Issue 18: Values. The bedrock of identity. Our fundamentals.

So many people argue that values underpin our choices, behaviours and relationships and I want to unpick this.

I want to shine a light on our belief that values are not necessarily the foundation; they are complex, context-specific, at times aspirations or social constructs. Let me elaborate.

I value honesty. I hold a deep-seated discomfort if I feel I have been misunderstood or misrepresented. I would go so far as to say I value transparency, an openness that I equate to integrity. It’s why I couldn’t christen my children. The specific words our priest said I needed to declare over my children were not my truth, and therefore, I could not say them. My children are not christened. The moment I had internally decided on a career change, I handed in my notice… it wasn’t practical, or even required within that timeframe, but I couldn’t look people in the eye and talk about a future I didn’t intend to be a part of. It worries me… not being honest, and the tension of how I do that with kindness, or when it leads to potential confrontation, is one I grapple with regularly.

And yet… let me paint another picture…

Imagine the scene, if you will, it’s Christmas. The gifts have been exchanged. The crackers pulled, a beautiful meal cooked with love and care has been devoured. The stresses of the everyday treadmill have been suspended, for a short while, as we spend quality time gathered in the family home. As years have passed, our numbers have grown; partners, children and guests all gathered for the annual tradition of board games.

We settle in the music room (that sounds grand doesn’t it?), sink into our favourite spots, favourite tipple in hand, ready to begin… with our first argument. Who’s on whose team? I maintain that my husband must always be on my team. Marrying him was a strategic move for this very moment. Still waters run deep with my other half but in those depths is all the general knowledge that you need to WIN! And I deserve that victory because he uses more words in a Christmas board game than he does in communicating with me all year round. Hell hath no fury like the year my brothers played the boys vs girls card and took him from me!

Now so far, I have made this just sound like standard family competitiveness, but I feel the need to come clean. To air this family secret with the world, this is after all a safe space, right? It goes beyond competitiveness. While it may seem like it’s just about winning, actually, it’s the fight that we enjoy. It’s about being cunning, using our wiles, it’s in the cheating, in the ability to get away with bending the rules or thwarting others’ attempts to do so. It’s strategic and while my siblings and I can regale you with tales of our father pocketing an extra 500 Monopoly pounds as is his right as banker (which, in hindsight, was probably a life lesson he was teaching us about banks). The true skill of deception was actually learned at our mother’s knee. Who not only cheated at games but acted scandalised that we would accuse her of such a feat… “everything she’d done for us and we would accuse her of claiming more articulate cards than she had actually won??? How dare we?”

From not allowing correct answers for the opposing team after the sand has fallen from the hourglass, to not turning said hourglass over for your own team. Our games are raucous, loud, obnoxious and although I am a little ashamed to say we have frightened newcomers at our table, it’s important to say that all is fair in love, war and parlour games…. Or not fair, and we should refer to the rules… but who is reading the rules because they probably can’t be trusted either?!

So, where is my honesty at Christmas? I don’t mind telling you, I don’t lose sleep over it. I’m never more alive than when I’m on my feet, pointing at my older brother, calling him out for any infraction I can find. Or watching my sister-in-law just laugh at the general chaos around her… she is a quiet stirrer. Or, quite frankly, the pride in my children, nieces and nephews in that, we genuinely tried to set a better example to them, we tamed our antics to teach them right from wrong, but it must be genetic because they are a bunch of cheats as well!

So, when is honesty a value that keeps me up at night compared to one that I can shelve because, this year, the important thing is that James is going down!!! It comes down to this: values are not fixed behavioural rules. That’s not to say you can pick and choose when to believe them or apply them, it’s that they are contextual interpretations rooted in meaning, or to put another way, they are the outcome of living something that is deeply meaningful to you.

This is where meaning markers come in. We have spoken previously about using stories to uncover what we have assigned meaning to. To get underneath the skin of your values, you have to ask: where did that come from? What drives that? Tell the Christmas story and compare it to the Christening one. What do you find? What sits beneath? Because values are often the labels we give to things that matter. Meaning markers explain why they matter, where they came from, and when they take priority.

I wouldn’t go to someone else’s family party and lie, cheat and steal through games. I do it with my family because that IS the game. We don’t censor our ridiculous need to shout each other down when we invite people to join us because… we really want you to join us, laugh at it, use a witty rejoinder to outplay us, smile at the way that we cheat to make up for the fact that my husband could beat us all… we are levelling the playing field! In this context, it’s not about honesty, it’s about play, ritual, togetherness, competition, family identity and aliveness.

Honesty for me comes from being accurately seen and known. From being held to account for my actual actions and beliefs, not someone else’s version of me.

Part of that comes from people writing me off without realising I was neurodiverse, processing, or disengaged rather than stupid.

Honesty comes from a freedom from pretence and performance because I was called out as a child for manipulative or calculated behaviour. Articulating myself gained me respect and I can account times where my family looked at me not as the youngest but considered my view of the world.

Honesty is a rebuttal of the situations I have found myself trapped in because other people play games with people’s feelings, futures and reputations and I was either powerless or too scared to act and I regret it.

So, yes honesty is a value I hold, but underneath it sits something deeper, something about creating an expectation or standard that if I hold myself to it, I can hold others to it too, so that I can be seen and ensure those that I care about are seen accurately too.

It is the meaning behind it that has given me permission to be brave and has, at pivotal moments, shaped my choices.

We invite you to consider what underpins your values, where did it come from? Why is it a priority because in that space you will find your meaning markers.