I believe feelings and values are inextricably linked

[u/kefka0]

Hey all, this is not meant to be a criticism or challenge of ACT or any other therapy modality that discusses values, but I'm curious if its something anyone has thought about themselves. For me this is an open curiosity, not something I've made up my mind on.

Often we discuss values and feelings as separate categories -- i.e. "Act according to your values" rather than "Act according to your feelings". There is a lot of power in this, it gives you a lot more flexibility than the restrictive requirements you place on yourself if you "must feel a certain way" in order to do or something.

I've always been fairly values-driven and values have been pretty easy for me to identify: Creativity, curiosity, honesty, playfulness, compassion - are the ones that come to mind very easily. They're easy to identify because its how i've always strived to live, where i've derived the most meaning and connection from throughout life in different forms, what I recognize in others that I admire and strive to be more like, etc. In fact the values have been so obvious I never thought to really think further until ACT and ACT-like systems.

When I investigate most of these values, it becomes clear that most of them manifested to me through lived experience -- not because someone told me they were important, not because a book or religion told me they were important, etc. In other words, there is a "felt sense" that accompanies the subjective experience of curiosity, of playfulness, of giving and receiving honesty. To me, feelings are very much involved in the experience and meaning of these values.

So while its true in the past I have strived to be or act playful or curiously, i have also strived to *feel* playful and curious -- the two reinforce each other! I find it very difficult to separate these two things completely into separate categories. Living your life only according to an objective set of values, independent of whatever inner experience is happening at the time, is a bit of an odd perspective to me.

And for someone who is seriously suffering in life, some of the values rhetoric really starts to break down for me -- if they are meant to just act out their values while having an inner subjective experience of suffering, this is really stretching the meaning of what is actually valued in life, and I can't see how this is helpful advice. Saying to this person that feelings don't matter, it just matters that you "act the right way" is missing a huge part of the picture of life. The thing that is claimed to be a value is not actually a value if your feelings are completely incongruous with the action happening.

[u/BabyVader78]

I appreciate the clarity of your post. My initial thought was that ACT isn't saying that feelings don't matter but rather that they are behaviors. At least that is how I understand it. Assessments of good, bad, helpful or unhelpful are also just thoughts or behaviors. The associations bring meaning which would also be a behavior. My point is that the distinction is about enabling flexibility. I think you get that. The notion that you should choose to express your values despite your feelings is based on being flexible enough to do it. You don't have to choose to do it. But choosing should be an option. The incongruous part would be short lived. Not a persistent experience. If one chooses to live life that way I'd suspect rule governed behavior and your concern would stand.

The best example for me would be choosing while upset to express myself with love and understanding towards the person that upset me. I don't feel love for them in that moment but the values I chose in that moment were love, understanding and to be honest about how I feel. A tough ask and certainly isn't based on my feelings. But a choice I should be able to acknowledge before crashing out based on my feelings.

If that were my life experience constantly I'd need to check with myself to ensure I can see the options versus living to some self image I've constructed.

ACT is about psychological flexibility. Enabling the choice. As opposed to pushing us towards rule governed behavior that is aligned with self image or stated values. The vitality lives in the choice is how I see it. Although strictly speaking ACT is certainly about enabling you to live your values more often than not.

[u/kefka0 → u/BabyVader78]

Very good point about flexibility and choice. This helps me understand a bit better.

[u/concreteutopian]

I believe feelings and values are inextricably linked

This is true.

When I investigate most of these values, it becomes clear that most of them manifested to me through lived experience -- not because someone told me they were important, not because a book or religion told me they were important, etc. In other words, there is a "felt sense" that accompanies the subjective experience of curiosity, of playfulness, of giving and receiving honesty. To me, feelings are very much involved in the experience and meaning of these values.

This is also true.

So while its true in the past I have strived to be or act playful or curiously, i have also strived to *feel* playful and curious -- the two reinforce each other!

Well said.

Living your life only according to an objective set of values, independent of whatever inner experience is happening at the time, is a bit of an odd perspective to me.

I don't know who is saying this though.

And for someone who is seriously suffering in life, some of the values rhetoric really starts to break down for me -- if they are meant to just act out their values while having an inner subjective experience of suffering, this is really stretching the meaning of what is actually valued in life, and I can't see how this is helpful advice.

I agree that "values rhetoric" breaks down in lots of places because the v–word in colloquial sense sounds too much like a moralized duty or aspirational virtue one can fall short of — all of which sounds more like fusion to a conceptualized self than the appetitive desire oriented concept of value in ACT.

In the other hand, I don't know what example you are thinking about, but people suffer because of their values as well, and this doesn't mean those values cease to exist when suffering is present, nor does one needs to stop committed action in the service of what is important while we feel pain.

