to embrace change in a systematic way, recognizing that real transformation is likely to be slow and incremental—but it will last.

Don’t get me wrong—I am not trying to discourage you. I’m 100 percent positive you can make your core values aligned with your three basic psychological needs the center of your life, enjoying all the mental and physical benefits that come with them. I have seen it often enough that I can confidently say that everyone can make significant progress and change for the better by understanding their value sets and acting on the inconsistencies within them. And I hope to help by offering the know-how for taming acquired values.

One of the most effective strategies for introducing lasting changes in behavior I’ve ever encountered is Milton Rokeach’s confrontation technique (“hypocrisy”). Rokeach argued that by studying the inconsistencies between our values and our behaviors, we increase our self-awareness. We can then initiate value shifts by facing up to those moments when our actions and values don’t align. For example, let’s say you value equality, but when you take a long hard look at your schedule, you realize you’re not engaging in any activity that supports social coherence. You will likely feel some discomfort (you’ll feel like a hypocrite) that will either prompt you to action or will help you realize that equality isn’t actually a high-priority value of yours.

I like Rokeach’s approach. But, like almost every existing coaching exercise about values, he doesn’t bring acquired values into the picture. So, I’ve adapted Rokeach’s method for our two different sets of values. We can advance his “value re-education” by understanding that it may be your acquired values causing that uncomfortable, “I’m-a-hypocrite” feeling. If we go back to our example and take into account the role of acquired values, we might understand that you’re too preoccupied with your shoulds (your acquired values) to really nurture equality in your life. Or, it could be that equality is actually an acquired value, which is repeatedly failing to spark your momentum. This “upgraded” approach relies not only on feeling discomfort, but also on the relief and excitement you’ll experience when you catch yourself prioritizing acquired values over core values and when you realize that you can use your awareness to reverse those toxic thoughts and behaviors.

PEEL, DON’T CHOP

I’m about to share with you the twelve steps you’ll need to take to align your needs, values, and behaviors to serve you best. This process may sound easy at first, but while it may be a simple process, it’s not at all easy. Here’s what I mean: After introducing this strategy to my clients, what I hear most often is a version of, This makes sense to me, it’s logical and simple. How come we humans have so much trouble with something that feels so intuitive? I remind my clients that it took years of input, internalization, and action on our side to integrate our acquired values into our lives.

For me, the whole process felt exactly like peeling an onion. Some pieces of the skin easily fell off, but some were sticky and persistent. Peeling brought on a few tears and a bitter taste in my mouth. Some of those sticky pieces I intentionally left on, knowing they wouldn’t harm my delicious “meal.” Plus, I didn’t feel guilty for not removing those extra-sticky pieces because I owned the decision to keep them.

Before you jump to the twelve steps, please envision your change as a process, with its ups and downs. Be gentle on yourself. Just because something is not easy doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun, so don’t forget to enjoy and celebrate every step on your way to change!

Step #1: Pay Attention

The first step of this process is becoming aware of your acquired values in action. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but in reality, it can be very complicated. Sometimes, the acquired value at work will be pretty obvious, and you’ll recognize it as something acquired from your mom, dad, brother, sister, childhood friend, media, etc. But some messages are so deeply embedded in our brains that it’s difficult to accept they are not universal truths. For those deeply imprinted values, the best indicator of an acquired value at work is negative emotions, especially judgment toward yourself (I should do/be/have more) or others (they are so unfair/superficial/egoistic/lacking manners), followed by a creeping feeling in your stomach or other type of bodily tension.

Such negative emotions or tensions occur when our acquired values are activated. They try to switch us into default mode—the well-worn neural path. When we try to resist even for a very short moment, the angry little Chihuahua from Chapter 3 feels threatened, and it will bark at us, reminding us of how things should be. And if things aren’t as they should be, then either we are failing or others around us are failing. We experience unpleasant thoughts or bodily sensations that send us spiraling down into more judgment. The more judgment, the more we distance ourselves from others and the more we believe we’re not good enough. And in the long run, this can snowball into real threats to our wellbeing.

Once I made the connection between negative emotions and acquired values, I felt like I’d discovered the key to a door that had been locked for a long time. I could finally understand and recognize my acquired value of unity for what it was—my acquired value. And it helped me contextualize all the crappy things I’d felt when I first moved to Austria.

I felt like I had won a triple jackpot when I got accepted into the PhD program in experimental cardiology at the Medical University of Graz. At the competitive selection process (two-day onsite interview), I was a total outsider, presenting the work I’d done in a country that, at the time, struggled to repair its basic infrastructure after twenty years of war. Because of my work under challenging circumstances, acceptance in the program meant even more to me. I couldn’t wait to move to my new city and, most importantly for my Serbian soul, meet the members of the research team and create some meaningful connections.

But instead of the friendship and connections I longed for, I got an important lesson.

