Secret #47: Living a Meaningful Life with Jenna LeJeune
Unveil the secret to crafting a fulfilling life even amid turmoil. In this episode, Dr. Jenna LeJeune, a distinguished psychologist, engages in a profound conversation about what truly constitutes a meaningful life. She emphasizes the power of choice, challenging the notion that there is an inherent purpose to discover, and instead advocates for consciously deciding what principles and values we want our lives to embody.
The episode also tackles the uncomfortable reality that living authentically aligned with one's values often accompanies discomfort and pain. LeJeune sheds light on how our deepest values can bring honor to our suffering, challenging the cultural fixation on feeling good. Rather than fixating on avoiding negative emotions, LeJeune suggests focusing on how we can embody our values in any situation, making values the great equalizer—accessible regardless of external circumstances.
Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own lives, the autopiloted values shaped by history, and the importance of stepping outside oneself to recognize and honor the person enduring hardship. This episode is a compelling guide for anyone striving to live with integrity and intention, offering practical wisdom to navigate the complexities of human experience.
Highlights:
Creating a Meaningful Life
Discovering Your Values
What are Values?
Suffering and Values
Values Dilemma in Daily Life
Challenges with Values
Approach to Values in Therapy
Timestamps:
00:00 "Choosing a Meaningful Life"
04:13 Moments of Feeling Truly Alive
07:30 One Approach to Discussing Values
10:54 Values and Suffering Connection
14:29 Embracing Pain as Attachment Reminder
19:29 Rethinking the "Good Life" Concept
24:33 "Aunt's Compassionate Patience"
29:08 Parenting Values Dilemma
31:38 Align Work-Life Values
36:18 "What Do We Truly Value?"
40:21 History Shapes Our Values
44:08 "Inescapable Personal Programming"
47:23 "Choosing Who to Be"
48:24 "Empathy and Values in Parenting"
52:55 Embracing Self-Reflection and Connection
55:18 Practicing Self-Compassion
About Jenna LeJeune
Order ‘Values in Therapy’ a book for clinicians
What would make for a well-lived, meaningful life? Many people come to me because they are feeling “stuck” in their lives. They often feel a loss of vitality, satisfaction, or meaning in their lives. That “stuckness” may come in the form of a chronic sense of emptiness or depression, difficulties with intimacy and relationships, struggles integrating past trauma and other painful life experiences, persistent shame or chronic self-criticism, or a more general life dissatisfaction. The type of therapy that I practice, called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), is an evidence-based therapy that utilizes processes like mindfulness, acceptance, and values in order to help clients develop the skills needed to more effectively work with the suffering they experience.
But a well-lived life is more than just the absence of pain; it is the presence of meaning and purpose. Therefore, rather than just focusing on what people don’t want in their lives, I am most interested in helping people reorient to what they do want their lives to be about. I seek to help people live lives of integrity, purpose, and meaning even when the inevitable pain of life visits them. Many of us haven’t had much opportunity to explore what a “well-lived life” would actually look like for us personally. So, in addition to identifying areas of stuckness, I work with people to explore how they can create a meaningful life in the service of what would be most important to them.
As a licensed psychologist I practice evidence-based therapy, which means that my clinical work is informed by empirical research identifying those methods that science has shown to be most effective. Therapy is a big investment of time, resources, and energy. The scientific data suggest (and my more than 20 years of clinical experience has also shown me) that, for most people, the largest gains from therapy usually occur relatively early on in therapy, often within the first few months. Therefore, in order to help my clients make the most out of their investment in therapy, I work in a focused, time-limited model. That means that I see clients for up to 12 sessions focused on a particular struggle, issue, or theme in order to make real and lasting change. While you may choose to come back at a later point to do another time-limited piece of work together, my focus is on helping you identify unworkable patterns and make concrete changes in your life rather emphasizing ongoing, long-term therapy. Fundamentally, my work is about helping people who are stuck reorient to what is most important and, in doing so, create more meaningful, well-lived lives.
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Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #47: Living a Meaningful Life with Jenna LeJeune
[00:00:00]
Welcome and Guest Introduction
Emma Waddington: Hello, I'm Emma Waddington and welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets.
Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry. And today we are very pleased to have Dr. Jenna Lejeune here with us. Jenna is a psychologist. She is the president and co founder of the Portland [00:01:00] Psychotherapy That's in Portland, Oregon, and she specializes in using acceptance and commitment therapy to help those she serves connect with what is most meaningful, so that they are able to live lives of purpose and integrity, even in the midst of suffering.