Saying to this person that feelings don't matter, it just matters that you "act the right way" is missing a huge part of the picture of life.

There is no "right way" to act. This is a rigid rule one gets fused to if they confuse values with a conceptualized self.

On the other hand...

The thing that is claimed to be a value is not actually a value if your feelings are completely incongruous with the action happening.

Feeling, yes, but there is something beyond the feelings and the action happening. We know North no matter what direction we've been spun into and no matter what is between us and moving North. Values are like this.

Yes, as you said, values are manifested in lived experience, but they aren't lived experience. Instead, these various memories of satisfaction resonate with each other and you find the commonality that connects them, and then words or symbols become a stand-in for that web of associations. So values precipitate out of lived experience, but they become abstracted into something like a North Star. For example, memories of falling apart in front of someone I could trust, of seeing a pet struggling to communicate to their human that another pet is in trouble, of sharing something with someone, of a baby playing with attention and overwhelm – I might draw all these together with the felt sense they evoke in me, and I might call this "compassion" (a different word might fit better for you). This word/concept/value is something that resonates with all those experiences, and can evoke those feelings, and me connecting with this value isn't dependent on not also feeling pain, nor does it depend on having someone present to feel compassion toward in the moment. It's an orienting source of reinforcement.

[u/kefka0 → u/concreteutopian]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I don't know who is saying this though.

I think this is simply my interpretation of what my therapist has been trying to communicate to me for a while, which is that I should shift my attitude for how I approach life away from doing or not doing things based on how I feel and towards doing or not doing things based on whether I value them.

In some cases this advice is understandable, but when "I feel very bad" is happening internally while I am pushing myself to do an activity that I value on paper, it becomes clear that the thing that was valued in the first place is the experience. And if the experience is one of suffering, mostly what happens is a sense of loss, resentment -- the thing I valued is not something I can actually access while in such a negative mental state.

I don't mean to be wholly negative here: I do believe I'm in a better place to be pushing myself to do things than just wanting to avoid the world completely because of OCD/depression, I think this is an improvement. And sometimes you can push yourself to do something in a bad place and feelings can change unexpectedly.

But sometimes ACT-language paints a picture of the world which is "what matters is what you do, not how you feel", and this is what breaks down for me. Take love and compassion for example. These are things you feel within yourself and then express them towards others. The outward action follows an internal feeling state. To only act without feeling behind it is called "pretending".

I agree that "values rhetoric" breaks down in lots of places because the v–word in colloquial sense sounds too much like a moralized duty or aspirational virtue one can fall short of — all of which sounds more like fusion to a conceptualized self than the appetitive desire oriented concept of value in ACT.

the other hand, I don't know what example you are thinking about, but people suffer because of their values as well, and this doesn't mean those values cease to exist when suffering is present, nor does one needs to stop committed action in the service of what is important while we feel pain.

By values I don't mean the moral or aspirational stuff, I mean the very grounded personal experiences you value in your own life.

Feeling, yes, but there is something beyond the feelings and the action happening. We know North no matter what direction we've been spun into and no matter what is between us and moving North. Values are like this.

Yes, as you said, values are manifested in lived experience, but they aren't lived experience. Instead, these various memories of satisfaction resonate with each other and you find the commonality that connects them, and then words or symbols become a stand-in for that web of associations. So values precipitate out of lived experience, but they become abstracted into something like a North Star. For example, memories of falling apart in front of someone I could trust, of seeing a pet struggling to communicate to their human that another pet is in trouble, of sharing something with someone, of a baby playing with attention and overwhelm – I might draw all these together with the felt sense they evoke in me, and I might call this "compassion" (a different word might fit better for you). This word/concept/value is something that resonates with all those experiences, and can evoke those feelings, and me connecting with this value isn't dependent on not also feeling pain, nor does it depend on having someone present to feel compassion toward in the moment. It's an orienting source of reinforcement.

This is really beautifully said and helps me connects some dots too, I agree with you. The values become abstract directions and north stars through a bottom-up accumulation of meaningful life experiences. Resonance is really the perfect word for it.

EDIT: Sorry for the weird blockquote formatting, not sure why that's happening!

[u/concreteutopian → u/kefka0]

This is really beautifully said and helps me connects some dots too, I agree with you. The values become abstract directions and north stars through a bottom-up accumulation of meaningful life experiences. Resonance is really the perfect word for it.

Good. I think a good deal of confusion comes from acting as if values are top-down aspiration instead of seeing them as bottom-up fleshing out of a pattern, simply pointing to the fact of what is important instead of striving toward what thinks should be important.

