Discover Your True Self: Join Lindsey & Chenire’s Life Lens Sisterhood Edition
What brought you to Life Lens in the first place?
Lindsey: I have been fortunate enough to work for MaryBeth at SparkVision, so I have seen Life Lens in action as a participant and as an observer. From personal experience, I knew that value alignment work was important for me, yet I had never seen it presented in such an accessible way as it is in Life Lens. It creates an experience that is deeply personal, yet undeniably community building.
Chenire: I was invited by MaryBeth to the pilot. I was interested in the concept of knowing more about yourself to express how you move in the world. This is of great interest to me because I have always been interested in the human experience. I was curious about how this workshop would help me to “know” my values.
What did you gain?
Lindsey: A deeper understanding of myself in several aspects. For one, it helped me connect my values to events and experiences in my life in a way I had never considered. It helped me understand why certain aspects of my life felt fulfilled and meaningful and why others felt lacking and out of alignment. One of the most impactful things I gained was the humbling experience of witnessing participants have their own “aha” moments and realizing that this value alignment work is vitally important to all humans. Thinking back to the last Life Lens Sisterhood Edition I participated in can still bring back the heart-opening feeling that can come to me when I experience the deepest understanding that we are all connected and how healing that connectedness can be.
Chenire: In what I gained was much more than getting a list of values. Although that was very important because after leaving the workshop, I was now acutely aware that there are “standardize” values that many people have. After doing the exercises I realized that there are values that I only “wished” I had and others that were new (but familiar) to me I just didn’t know how to express them. Now that I am better connected to my values I see how they show up in my interactions with others and myself
What was surprising/compelling to your personally (your own ‘aha’ moments)?
Lindsey: Looking back at the moments that I can remember from childhood (which are fairly few and far between), it’s amazing that there are some values that appear to have been dominant since a young age (perhaps even stronger since birth?) and seeing those values remain strong throughout my life, even when I wasn’t aware that they were at play. These core values guided my decision making, even when I wasn’t aware. Now that I have more conscious awareness of my values, I am able to make even more intentional decisions, rather than making decisions that don’t align with my values and feeling the emotional pain of that decision afterward.
Chenire: When I did the lifeline timeline (mapping out your milestone moments) for the first time, and then hearing other’s expressions, I realized there are so many experiences that don’t get honor in our lives and others that do. It was profound the things that came to mind quickly and the others that I only thought of after further reflection. I am a naturally reflective person.
How do you use your values in life today?
Lindsey: As I mentioned above, knowing my values helps keep me grounded and focused on what is important to me. It helps me to prioritize where I spend my time, money, attention, energy. Because I am a natural people pleaser and perfectionist, for a long time I tended to put my own desires/needs aside in service of people-pleasing or trying to align with some ideal image. People-pleasing and perfectionism often left me feeling unfulfilled and out of alignment and left me feeling disconnected from myself. Now that I deliberately think about whether or not my actions support my values it’s much easier to stay true to myself and not let the values of the world or others pull me in a direction that is not in alignment with my values.
Chenire: I use my values to be more in tune with myself when my energy is not aligned with my value. Also by knowing my values I am better able to have more compassionate interactions with others as they are living and acting in their values, which may align or conflict with my values. I consider myself a relationship builder and this has been very helpful in seeing my blind spots.
Why do you think others should join you?
Lindsey: I’m so glad you asked this question because until now I’ve had a hard time putting this into words. I’m such a “feeler” that sometimes I can’t describe the impact that Life Lens brings. As I mentioned above, Life Lens is an incredibly accessible approach to values work. It’s an amazing opportunity to get to know yourself on a deeper level and most likely in a way that you hadn’t thought of before, even if you’ve done lots of other personality tests, been in therapy, or generally feel like you know yourself well already. Life Lens offers a unique opportunity to bring awareness to your values, where they originated from, how they show up in their life today, where they may need to add in more opportunities for their core values to show up in their lives, etc.
There is such a range of experiences that can be had at Life Lens, but all of them positive and impactful, if you allow them to be. I’ve seen so many people have genuine breakthroughs about habits and patterns they wanted to get out of, create new friendships, strengthen existing relationships, find clarity about difficult life decisions, and more. It’s remarkable the way clarifying values and committing to ways of living in your values can really change your perspective on so many things for the better. Values are not benign, so chances are if you’re not living in your values you are feeling the effects of living out of alignment with them. I want as many people as possible to experience the healing, revitalizing effects of this workshop and building a community of like-minded individuals who want to know themselves better and be more authentic in every aspect of their life.
Chenire: Self-awareness is the new living your best life. The more aware you are about yourself the better you are able to improve your life, interaction with others, and can see a clear path to your why. I believe connecting with your values is a good step to knowing what your next step is!