Use Personal Core Values
to Reduce Stress

No one likes making mistakes.
Living by traditional personal core values can help us avoid it.

Personal core values like kindness and compassion for all creatures, forgiveness, responsibility, and honesty can increase the happiness and harmony in our lives.

These stress reducing traditional values can:

• promote greater cooperation and joy in our relationships,
• promote mental and emotional peace,
• guide us, and clarify our choices,
• help to resolve our fear, shame, conflict and confusion,
• foster an innate sense of self respect and
• help us integrate spiritual principles into our practical daily lives.

Developing a list of core values is a bit like developing your personal code of ethics. You are basically saying, "These are the traditional qualities I think are important. I choose to be guided by these values in my life."

The following list of values is certainly not complete. But it may give you a place to start.

Personal Core Values for Stress Relief Include:

• Kindness-
  Practicing kindness (toward ourselves and others) is
  a basic personal core value which nourishes and soothes stressed nerves and wounded hearts. You don’t need to be a “rocket scientist” or “intellectual giant” in order to be kind. My husband’s grandmother was a simple woman who had three rules of life that worked well for her:
  
       1) Be kind.            2) Be kind.            3) Be kind.
  
  Kindness and compassion practiced consistently build positive relationships and add a heartwarming gentleness to life.
• Honesty-
  To live by truth does require courage. Not everyone will agree with us. But commitment to truth enhances life. Genuine integrity and dedication to truth can inspire others to trust us. It can open surprising and unexpected opportunities for us in life.Practicing honesty can significantly reduce fear in life. When we are honest we eliminate the fear that someone will “find out” the truth of what we have done.Adherence to truth builds self respect and gives us a solid standard to live by.
• Forgiveness-
  The benefits of forgiveness include more joy and peace.
  Forgiveness always relates to the past. Forgiveness is a gift we really give to ourselves, as well as the other person. Forgiveness enables us to stop dragging the past around with us, and find greater happiness in the present. Forgiving ourselves and others is easier when we remember that human beings all make mistakes. We all do the best we can, given the amount of resources, understanding and wisdom we currently have.
• Patience-
  Developing patience can relieve stress.
  Our culture values speed, fast food, fast profits, fast results.
  Our minds can work faster than our bodies. And we can almost always think of things faster than we can do them. So it is natural for our desires to outpace our ability to fulfill them. This can lead to frustration. Practicing patience allows us be be more realistic and avoid unnecessary stress.
• Simplicity-
  Simplicity is a great stress reducer.
  In a world which seems to be getting more and more complex, we still have only 24 hours in a day.
  Even with the power of computer technology there are limits to what the human mind and body can deal with. In today’s world, information overload is common.Overload and stress are inevitable until we recognize that our ultimate happiness will be found, not in the “stuff” or "things" of the world, but within ourselves. Then the practice of simplicity becomes practical and joyful.
• Responsibility-
  Responsibility is another important core personal value. Responsibility means doing the best we can to honor and fulfill our obligations and promises.Responsibility also means resisting the temptation to blame the “other guy” for our mistakes. Life is a learning opportunity. Events don’t always happen the way we want them to. But when we look to see how we could improve our behavior, rather than blaming the other person, we can learn from our experiences and hopefully do better the next time.
• Commitment -
  Commitment can reduce relationship and family stress.
  Commitment requires dedication. It reduces uncertainty. It promotes trust, soothing continuity and stability in life. This reduces stress. Commitment to nurturing family and relationships is another key personal core value for stress relief.

Additional List of Core Values

There are many other personal core values which you may find meaningful in guiding your life. Consider the following list of core values. You may choose to be:

Accepting, Appreciative, Balanced, Clean, Cheerful,

Compassionate, Content, Creative, Considerate, Courageous,

Disciplined, Dedicated, Enthusiastic, Encouraging, Efficient,

Ethical, Fair, Flexible, Friendly, Gentle, Generous, Helpful,

Harmonious, Humble, Humorous, Joyful, Loyal, Merciful,

Moderate, Modest, Nurturing, Orderly, Peaceful, Polite, Playful,

Practical, Powerful, Patient, Principled, Purposeful, Peaceful,

Respectful, Spiritual, Spontaneous, Steadfast, Tolerant,

Thoughtful, Trusting, Tender, Unassuming, Unselfish,

Understanding, or Welcoming

Tools and Applications -

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