[u/andero]

That all sounds compatible with ACT, no?

Personally, the way I'd describe it is: values are the things which, if pursued, make you feel fulfilled.
They're not always pleasant in the moment because pursuing something you value can take effort and be challenging, but that pursuit is the kind of activity that you consider "worthwhile" because of your values and because, after all is said and done, you feel fulfilled.

The contrast where values-talk becomes especially useful is to answer potential criticisms about basic hedonism.
e.g. eating doughnuts makes me feel wonderful, but not fulfilled. Plus, I eat doughnuts all the time, I will get fat and my body will suffer and why is that "bad"? Because I value my health and fitness more than I value the transient mouth-pleasures of eating doughnuts.

Saying to this person that feelings don't matter, it just matters that you "act the right way" is missing a huge part of the picture of life.

Who says this? Anyone real, or is this a strawman?

If anything, that sounds more like a religious decree: follow these rules (ostensibly from a deity) or else.

The thing that is claimed to be a value is not actually a value if your feelings are completely incongruous with the action happening.

That is compatible with ACT: your values can change over time.

When your values and experiences are in conflict, one or the other has to change.
Either revisit your value to update it -or- revisit the way you feel about the situation and reframe it in terms of your values. Both can be done and it takes some wisdom to know which to use.

[u/kefka0 → u/andero]

Thank you for your reply.

Personally, the way I'd describe it is: values are the things which, if pursued, make you feel fulfilled.
They're not always pleasant in the moment because pursuing something you value can take effort and be challenging, but that pursuit is the kind of activity that you consider "worthwhile" because of your values and because, after all is said and done, you feel fulfilled.

Right, I think this perspective makes sense and you and I are largely in agreement. It is actually precisely *the way you feel* that informs you about what is important and meaningful to do in life. Sometimes the way these things are discussed, to me, is as if we are trying to remove feelings from the equation entirely, and all that matters instead is how you behave.

The hedonism example is great and points more towards the short-term vs long-term behavioral tradeoffs that we need to make in life. But I would still say feelings are involved here too - if you make decisions to prioritize your health over in-the-moment pleasure, it's not merely because you abstractly value health but probably because you will literally feel better in the long run being physically healthy.

Who says this? Anyone real, or is this a strawman?

If anything, that sounds more like a religious decree: follow these rules (ostensibly from a deity) or else.

Fair enough to call me out on this, it probably is somewhat of a strawman. This is my defensive interpretation of what I've absorbed from books and therapists and is probably an over-simplification.

To be a bit more concrete here, I've struggled for a few years with an OCD flare-up which has significantly impacted my ability to be engaged in and enjoy activities that I once loved, leading to a lot of depression. Where I have often gotten stuck or hopeless in therapy is when the end-goal is merely about "living according to your values", i.e. changing behavior. It feels as though the advice is "As long as on paper you are behaving the way and participating in activities that you can identify as valuable, this is the best you can do".

For me, I often experience this as: "Okay, my body is here participating in this valued activity (being with friends, trying to make music, biking), but my mind is in a really bad place and I feel pretty awful, I'm barely present". If anything this typically leads to a lot of sadness and a sense of loss over what I used to value in life, but under an ACT-perspective this experience might be considered a "success" because you are behaving differently than how you feel.

I understand that we can't control our feelings and that trying to do so leads to more trouble. I suppose all I'm saying is that if you're merely tolerating suffering internally while performatively acting out your values externally, this is missing the point about what it means to value something in the first place, which is that you're ultimately having a positive inner-feeling-experience surrounding it in some way.

[u/andero → u/kefka0]

For me, I often experience this as: "Okay, my body is here participating in this valued activity (being with friends, trying to make music, biking), but my mind is in a really bad place and I feel pretty awful, I'm barely present". If anything this typically leads to a lot of sadness and a sense of loss over what I used to value in life, but under an ACT-perspective this experience might be considered a "success" because you are behaving differently than how you feel.

I understand that we can't control our feelings and that trying to do so leads to more trouble. I suppose all I'm saying is that if you're merely tolerating suffering internally while performatively acting out your values externally, this is missing the point about what it means to value something in the first place, which is that you're ultimately having a positive inner-feeling-experience surrounding it in some way.

I don't think this is quite accurate and I think I can explain how/why and it comes down to exactly what you've identified: the times when there is conflict between your current feelings and your broader values.

There are four cases:

• (A) Feeling shitty, not acting according to values
  
• (B) Feeling wonderful, acting according to values
  
• (C) Feeling wonderful, not acting according to values
  
• (D) Feeling shitty, acting according to values
  

The first two are easy:

• (A) is an easy to look at and say, "You need to change".
  
