Journal Prompt: Values Mind Map
It all began that time when someone handed me my values in a ziplock bag
When I lived in Austin, I was blessed with a friend coven that met up monthly on the evening of the new moon. We would meet at a different location each month, usually alternating between each other’s living rooms. We’d bring snacks and items to construct a coffee table altar. The host would fill a big bowl with epsom salt that we all contributed essential oils, crystals and herbs into, scooping our own ziplock bag full at the end of the evening to use in a bath after it soaked up the powerful communal energy of the night.
Each month someone was the designated host of the evening. They would prepare information to share on that night’s moon and zodiac sign and an activity. We would always listen to a Terri Cole meditation because she had a collection of zodiac season specific recordings on Soundcloud.
My first revelatory experience of the power of defining your values happened during one of these New Moon meetings. Emily hosted us in her cozy little house full of eclectic trinkets and provided us with our own ziplock bag filled with a little stack of cards, individually cut out to be about 3x2”. They each had one word on them, concepts that were potential values one might hold.
I don’t remember exactly how she instructed us to use the cards. I feel like she may have done something cheeky like tell us to pick 10 and then after that narrow them down to 5. I remember feeling like this was such an exciting and interesting exercise, and wondering where she first learned about it.
Unfortunately I don’t have the cards or remember what values I eventually selected that night. I do have a worksheet that I filled out in 2018 with my top ten, sometime after my first encounter with the cards:
Meaning
Beauty
Freedom
Self Growth
Gratitude
Originality
Wellbeing
Consideration
Prosperity
Variety
Six years later, would I still consider these my top ten? I’m not sure. In a sketchbook page from earlier this year where I didn’t reference this list, the values I wrote were:
Meaning
Beauty(Art)
Adventure - a blend of Freedom and Variety from the list above
Magic/Spirituality
Health/Wellbeing
Intimacy, which I think is a more accurate term to replace Consideration
I don’t remember making this page, or why I created it. I imagine I must have been having a hard time, and thought something like, I need to recalibrate, I need to check in with the Values. Knowing and living my values has been a solid foundation for my mental health. Considering my top value is Meaning - having structures like a defined set of values is one way I can live that and infuse my life with Meaning.
But getting into the weeds about my own personal values isn’t really want I wanted to focus on here.
Here’s the page I mentioned earlier, an exploration of the idea of “living my values” in the mind map format:
It takes the exercise of sorting and ranking singular words/ideas/concepts and builds upon that by making it applicable to our daily lives.
Its kind of like the “Dopamine Menu” trend that’s popular on Tiktok right now — but instead of a visually organized list of things to do “instead of scrolling”, you have a list of things to do to Enjoy Your Life.
My page is messy, but this idea has a lot of potential for creating a more polished journal or sketchbook spread. You could incorporate color, collage… heck, maybe it’s a posterboard project where you can really go big!
Especially as we settle into the cold and dark months, reflecting on specific activities we can engage in to honor our values can help set us up to feel fufilled and peaceful.
The next new moon falls on the first of November, which feels like such a perfect reset/regroup point, the beginning of a month following several intense eclipses and setting off the busy holiday season. I invite you to take some time that day to create your own values mind map in your journal. There are lots of resources online with lists or printable cards to select your set of core values. I’m planning to revisit mine and will be sharing it in a thread in my Substack chat. I would love to see yours there too!
Yours in truth, beauty, freedom, and love,
Good idea! I'll try it!
Some things🙃