Values, Purpose, and Living in Alignment: Part 2 of 4
Change doesn’t have to start with fixing yourself. Often, it starts with understanding what matters to you—and why. This series explores values and purpose as steady guides rather than rigid rules, offering a trauma-informed, compassionate way to notice when life feels off and how to gently realign. Wherever you’re beginning from is enough.
Part 2: Where Values Come From (and How Survival Responses Can Shape Them)
If Part 1 invited you to get curious about what matters to you, this next step invites curiosity about why those things matter—and how they came to be important in the first place.
Values don’t appear out of nowhere.
They’re shaped over time, through experiences, relationships, culture, family systems, and the ways we learned to survive. Understanding this can bring a deep sense of compassion to parts of ourselves that may feel confusing, contradictory, or even frustrating.
You didn’t randomly become the person you are.
Your values make sense in context.
Knowing why you have the values you do can help you work towards the values you want.
How Values Are Formed
From babyhood, we are constantly receiving messages about what is important through:
What is praised or rewarded
What is discouraged or punished
What keeps us safe, connected, or accepted
What leads to conflict, rejection, or loss
These messages come from many places: caregivers, schools, religion, cultures, peer groups, and broader societal systems. Over time, they quietly shape what we come to prioritize and value.
For example, you may have learned:
That being helpful earns love (service value)
That staying quiet avoids conflict (peacemaking value)
That achievement brings worth (achievement value)
That independence is safer than relying on others (independence value)
None of these are inherently “good” or “bad.” They are understandable, and even helpful, responses to the environments we grew up in. They may continue to serve us well now, or they may not.
Often, our earliest values are less about conscious choice and more about adaptation.
Survival-Based Values vs. Chosen Values
It can be helpful to distinguish between:
Survival-based values: Values that formed to help you cope, stay safe, or maintain connection in difficult or unpredictable environments.
Chosen values: Values you intentionally identify and move toward because they reflect who you are and how you want to live now.
Survival-based values might look like:
Productivity at all costs (rather than productivity with life balance in mind)
Hyper-independence (rather than recognizing the that some support is often healthy and helpful)
People-pleasing (rather than creating worth within self)
Emotional self-containment (rather than recognizing the value in expressing emotions)
Control and perfectionism (rather than allowing self and life to be imperfect and still ‘good’)
These patterns often develop for very good reasons. At one point in your life, they were helpful or perhaps even essential.
The challenge arises when strategies that once protected you begin to cost you—your health, relationships, or sense of self.
This doesn’t mean those values were wrong.
It means you’re growing and starting to realize that there may be some incongruency between what you have lived with and how you actually want to show up.
Why Some Values Aren’t Helpful and Still Make Sense
You might notice that you deeply value things that also exhaust you or aren’t helpful in other areas of your life.
For example:
You value being dependable, but feel burned out having to meet all of the deadlines
You value achievement, but feel constantly behind and anxious about everything there is to complete
You value caring for others, but often neglect yourself to do so
This tension doesn’t mean you’re broken or doing life wrong.
It often means a survival-based value is still running in the background, even as another part of you longs for a values-based adjustment (perhaps more rest, balance, or connection – or even a mentality shift related to how, when, and why the value is enacted).
Both parts (survival core and chosen path) deserve compassion.
One part of you learned what it needed to value to survive.
Another part is beginning to ask what it needs to value to live as your favorite version of yourself.
Value Confusion During Healing or Life Transitions
Many people notice a period of “value fog” when they:
Begin therapy
Recover from burnout
Become a parent
Leave a relationship or career
Experience loss or major change
What once felt obvious may start to feel unclear.
This can be unsettling.
It can also be a sign that you are outgrowing old frameworks and making space for something more aligned with your internal compass.
Confusion is not failure.
Confusion is often the doorway to deeper truth about yourself.
You Are Allowed to Choose Again
One of the most powerful aspects of values work is realizing:
You are allowed to update your values.
You are allowed to question what you were taught.
You are allowed to keep what still fits and release what no longer does.
You are not betraying your past by choosing differently.
You are honoring your present.
Gentle Reflection
As before, there is no right way to do this. Let yourself move slowly and with compassion through these questions.
When you think about what you prioritize most in your life, where do you think those values were learned? Family? Culture? Survival? Personal experience?
Are there any values you hold that feel heavy, draining, or obligatory? What might those values have protected you from in the past?
Are there any values you feel quietly drawn toward lately, even if you’re not fully living them yet?
Up Next in Part 3…
In the next post, we’ll explore how feeling anxious, numb, irritable, or dissatisfied can sometimes be less about something being “wrong” with you—and more about a gentle signal of value misalignment.
For now, let this sink into your soul:
Your values formed for a reason.
They make sense.
And you’re allowed to let them evolve.
Allyssa Staker, MS, PCLC
Resources
Here is a link to some of the values you may find present in your life. https://brenebrown.com/resources/dare-to-lead-list-of-values/