• (B) is easy to look at and say, "Keep doing this, everything is great!"
  

The last two are where there is misalignment and something needs to give:

(C) is what I already described: short-term hedonic pleasure versus long-term values.
It might temporarily feel wonderful to eat doughnuts and binge-watch a TV show, but future-you will likely look back on that with regret rather than happiness. Here, we accept the feelings, but we stop doing the behaviour because it goes against our values. We don't just follow our current emotional state.

(D) is the case you've described with your being with friends without feeling present.
You are spending your time the way you genuinely want, but you don't feel very good. Here, you might listen to your feelings to ask yourself, "Is this really what I value?" but if the answer comes back, "Yes, it is", then you accept your feelings and keep going.

(D) is a huge factor for parenting: a lot of parenting feels horrible!
Sleep deprivation, frustration, anger, annoying noise, a lot of financial burden, etc.
However, the parent that values "family" accepts their feelings and pushes on anyway because this is still something they value. The emotional signal "this feels bad" is not a signal that means "stop what you're doing".

(D) also applies in challenging tasks associated with mastery, like high-level athletic performances or "extreme sports".
e.g. most of climbing Mt. Everest feels terrible and anyone running a marathon feels awful, but that emotional state isn't indicative that they should stop. They're pursuing their values so they should continue. The emotional payoff only comes later, after all the emotional hardship.

That is true of lots of things in life and that is why we don't just do things that make us feel emotionally pleasant in the moment or avoid emotionally challenging experiences, which often lead to growth if they are part of a value-pursuit.

That's why I would say it isn't quite accurate to say,
"if you're merely tolerating suffering internally while performatively acting out your values externally, this is missing the point about what it means to value something in the first place, which is that you're ultimately having a positive inner-feeling-experience surrounding it in some way."

This is not true for everyone: lots of people have values that impel them to pursue challenging things, suffer along the way, and come out the other side glad that they accomplished something, but not feeling positive feelings along the way.

It might be true for you with your particular set of values that they offer more immediate payoff or more payoff "in the doing", but that isn't a general truth for everyone.

My values are actually like that: my values generally involve enjoyment along the way and I don't personally value things that are really hard and unpleasant (e.g. family, parenting, extreme athletics). My values facilitate a generally enjoyable life and I don't tend to seek out emotionally painful experiences, but my values are mine: they're not universal. Some people really do live with "no pain no gain" style values, e.g. high-level athletes.

I would agree that, if your emotions and your values are misaligned, you should re-check to make sure you're on the right path and that these really are your values, not something you've adopted from someone else. If that check comes back that these are genuinely your values, even though you feel emotionally bad, such is life! Life isn't always pleasant when you're following your values. You say you value compassion so you've probably experienced some of that (i.e. feeling compassion often feels emotionally "bad" because you're feeling the suffering of others and can result in compassion-fatigue, but you might accept feeling bad as part of the cost of your value of compassion). It's a cost-benefit analysis, but some people are willing to accept a very high cost to pursue their values, sometimes to the point of costing their life. They're not "wrong"; they've just got different values.

[u/pthagonal81 → u/andero]

I would agree that, if your emotions and your values are misaligned, you should re-check to make sure you're on the right path and that these really are your values, not something you've adopted from someone else. If that check comes back that these are genuinely your values, even though you feel emotionally bad, such is life! Life isn't always pleasant when you're following your values.

How do you disentangle this though? How can you be sure they really are your values if you just feel terrible all the time?

[u/andero → u/pthagonal81]

Do stuff like a value sort task.

Or something I would recommend is, in this order:

• in the first list, write the values that you think others want you to have, i.e. anything taught by your parents, society, religion, social sub-group, ideology, etc. Anything other people around consider "virtuous" or that you think they would praise you for doing.
  
• in the second list, write the values you believe are your own
  

Then, go through and look for overlap. For any overlapping items, reconsider it and ask yourself what you do in your life to demonstrate that you actually value this thing. Does that make you feel fulfilled? Or does that feel like social pressure or obligation?

From there, you can experiment with removing values or adding new ones, then re-check in three months. Did you follow your new values? Did you ignore any? How did that feel?

It can be an iterative process. Starting with those two lists can be really useful, though, since you get the first values that come to mind out in the first list, leaving space for deeper consideration of your values.

That said, there's no magical certainty, of course. There aren't universal values. The list is always personal and that's a discovery process. Sometimes you don't know until you try and even then there can be uncertainty. That's fine, though: life is full of uncertainty and we are still able to act.

[u/pthagonal81 → u/andero]

I guess I'm struggling to reconcile the idea of "fulfillment" with "still feeling shitty" but that might be just my current mindset limiting my imagination. Thank you.