In a state of absolute excitement, as soon as I arranged my 280-square-foot studio apartment, I invited the entire team for a coffee-and-cake-get-to-know-each-other-afternoon at my place. Despite my efforts to keep the atmosphere cozy, I sensed that my lab mates felt awkward. I could see that they found it strange I had tried to squeeze so many people into such a small apartment—the happy spirit I was used to was nowhere in sight. They were polite, but distant. No one ever mentioned gathering again. They politely rejected the next invitation with all sort of excuses. And I haven’t received any invitations for a long time.

The feeling of rejection and loneliness was difficult to digest. I went from feeling on the top of the world (when I got the position) to feeling desperate (when I failed to make friends) in a very short time. Although I managed to stay positive for most of the time, in my darker moments, I questioned my decision to move; I questioned my character, myself in general, but also my new co-workers and their moral compass. Why am I even here, I wondered.

Today, after several years and many ups and downs, I can recognize that the way I felt in that moment—the loneliness, confusion, disappointment and rejection—is the definition of acquired values at work. And, as I’ve already mentioned, my acquired value of unity tends not to go over too well with the people raised to be reserved around me.

So, how can we avoid the shame-and-blame spirals of negative emotions and judgment?

The first step in your new thinking pattern is simply allowing yourself to notice your conflicts and bring your inner battles into your full awareness. Pay attention when you start judging. You don’t need to explain, interpret, or analyze your emotions here. Just be aware of them. Nothing more, nothing less. For those extra-deep acquired values, you will most likely have to experience negative emotions several times before you finally understand what’s happening (like me, after my fiasco party). So be persistent, pay attention even to the situations where you are very sure it’s just “how things should be.”

Step #2: Give Yourself Space

We face the decision of which value to respond to several hundred times every day. Should I go to the gym (appearance) or spend a pleasant afternoon with my partner (joy)? Should a let my crying baby sooth itself (strength), or should I keep rocking him till he stops (dedication)? Should I text back my partner who has hurt my feelings (loyalty) or pretend I haven’t read his text (dominance)? Should I express my negative feelings toward my mother-in-law (honesty) or should I keep them to myself (respect)?

The loud, nagging voice of our strongest acquired values is so attention-grabbing that, most of the time, we don’t feel as if we even have a choice. We feel pressured into whatever our acquired value and its persuasive advocate (woof woof) suggests we need to do; otherwise, we think, we’ll face negative consequences. The key in taming this voice is to increase the bubble between external input that requires a decision and our reaction to it. I call this gap between the stimulus and our reaction the awareness space.⁷² Think of it like social distancing for your values: the larger the space, the more conscious choices you can make.

Here’s how to increase your awareness space. When an event triggers your acquired values, you:

• Pause and notice your negative emotions
• Notice that your acquired values are activated
• Ask yourself, “What choices do I have in this situation?”

Bam! With those pauses to notice what’s going on with you emotionally and by looking for a choice instead of an obligation, you’ve just increased your “awareness space.”

Step #3: Be Prepared

To recognize your acquired values and where they come from, it’s super important to choose a stimulating strategy for reflection that works for you. Ask yourself in advance: When I notice that I’m getting really upset next time, how am I going to reflect on the values involved? You can choose to reflect alone, or you may decide to get some help along the way. If you prefer working on your own, and you know you have consistency when it comes to controlling your mental behavior and persisting even when you feel tired and life is complicated, I encourage you to do so. If you don’t know if you can do it on your own, here are two things to consider: your environment and anticipating obstacles.

Sugar? Free!

Several months before writing this chapter, I decided not to consume anything that has added sugars in it. I knew it would be tough, but it has been much tougher than I thought it would be. More difficult than not eating sweets was explaining to every single person at work, at conferences, at children’s birthday parties, or at friend’s dinners or gatherings that I don’t eat sugars because I had traces of glucose in my urine during my second pregnancy. I completely misjudged my environment and their (not that supportive) reactions, “Oh, you’re so weird” or “Take everything away from me but leave me my chocolate.” I actually expected more support because at the end of the day, this is a decision that most people consider a healthy one.

I was lucky to face only one real obstacle: lunch at my in-law’s place, where my mother-in-law routinely makes donuts (an Austrian version, Krapfen) especially for me because she knows they are my all-time favorites. But I felt conflicted about telling her about my decision with sugar. I didn’t want to offend her or appear ungrateful for her special effort. As you see, real obstacles are the situations, which involve the people you deeply care about. In this moment, I faced a choice: either go against my value of respect or go against my values of integrity and commitment to what I think is best for me.

So, what do you think I did? Well, I’m not going to tell you. Instead, I’ll give you this thought experiment: What would you choose, dear reader—to eat the donut or leave it? Consider this thought experiment as a way to test your own values!

Step # 4: Secure Your Support Community

My dear introverted friends, you...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• I. The Building Blocks Of Being You
• II. The Roadblocks To Being You
• III. Where Do Our Acquired Values Come from, Anyway?
• IV. Transforming Your World
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Call to Action
• Appendix