Jenna also has specialized training in psychedelic assisted therapy. And she's doing research in clinical trials involving psychedelics. She's the co author of the book Values in Therapy, a clinician's guide to helping clients develop psychological flexibility and live a more meaningful life.
As well as numerous book chapters, journal articles, and other publications largely focused on issues related to values, meaning, self compassion, and shame. And more information about that book will be in the show notes. So, welcome Jenna.
Jenna Lejeune: Oh, thanks so much. I'm really honored to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I love talking [00:02:00] about this topic, so I'm looking forward to it.
Chris McCurry: So, let's, let's jump in.
Defining a Meaningful Life
Chris McCurry: So, creating a meaningful life, what is a meaningful life, all these different ways we can ask this question. how do you begin to think about what makes a life meaningful?
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. When I think about what makes a life meaningful, kind of core to that is the idea of choice, so, I am not of the opinion that there is some sort of objective or inherent. Meaning in life that we are supposed to discover somehow, but rather my work and in my own life, what makes for a meaningful life is, is, is essentially choosing, saying, Hey, you know, if I had, if I got to choose any way of being in this world, these are the things I would like my life to stand for, [00:03:00] and then organizing my life and my behaviors Oh, so that it kind of moves me in that direction.
That for me is a meaningful life. It's when I talk with folks, it's sort of like, imagine getting to the end of your life and like in that split second before whatever happens, everything goes black or white or whatever happens, you have a moment to look back and you say, that, that was well lived. Like, that's what I'm hoping for when I'm.
Either in my life, thinking about values work or with my clients or talking with others about it.
Chris McCurry: Well, hopefully we don't have to live to that point in order to experience this.
Jenna Lejeune: That's right. Yes. Partly that's where some psychedelics can come in. Yes. That ability to kind of connect with something greater than yourself, but yes.
Chris McCurry: So finding it, finding it in our daily lives, how do we, how do we do that? Cause it's, it's hard, particularly right now.
Jenna Lejeune: [00:04:00] Yeah,
Chris McCurry: are struggling.
Exploring Values in Daily Life
Jenna Lejeune: I think there are kind of two ways to look at that question. One is to look at where are the places where you might already be engaging in values consistent behavior or you may already be in contact with your values. And so one of the ways that I encourage people to think about that is, like, go through your day.
And when you get to the end of your day, think about what is one moment during day that you just lived where I felt alive. And notice that alive doesn't necessarily mean happy, like I feel really alive when I'm, you know, standing up for something that's really meaningful for me, even if I'm not happy. But there's like a sense of life to it. And then When you, when you have that little moment and it may be very [00:05:00] subtle, you know, for me, When I'm out walking my dog really early in the morning is a moment when I'm in contact with my values, but it's kind of a boring moment, right? I feel very alive. And so when you look at those moments and then maybe ask yourself, what is a word, an adjective, an adverb that would describe me in this moment, that would describe how I'm behaving in this moment?
Like, am I? Being patient. Am I being warm? Am I loving? And that might give you a clue that you're, that that might be a value for you. So that's one area, is to kind of first look where might you already be valuing, or where might values already be. And then the second way is just start trying things, like start out with bunch of different ideas about values and we'll talk probably about what values are and aren't, but [00:06:00] start out with a bunch of values and then say, okay, I'm going to try on this value today.
I'm going to see what happens when I intentionally interact with my kids or go to work or interact with my partner in a way that embodies this value and then see what the consequences are. Do you like it? Do you not like it? So those are kind of two ways that I encourage people to start exploring their values.
Justin Case Sits with Anxiety Promo
Emma Waddington: Dear listeners, Chris and I are excited to tell you about our work that is currently available for pre order on Amazon. Just In Case Sits With Anxiety is for 8 12 year olds struggling with anxious thoughts and feelings and the tools and ideas in the book are based on acceptance and commitment therapy.
In the book, Justin has his first babysitting job and together we help him learn to have his anxious thoughts and feelings and still stay focused on what he needs to do in order to get the job done well. The book was published with Jessica Kingsley Publishers and is an [00:07:00] excellent resource for parents and those working with kids and anxiety.
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Chris McCurry: It's kind of a bottom up process rather than saying I'm going to live a certain way, it's, it's, you're experimenting, you're trying things out, you're it's creating variation
Jenna Lejeune: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: What works. And then like do more of that
Jenna Lejeune: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's part of that choice thing because what, for me, would feel life giving and meaningful may not be the same as what it would be for you. For example, my partner, like being playful and funny for him, those are values for him that just like really bring him alive and he loves that. For me, when I try on those values, it's nice, but they're not kind of like, they're not my thing. So then I say, okay, I'm going to choose [00:08:00] something else.