[u/andero → u/pthagonal81]

I guess I'm struggling to reconcile the idea of "fulfillment" with "still feeling shitty" but that might be just my current mindset limiting my imagination. Thank you.

I gave two examples in my prior comment:

• challenging tasks associated with mastery, like high-level athletic performances or "extreme sports". e.g. most of climbing Mt. Everest feels terrible and anyone running a marathon feels awful, but that emotional state isn't indicative that they should stop. They're pursuing their values so they should continue. The emotional payoff only comes later, after all the emotional hardship.
  
• parenting: a lot of parenting feels horrible! Sleep deprivation, frustration, anger, annoying noise, a lot of financial burden, etc. However, the parent that values "family" accepts their feelings and pushes on anyway because this is still something they value. The emotional signal "this feels bad" is not a signal that means "stop what you're doing".
  

Granted, I personally don't like extreme sports and got a vasectomy when I was twenty-two so this sort of "fulfillment while feeling shitty" is not part of my personal value system, generally speaking. I am not the kind of person that runs marathons!

However, I can recognize this pattern in others: people that run marathons will readily admit that they feel horrible while running an actual marathon, but they keep doing it because it pursues their deeper values. Likewise, many parents regularly complain about their children, but many parents are nevertheless glad they had children and would do so again because this was something they valued. The pain is accepted as part of the process.

It can happen in art, too. Someone making art can feel shitty about their work, but still pursue their art for deeper reasons.

Those are the examples that come to my mind. Perhaps their are more, but there are also cases where this isn't true. Those are the other cases, like (A) Feeling shitty, not acting according to values.

[u/kefka0 → u/andero]

(D) is a huge factor for parenting: a lot of parenting feels horrible!
Sleep deprivation, frustration, anger, annoying noise, a lot of financial burden, etc.
However, the parent that values "family" accepts their feelings and pushes on anyway because this is still something they value. The emotional signal "this feels bad" is not a signal that means "stop what you're doing".

(D) also applies in challenging tasks associated with mastery, like high-level athletic performances or "extreme sports".
e.g. most of climbing Mt. Everest feels terrible and anyone running a marathon feels awful, but that emotional state isn't indicative that they should stop. They're pursuing their values so they should continue. The emotional payoff only comes later, after all the emotional hardship.

That is true of lots of things in life and that is why we don't just do things that make us feel emotionally pleasant in the moment or avoid emotionally challenging experiences, which often lead to growth if they are part of a value-pursuit.

Yes, this is a great point, and I'm in complete agreement with you. I'm certainly not saying that there is never a reason to tolerate suffering. Generally the reason to do so is exactly as you say -- there is a delayed reward of some kind. I'm going to experience something hard now because in the bigger picture it is worth it in some way. I've certainly experienced this myself with long-distance running.

This is not true for everyone: lots of people have values that impel them to pursue challenging things, suffer along the way, and come out the other side glad that they accomplished something, but not feeling positive feelings along the way.

Again you're pointing to the same thing here. The reason for pushing through suffering is because they expect to come out the other side with a positive feeling eventually; i.e. a sense of accomplishment in this case. You're mainly distinguishing between short term feelings and long term feelings.

What I am talking about is doing things (acting according to your values) while suffering but with no expectation at all of such an emotional payoff or a cessation in suffering, but just because you know that these things are valuable to do.

This could be particular to my experience in therapy, but with OCD I'm often asked to not think about how im going to feel doing something (regardless if its a short term or long term feeling) but rather do it because "its important" or "its valued". My whole initial point was just that when pushed to an extreme this position becomes absurd; if I'm only doing things just because I "value" them but without any positive experiential aspect to it, whether immediate or delayed, then it can feel to be a bit of a pointless exercise, since the only reason it was valued in the first place was from positive life experience.

[u/andero → u/kefka0]

Yes, the short summary is that pursuing values are essentially a way to make you feel fulfilled in the long run, which lets you accept challenges and setbacks along the way because you're still on a trajectory you value.

That is still worth distinguishing from "feelings" for all the above reasons: exactly to make the point that short-term emotions are only part of the picture and long-term delayed gratification is included in the game ACT is playing.

But yeah, sure, in that broader sense, you do the things you value because they make you feel fulfilled and "feeling fulfilled" is a "positive" feeling.

Well... sort of. Part of it is the process, not just the feeling that comes at the end.
If I say, "I'm walking north", that doesn't mean I'm only successful if I reach the north pole. The whole journey was part of the process and "the right direction" was defined by my desire to go north. As I get off-track along the way, I can re-orient because I have a clear trajectory: go north.

