Discovering Your Values: An Exercise in Restoring Core Worth
The Making Sense of Your Worth model begins with a simple but radical premise: worth is inherent. It does not rise or fall according to performance, perfection, or the reactions of others. From this starting point, the work shifts toward helping people understand how early messages, painful experiences, or distorted beliefs may have pulled them away from that truth. When someone lives disconnected from their core worth, they often live disconnected from their values as well. Values become clouded by survival strategies; people learn to prioritize the needs of others, to perform, to stay small, or to adapt constantly in order to remain safe or accepted. Rediscovering personal values is therefore not merely a self-help exercise; it is part of reclamation, a return to the grounded sense of identity that MSOYW aims to restore.
One exercise that aligns closely with this framework is the “Values Through Emotional Anchors” practice. The premise is that our emotions, especially strong ones, tend to point toward values that matter deeply. However, people who have been living through shame-based narratives or worth-based distortions often mistrust their emotional experience. They may minimize disappointment, ignore anger, or dismiss joy as frivolous. This exercise helps bring emotions back into the conversation as information rather than evidence of inadequacy.
Begin by identifying three recent emotional moments: one that brought frustration, one that brought sadness, and one that brought genuine joy or satisfaction. Choose experiences that are small enough to reflect on without overwhelm, yet meaningful enough to stir something inside. Write down a few sentences describing each moment. Do not analyze the emotion; simply describe what happened.
The next step follows a key MSOYW principle: separating worth from actions or outcomes. When reflecting on each moment, gently remind yourself, My worth was not at stake in this event. That statement is not meant to erase the emotion, but to create space around it. From this grounded place, ask a simple question: What value was being honored, violated, or awakened in me during that moment? For example, frustration may point toward a value of fairness or autonomy. Sadness may reveal a value related to connection or loyalty. Joy may illuminate values of creativity, growth, or belonging.
This exercise helps shift the internal narrative from I reacted this way because something is wrong with me to I reacted this way because something important to me was touched. It restores dignity to the emotional experience and transforms it into insight. As participants identify the value beneath each emotion, patterns often emerge. Someone may discover that they consistently feel frustration when their boundaries are ignored; another may recognize that moments of joy consistently involve collaboration or learning. These patterns are not performance-based identities; they are expressions of core self.
The final step is integration. Choose two or three values that felt most resonant. Write a brief reflection on what life looks like when you honor these values from a place of inherent worth, and what life looks like when you abandon them due to fear, self-doubt, or people-pleasing. The purpose is not to create a set of rules, but to cultivate awareness. In MSOYW terms, values help reinforce a secure and compassionate relationship with oneself. When you act from your values, you are not striving to earn worth; you are expressing the worth that is already yours.
Discovering one’s values is ultimately an act of honesty and restoration. It brings internal clarity where shame once created confusion. It helps people recognize that their emotions are not liabilities, but compass points. And most importantly, it supports the core message of Making Sense of Your Worth: you are worthy, not because of what you do, but simply because you are. Values give shape to the life that flows from knowing that truth.