Chris McCurry: finding partners who compliment us in that way is
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah, exactly, yeah,
Distinguishing Values from Goals
Chris McCurry: So Let's talk about what do we mean by values anyway, because I know You have some ideas about that That it's kind of a tricky concept particularly we need to try to start labeling things
Jenna Lejeune: Well, I do think it, I think it's tricky, but I also think it's really important to acknowledge my perspective on this isn't right. It's not the answer, it's not like the right way to look at values. even I would say an act perspective in general, acceptance and commitment therapy, that perspective on values isn't the right way.
Like there have been millennia of people and traditions that have been talking about values. So this is not new. What I would say is like, what I will describe here is, [00:09:00] is one way of speaking about values that's consistent with the act or contextual behavioral science approach. It's my way of talking about it.
You can try it on and see if this is helpful for you. When I think about values I'm thinking about qualities of action. So these are ways of living that Kind of result in a sense of meaning or life or purpose, or just, I mean, just frankly, they're just sort of like, Oh, I like me when I'm behaving that I like the person I am. And so one distinct, I'll make two distinctions that often, you know, values is used in a lot of different ways. So from my perspective, I make a distinction between values and goals. So goals are things that can be achieved, and ideally goals are in the service of a [00:10:00] value, but they're things that can be achieved.
Values can't ever be achieved. You know, if I have a value around lovingly caring for my partner, let's say, he will never wake up and say, You did it! done, you have done, you completed that, way to go. Like there's always a next step for me to engage more lovingly in the world. But I might say something like, many people hopefully choose to have children. That's a goal, it's something you can do or not do. Choose to have children as a way to move towards a value of being loving in the world. That would be a really ideal reason why people might choose to have children. You know, like that kind of a relationship could help them engage more lovingly. So the goal would be to have kids, the value potentially is [00:11:00] engaging loving. And then finally, kind of relatedly, I make a distinction between values and like value domains or arenas. And so if we take the kids example, family would be a value domain. It's an area of life that people find to be important or not. But it's where you live out your values, but saying like, I value family doesn't tell me how I actually want to be with my family.
My values tell me how I want to be with my family. So that's in a nutshell, how I understand values.
The Role of Suffering in Values
Emma Waddington: I was just listening and thinking that how does suffering cause it all, as we're talking about values, it all sounds really lovely and warm and, well, this is the way I like to live my life. And this is the, when I'm acting in accordance with what truly matters to me. I feel [00:12:00] alive. The truth is that often acting in accordance with my values can actually be quite
Jenna Lejeune: absolutely.
Emma Waddington: and it's like, Steve Hayes often, was it Steve Hayes or Kelly Wilson who said, you know, meaning, you'll find meaning where it hurts. And I wonder who's important. For us to touch on that too, for our listeners that no, one of the reasons why we think about values in the work that we do is because Often people come to us with a lot of suffering and trying to reduce that suffering, be it, you know, anxiety, be it low mood be it struggling in relationships, feels incredibly painful and what we know is that, you know, there's some things that can help feel better in the short term.
But really is our work [00:13:00] is thinking about what will bring them meaning, what truly is important to them in their relationships, in those areas in which they're experiencing suffering and pain. So I wonder if you could talk to that a little bit, because yeah, I, I think that's, that's where values work can bring, I was going to say real meaning, but not to repeat the word many times, but, you know, real solace.
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. That's a nice word for it. Yeah. Though, kind of the way I think about it is. That values can bring honor to pain, or values can bring honor in the midst of pain as well. And just to be clear cause sometimes I think this gets a little misunderstood in the world. I'm not against reducing suffering.
Like, if there is a way to reduce suffering, Your own [00:14:00] suffering doesn't interfere with your values. I, I'm really all about that and very often people will find that when their eye is focused on living a life that's in line with their values, also sometimes like pain decreases at times. But the point is that we keep our eye on what is ultimately important and what is ultimately important for most people we know is that. The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of meaning. And when people think about what a good life is, in general, it is not simply the absence of pain, but there's something else. And so we keep our eye on what is the something else, the values, what makes meaning here. And the piece around bringing honor to pain, sometimes there's no, you know, honor and [00:15:00] pain.