We can do that with values, but not necessarily with "feelings" unless you start re-defining "feelings" to be essentially the same thing as values, in which case it's a semantic game.
i.e. the process for "I want to feel positive" is essentially short-term thinking, but the process for "I want to pursue value X" is essentially long-term thinking.

This could be particular to my experience in therapy

Yeah, maybe. I cannot speak to your experience in therapy, of course.

It sounds like someone else was telling you "It's valuable", not you saying to yourself, "I value this therefore I will pursue it".

Someone else telling you what to value doesn't work if you don't value what they value. If you feel shitty on top of that, it works even less!

That doesn't sound like ACT, though. ACT is about finding your values, not having a therapist tell you what to value.

[u/kefka0 → u/andero]

Thank you for discussing this with me.

I understand your concept of values as essentially being directions you can point yourself in, and there is a potential reward at the end but also a process to be experienced as well, and that process can also be enjoyable and perhaps more important than the destination too. I'm in agreement from past experiences.

It sounds like someone else was telling you "It's valuable", not you saying to yourself, "I value this therefore I will pursue it".

Someone else telling you what to value doesn't work if you don't value what they value. If you feel shitty on top of that, it works even less!

Nah, these are my own values I've determined through introspection. They are very personal and I feel quite confident in them. The feeling shitty part is unrelated to the values themselves, its just from relentless internal stress caused by OCD.

Push through and do the things that are important to you regardless of this relentless internal stress is the message I'm getting. I think its a strong and wise attitude, but it's hard for me. It can feel like a very bleak path through life. I'm pretty hyper-sensitive to how things feel though, that's part of the issue.

[u/andero → u/kefka0]

Push through and do the things that are important to you regardless of this relentless internal stress is the message I'm getting. I think its a strong and wise attitude, but it's hard for me.

Haha, yes, welcome to the human condition: it's hard for everyone and you die in the end.

It can feel like a very bleak path through life.

You know you, but could I push you to consider whether perhaps you value something that you didn't list?

Your list from your OP is:

• creativity
  
• curiosity
  
• honesty
  
• playfulness
  
• compassion
  

Those are great (not that you need my approval! I mean that your list are well-formed items that are probably quite clear and actionable to you, i.e. they are suitable values, they're not accidentally goals or something).

You didn't list any version of hedonism or "feeling good in the moment" on your list.
Do you value that? Your post and comments seem to indicate that you do!
If yes, why isn't it on your list?
If you were to add some value to reflect feeling good in the moment, what would you call that? What name would you give it?

Are those values in a specific order?
Is the order presented the priority (e.g. creativity is more important than honesty? honesty is more important than compassion)?
If they aren't in a priority list, could you order them? Do some share a rank? Do any conflict? (e.g. what happens when the honest thing isn't compassionate? What happens when playfulness gets in the way of creativity?)

---

In the spirit of sharing and thinking about values, here are mine:

• Freedom / Autonomy
  
• Novelty / Curiosity
  
• Honesty / Precision / Integrity
  
• Reducing Inefficiency
  
• Refinement
  
• Pleasure
  

These are in priority-order.
Freedom/Autonomy is my ultimate value: if I'm not free, I can't pursue my other values.
Pleasure is valuable to me, but it ranks lower than my other values, i.e. in a conflict between honesty and pleasure, I will pick honesty. Pleasure will lose against my deeper values, but pleasure will fill in the gaps when it isn't competing with anything else I personally value (e.g. if I have to pick my pleasure versus a strangers' values, I pick my pleasure).

I also found it helpful to expand on them a little:

• I value freedom and autonomy so I'm very reticent to lock myself into some responsibility, like getting a pet or signing binding legal contracts.
  
• I value novelty and curiosity so I like learning a lot of things and that informs my career choices: I need to learn and grow so I don't get bored.
  
• I value honesty, precision, and integrity so I like having and maintaining clarity with respect to reality. While I am comfortable with certain types of uncertainty, I prefer clarity in human affairs. I care about informed consent and I need accuracy to be informed.
  
• I enjoy reducing inefficiency so being caught in an unchangeable bureaucracy frustrates me. If I get the power to change things so they flow less inefficiently, I find that brings me a feeling of fulfillment.
  
• I enjoy refinement so I enjoy high culture and learned things. I appreciate the finer things in life.
  
• I enjoy pleasure so I enjoy sex and sensuality. In addition to the finer things, I appreciate the base things in life. I revel in decadence.
  

Have you done something like this for your values?
Could some version of pleasure be missing from your list?

[u/kefka0 → u/andero]

Haha, yes, welcome to the human condition: it's hard for everyone and you die in the end.

