Our Core Values
These are the Core Values and Practices that guide us in honoring and supporting everyone’s honorable thriving:
SHARED HUMANITY and COMPASSION
We’re all equally human. We all have the same life-needs; we all long to be welcome, safe, and happy; we all suffer when we experience rejection; and we all are greatly challenged when we experience toxic shame.
We all also have our own special blend of “warts and farts and ugly, crazy parts” — the ways our mistaken beliefs and unconscious survival brains can leave us disconnected from ourselves, our deepest values, and each other. We all have this.
When we or others act in ways that are harmful to ourselves and/or others, we remember that everything we think, believe, say, and do is ALWAYS, at its heart, an attempt to feel better, thrive, and be happy. Even when we act without awareness or skill, or out of pain that’s too much for us to hold.
Seeing ourselves and each other clearly, we tenderly embrace and welcome All That We Are. No exceptions. (Also see “Being Accountable.”)
DIGNITY and RESPECT (Inherent Value)
We recognize that each of us is a Culture of One, with our own inner experience of life and our own unique paths to thriving. We honor and uphold each of our equal right to thrive in our own ways. We practice honorable thriving, never choosing to benefit at another’s expense.
HONESTY and AUTHENTICITY
We recognize the power of staying connected to Reality, and being real human beings with each other. This includes acknowledging our power and gifts, as well as our wounds, weaknesses, blind spots, and mistakes. Our shared humanity, compassion, dignity, and respect make it genuinely safe for us to practice this together.
SELF-MATTERING, SELF-AWARENESS, and INTEGRITY
We cultivate genuinely mattering to ourselves, and practice discovering and integrating what is most deeply true for us. We recognize that a “lack of integrity” arises from a lack of integration (self-connection and wholeness). We discern and live in alignment with what we most deeply value.
BEING ACCOUNTABLE FOR OUR DIRECT IMPACT ON OTHERS
We acknowledge that there will always be times when there’s a Gap between what we’re able to do and what we’re committed to. We practice being responsible for the direct impact our out-of-alignment words or actions have on others. We cultivate an ever-growing capacity to Be the person we most want to be, and to Create what we most want to contribute in Life. (Also see “Recognizing Our Greatest Often Pain Comes From Within Us.”)
ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR OWN WELL-BEING
We recognize that we are the ultimate author of our own lives and experience, because only we can know what’s truly Right for us, and only we have the power to choose that for ourselves. We practice setting healthy boundaries (making choices and taking actions) that effectively support our honorable thriving.
When faced with challenging circumstances or the impact of other’s choices that diminish our well-being, we remember that, as adults, we are never without choice or power. We compassionately practice rediscovering our authentic power and choice, no matter the circumstances. (Also see “Recognizing We Create Our Own Reality.”)
DEEPENING OUR CAPACITY FOR PRESENCE AND AVAILABILITY
We practice noticing and experiencing our present-moment body sensations, feelings, thoughts, and impulses … without having to numb, avoid, change, or fix them, AND without getting overwhelmed or flooded.
LIVING FROM WHAT’S MOST ALIVE and INSPIRED IN US; HONORING WHAT’S MOST ALIVE IN OTHERS
We allow what is naturally energized or energizing in us, that aligns with and fulfills on our values and vision, to be the primary guide in our lives. This includes ensuring our commitments carry us beyond our uninspired and avoidant moments. We support others in doing this also. (Also see “Creating, Modifying, Restoring, & Dissolving Agreements In Ways That Honor Everyone’s Thriving.”)
CREATING, MODIFYING, RESTORING, & DISSOLVING AGREEMENTS IN WAYS THAT HONOR EVERYONE’S THRIVING
When we mindfully discern that plans or agreements we or others made in the past no longer work for one or more of us in the present, we are devoted to co-creating something different that honors everyone impacted, because the alternative would be to objectify others and benefit at their expense.
We value sustaining our mutual care and connection, identifying and being responsible for our own underlying life-needs, and finding new ways to nourish them that do not cause harm to others. (Also see “Recognizing Discomfort, Pain, & Upsets as Guides” and “Recognizing Our Greatest Often Pain Comes From Within Us.”)
RECOGNIZING DISCOMFORT, PAIN, and UPSETS AS GUIDES, INVITING US TOWARD GREATER CONNECTION, THRIVING, and FULFILLMENT
This includes identifying and tending to the unmet life-needs that these announce. We recognize that we have a choice to experience either the intensifying discomfort, dysfunction, and pain of depleted life-needs, or to experience the discomfort of learning how to accurately identify and effectively nourish our life-needs. We choose the discomfort that will nourish our thriving and fulfillment.
RECOGNIZING THAT OUR BELIEFS, THOUGHTS, STORIES, and PERSPECTIVES ARE THE MOST POWERFUL CREATORS OF OUR REALITY
Regardless of what’s happening, we recognize that our beliefs, thoughts, stories, and perspectives have the greatest impact on how we experience Life’s events, and power to respond to them in ways that support our well-being (nourish our life-needs). We recognize that this aligns with the findings of our most rigorous, evidence-based science: quantum mechanics.
We cultivate our capacity to claim and exercise our power to create our own experience, with the support and contribution of those who share our values and beliefs.
RECOGNIZING OUR GREATEST PAIN OFTEN COMES FROM WITHIN US
We are committed to doing the inner work needed to discover the true source of our pain — whether from the past and our inner orphans/”broken toes,” from direct, present-moment actions of others, or a combination of both.
(Also see “Accepting Responsibility” and “Recognizing We Create Our Own Reality,” above. While we may not be able to what happens to us in the moment, or choose in the moment how our nervous system responds to what someone has said or done, after these moments pass we do have choice about the meaning we give experience, how we engage with it after it’s happened, and how we prepare ourselves to respond to it in the future.)