It's just like, this is a really hard thing I struggle with and it's just going to be there, right? But sometimes an example I will, I will ask people often is, you know, they'll talk about, I don't know, let's give an example of a relationship ending, either because somebody died or because there's been a breakup or a rupture in some way. And, you know, people are in tremendous pain, and they want to get rid of the pain. Of course they want to get rid of the pain. And one of the things I will ask them is, What, what kind of a person would you need to be in order for this not to hurt so much? And would you want to be that person? You know, imagine a dear loved one has died and you're in tremendous pain.
Well, the way that that doesn't hurt so much is you're less loving or you're less attached to that person or [00:16:00] caring. And then people are able to say, well, I wouldn't want that. And so that can help people sort of see actually your pain tells you what matters to you. And it isn't even just then like, okay, I'll accept the pain, but sort of like, oh, I treasure this because it says something important about me.
Emma Waddington: Brilliant. It's that it's so powerful. I love that.
Parenting and Guilt
Emma Waddington: And I was just thinking I was talking in supervision yesterday and your classic pain of a parent is guilt.
Jenna Lejeune: Oh, yeah.
Emma Waddington: We've talked about it so much in. In our podcast that you can't get away from feeling guilt. You just can't even those of us who, you know, haven't got a Catholic roots.
Cause I always thought that, you know, Catholics particularly carry guilt. My family
Chris McCurry: It's just a it's just a special brand of guilt, you know, it's
Emma Waddington: carrying
Jenna Lejeune: exactly,
Chris McCurry: yeah, it's You know, [00:17:00] i'm a dick
Emma Waddington: cross. I remember there was an expression in, growing up, but that we carry so much guilt as parents. And and I was talking about a case with, with the supervisee and we were saying to that, you know, what kind of parent would you need to be?
in order not to feel
Jenna Lejeune: exactly, and I, I would respectfully disagree with you. I think you can get rid of guilt and the way that you get rid of guilt is either you're not a parent at all and you don't, and I, and when I'm saying parent here, I am, I don't have children, but when I say parent, I'm talking about kind of in the broader definition of that word, caring for young ones, right? Either you don't care at all, well that's kind of your choice, you're not a parent and you don't care about young ones at all, you're probably not then going to feel guilty. That's your choice. If you are going to be a caring parent, that comes with guilt. [00:18:00] It's just going to come. And one of the things in that example I would say is, and when we're focused on not feeling guilty, or when we're focused on trying to solve the quote unquote problem of guilt, Is that helping you move towards being, I'm just using loving as an example value here. Is that helping you move towards being loving or is that about something else?
Is that about just kind of decreasing your own discomfort? And we can help people sort of see like, Oh, I actually want to put my efforts towards being the parent I really want to be, not how do I not feel like a bad parent?
Emma Waddington: Yeah, there's so much wisdom in that, isn't there, in being able to understand where we want to really put our effort. We had Diana Hill on a conversation about wise effort, and I, I love that term, but really feeling, you know, understanding the wisdom of where [00:19:00] do we put our effort, and it's so effortful.
To reduce suffering, like it's so effortful to think about, you know, how do I feel less guilt or how do I worry less about whatever it might be that I'm worrying about? How do I, you know, feel less inadequate
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah.
Emma Waddington: about whatever it is, you know, I could attach all of that to parenting, but, you know, there's many other contexts that bring those feelings up and and yeah, it's really effortful.
And tiring and mostly ineffective
Jenna Lejeune: and, and this is the thing, I also think it's both ineffective, but understandable. Like all of us, all of us have sort of been taught this message. That the way to live a good life is to try and feel good. Another way of saying that is to reduce pain or suffering. And so it makes a lot of sense. We all [00:20:00] probably, I choose to believe, we all want to live a quote unquote good life.
And if we keep getting these messages that a good life is a life where you feel good, of course we're going to focus on trying to reduce that pain. But this approach is more like, What if trying to feel good is actually taking our eye off what's important? And if we could keep our eye on what actually would it mean to live well, even when I don't feel good. That I think, I think it kind of flips the typical message on its head.
Chris McCurry: I think the message has been, you know, feeling good is sort of like the report card, you know, it's the indicator of how well life is going. And for parents, if my child is doing well, that's a report card on my parenting. And so if my child is anxious or sad or angry Then I get to feel guilty because I'm doing something wrong as a parent [00:21:00] and there we are again as opposed to, you know, I mean, when my MS heard this a million times and any of our listeners you know, have heard me say this too, that my favorite definition of resilience is struggling well.
Jenna Lejeune: yeah, yeah,
Chris McCurry: know, we're, you know, we're, we're struggling, but we're struggling well.
Jenna Lejeune: exactly. Oh, I love that.