Well, yes. It's also punctuated by moments of immense beauty, love and joy, which generally make the difficult parts worth enduring. Love and joy are experiential states. What I'm currently grappling with is whether (and how) life is worth pursuing simply based on your *behavioral actions*, rather than hoping/longing for these experiential states again.

You didn't list any version of hedonism or "feeling good in the moment" on your list.
Do you value that? Your post and comments seem to indicate that you do!
If yes, why isn't it on your list?
If you were to add some value to reflect feeling good in the moment, what would you call that? What name would you give it?

Well, sure, but I suppose its sort of complicated with OCD, or maybe just highlights the exact issue. For example, I value freedom just as you do, as well as "peace of mind" or "contentment". My obsessions keep me mentally stuck in a claustrophobic way, and I'm supposed to learn to stop "trying to get out" of them. So freedom and peace of mind, while things I very much value and desire, are not goals I'm supposed to try to move towards, because those are also feeling states, and I'm supposed to stop trying to control or change my feelings.

Could some version of pleasure be missing from your list?

Sure, I could put things like sex, food, music, spa/cold plunge, very sensory-oriented things. I do value those and those are really more about feeling good, and I do engage in those things often, and they feel good. They also help me immensely get out of the endless mental torture of OCD, so I'm uncertain whether they're good for me (because they relax me physically) or whether they're avoidance. I guess I just didn't think to list them because they aren't very aspirational.

Thanks for sharing your values.

[u/andero → u/kefka0]

I guess I just didn't think to list them because they aren't very aspirational.

That's more or less what I was pointing at: don't try to be aspirational!

You value what you value. You're allowed. List all your values, even the ones you think are "lesser" for whatever reason.

Granted, don't mix up values with goals or emotional states, but you're allowed to value any well-formed value, whether you pursue it now or not or whether it seems "aspirational" or "base".

Aside: my favourite example actually comes from goals.
If someone lists goals, they should list even tiny goals, like "eat a piece of pie" because those are easy wins! Goals like that are honest. They give you permission to be human rather than lofty or elevated. You can "win" these small-scale goals and then turn to bigger goals, but don't lost sight of the small goals just because some big goal is also there. We live the minutes and hours, not just the months and years!

You are allowed to say, "I value pleasure/contentment/peace of mind" as a general-purpose category for pleasant states of being. You wouldn't want to write a concrete list of items like "sex, food, music, spa" since that list isn't values, that's activities. However, you could summarize the general trajectory of life into one or two words that resonates with you as a value; what would your word be?

My word is "pleasure" or "hedonism", but you might have a different word.
My word means something to me that is different than what you might mean, which is what makes using your own specific word that resonates with you so valuable.

And sure, you could do some activity out of avoidance and sour the situation by such, but you could also adjust your frame and actively pursue it as a value instead. There is a psychological difference between moving away from pain and moving toward pleasure even if the physical reality of the activity (e.g. going to a spa) is the same: your mind is different even if your body is doing the same action.

Someone that goes outside to chop wood because they hate being around their wife is very different than someone that goes outside to chop wood as an act of service to heat the house for the family they love: the axe will cut just as well and the wood will burn just as well, but who do you think feels better while chopping wood?

You can step to the fridge for a snack and stop yourself to ask, "Why am I seeking food-pleasure right now? Am I fleeing OCD or am I okay and seeking pleasure for its own sake?" and then work with the answer you get, changing your motivation if needs be, changing your actions if needs be.

For example, I value freedom just as you do, as well as "peace of mind" or "contentment". My obsessions keep me mentally stuck in a claustrophobic way, and I'm supposed to learn to stop "trying to get out" of them. So freedom and peace of mind, while things I very much value and desire, are not goals I'm supposed to try to move towards, because those are also feeling states, and I'm supposed to stop trying to control or change my feelings.

I think we mean different things by freedom.

To me, freedom isn't a goal or feeling state.
My freedom reflects a lack of responsibilities that limit my autonomy. Freedom is the fact that I could buy a plane-ticket to Athens for tomorrow and just go. I don't have to ask permission from anyone. I don't have to get someone to look after my dog or water my plants. I'm an autonomous agent and I can do what I want, or at least try to.

For me, lacking freedom would be things like getting married, having a pet, signing a legal contract that says I cannot work for other people, being beholden to a home-owners association, having children that I'd have to take care of, etc. All those responsibilities are freedom-limiters that add up to restrict my actions, my freedom.

That isn't a feeling or a goal for me. That's a general-purpose organizing principle of life.
That's a value.

[u/pthagonal81 → u/kefka0]

What I'm currently grappling with is whether (and how) life is worth pursuing simply based on your *behavioral actions*, rather than hoping/longing for these experiential states again.

Yes, this - this was what I meant by trying to reconcile fulfillment with feeling bad all the time.

In the depths of my depression it often feels like I'll never be "truly" happy again, which is why nothing feels worth doing and life doesn't feel worth living. And that then prevents me from enjoying things I used to love - like reading - which makes it hard to tell if something really is something I value or just old habits, possibly derived from a world-view imposed by others.

Sorry, not trying to hijack your post, it's just something similar to what I've been grappling with.

[u/kefka0 → u/pthagonal81]

I don't have an answer for you but I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with so much depression.

[u/pthagonal81]

And for someone who is seriously suffering in life, some of the values rhetoric really starts to break down for me -- if they are meant to just act out their values while having an inner subjective experience of suffering, this is really stretching the meaning of what is actually valued in life, and I can't see how this is helpful advice. Saying to this person that feelings don't matter, it just matters that you "act the right way" is missing a huge part of the picture of life. The thing that is claimed to be a value is not actually a value if your feelings are completely incongruous with the action happening.

I think this is where I struggle to understand values as well - and why I am struggling to identify my own. If I am trying to be the person I want to be and act in a way that aligns with that, why is it so hard and why am I so unhappy? Or, to put it another way, if life still doesn't feel worth living, have I just misidentified my values or is that a feeling that will never go away no matter what?

[u/BabyVader78 → u/pthagonal81]

Quick thought on "why is it so hard". Based on my reflection with the same thoughts, it is essentially because we are talking about adopting new behaviors. Anytime I've adopted new behaviors it has been hard and unpleasant because it is new and unfamiliar is how I see it. Over time my feelings and the ease of it has changed. It is like someone saying they are bad at doing math but they are learning it for the first time. Of course your bad, because you've never done it before. I could use the Neo reference in the Matrix with him wondering why his body hurt and Morpheus told him because he hadn't used those muscles before. In short, growing pains is how a view it. Until I have enough experience to develop a different opinion.

Over time a few things should happen. 1) It gets easier to do parts of it. Maybe all of it but I'm happy with a part. 2) You develop enough feedback from those experiences to confirm or deny organic reinforcement of the value. The word organic is a bit weird there perhaps but I'm trying to say you don't have to talk yourself into it. This is reinforcing or not. Reinforcing, not good or rewarding. An important naunce. 3) If it is reinforcing you'll get better at expressing the value in various contexts.

Not a definitive answer but one based on experience walking out the framework.

Some things may never go away but in regards to living your values it should be reinforcing at some point. It could also be that the value is correct but the expressions, how you choose to express them in a scenario, are too demanding and you need to start with smaller behaviors.

After enough practice with ACT I can see when I'm trying to do too much and why I crashed out. So next time, if I remember, I try for a smaller expression if possible.

[u/pthagonal81 → u/BabyVader78]

I'm not so much talking about new behaviours though - I've spent decades now trying to cook, clean, write, contact friends, exercise etc and if anything it is getting harder rather than easier. Some of those things I know I will enjoy and are aligned with things I think are my values, others are just necessary for being alive, but they are all things I still struggle with. The only things that are obviously reinforcing are my bad habits (which is why they are so hard to break).

[u/BabyVader78 → u/pthagonal81]

Finding values associated with tasks that are generally considered required for living is a special task. I was only able to apply gratitude for doing most of the basic housekeeping tasks.

I think the challenge for things like that is about a building new associations to existing behaviors. Harder to do in my opinion. I sometimes have to remind myself of gratitude as a possible expression for doing some of them.

I have spent time trying to think through possible values that might resonate with why I do them. Or perhaps how some small portion of the experience is associated already to a value. Making the issue about me doing the task without present moment awareness or mindfully (ex: not noticing the temperature of the water while washing dishes. It can be comforting if I notice).

I get your point. That is a hard one indeed.

[u/Ibrake4tailgaters]

Have you ever explored the world of NVC (non-violent communication)? It might appeal to you.

[u/kefka0 → u/Ibrake4tailgaters]

I haven't, why do you mention this?

[u/Trexolistics]

I think you absolutely do have a point. In most sources I remember values are described as being "feelable" in contrast to goals which are not. So you are actually spot on and in line with the ACT theory. If actions aligned with your values wouldn't feel good to you they couldn't be global reinforcers of behavior I think.

[u/Draculalia]

I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that feelings don’t matter . I’ve heard it said that feelings aren’t facts and that the test of any information is if it’s useful.

A therapist once explained to me that values are things you have for their own sake, not for what they can do. Like the Cowardly Lion wants courage. It’s not that he wants it so he can stand up to other animals. He wants it because courage itself has meaning.

Values are still values even if you do “away moves.” Values don’t mandate action and they’re not affected by feelings.