Chris McCurry: isn't that nice? I don't know where I got that, so I apologize to whoever came up with that term if I'm not citing you correctly. It wasn't me. But, but yeah, I mean, when our kids are suffering or when our spouse is suffering our students are suffering, if we're teachers, you know, Emma and I both supervise people and when our supervisees are struggling, you know, we, you know, we, we feel the compassion that, I got to help, I got to reduce this suffering.
And we do our best to, to, you know, get them to move on from that. But it's, it's usually by focusing outward as opposed to focusing inward [00:22:00] on, you know, continuing to get stuck and ruminating about that thing that I said to my child, you know, 10 years ago that I'm still, unhappy about. And he's probably long forgotten.
Jenna Lejeune: He's holding onto something different. Chris, it's something like completely random that you did, that you had no idea was the thing. He's gonna hold onto
Chris McCurry: Yeah. I'm sure that's true, but hopefully he'll never tell me what that is.
Balancing Values and Discomfort
Emma Waddington: is, it's just so baked into our society that we need to be feeling a certain way. Like I like the, the your analogy, Chris, of the report card, be it about our kids, be it about ourselves. You know, I had a moment a few nights ago where I was like feeling a bit blah about life. Like, I'm not, I'm not feeling it.
And I didn't really know why. And immediately, my sort of attention went to figuring out why I'm feeling blah. [00:23:00] Like, how do I get rid of this feeling that I don't like? What is it that I need to do more of to get rid of the feeling?
Chris McCurry: What's to what's to
blame?
Jenna Lejeune: Mm-hmm
Emma Waddington: what's to blend? Who's to blame you know, which is my favorite, usually direction. But so it's a default, it's a default.
Chris McCurry: Well, we're
problem solvers.
Emma Waddington: problem solving. Yeah. Like, how am I going to get rid of this problem
and our community.
Jenna Lejeune: yeah, and, and we can use values in the same way. Like very often people will say, okay, well if I just. You know, focus on, on my values, then I will feel good. It will always feel good. And, you know, MIU asked about like the issue of pain and values. I actually think sometimes the more difficult thing is not those like really strong feelings of pain, but [00:24:00] just kind of the everyday, just like meh feeling that we think, I'll give you an example.
So when I'm engaged with my values. Oftentimes, if I can pause and notice what I'm doing, I have a pleasant feeling, but that is absolutely not always the case. And I'm going to trust that my very dear, dear niece won't listen to this. But I will say when she was a teenager, I have a, I have a really strong relationship with her and a very strong sense of my values with her that I really want to be present and open.
And, so when she was a teenager, or tween, and she would talk to me endlessly about whatever the little, you know, relationship drama was at the moment. Was that fun for me? Probably not, you know, I mean, I love you, [00:25:00] Josephine, but you know, it's boring and I, you know, I noticed having feelings of irritation or annoyance or I was just like, Oh, even though I was engaged with my values. And so what we need to do, what I choose to do in that moment, then this is where self compassion comes in is I can kind of step outside of myself in my best moments, not most of the time, but in my best moments. I can sort of step outside of myself and I can see, Oh, there's this Auntie Jenna there, who really doesn't want to be having this hour and a half conversation with little Josephine.
But she's doing it, and she's doing it in a way that is open, and as open hearted as she possibly can be right now. And then I, from the outside, can have this sense of warmth and compassion for the Jenna that's there, like, Oh man, that's hard to do and you're doing it. Nice job. So sometimes that's what, you know, [00:26:00] values feels like.
It's, it doesn't always feel pleasant, Josephine, now I always want to listen to everything you have to say.
Chris McCurry: and she was a great teacher for you then.
Jenna Lejeune: she certainly was and is. Yes. Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: I used to do something with the kids that I'd work with. I saw a video of Steve Hayes doing therapy with somebody, and he was talking about two sides of the same coin, and he's saying the one side of the coin is, you know, the thing you value. It could be a goal. It could be a value. And the other side is that stuff, you know, the challenging stuff.
And so I created some coins out of silvery paper, and I would have the kids right on one side of the coin, Like to be a good teammate or to be a good student and then, okay, what's on the other side? Because if you if the challenging stuff, you know, and you know, listening to your your niece prattle on about some like You know middle school drama that you've heard like [00:27:00] before, you know but if you Yeah, boredom,
Jenna Lejeune: Judgmentalness. Yeah.
Chris McCurry: impatience, you know, but if you toss that out, you're tossing out that too.
And but it's remarkable how many kids have never heard of the idiom two sides of the same coin. And it's also incredibly difficult to explain, you know, it's like, well, there are two sides, three, anyway, nevermind, here, fill this out but then they take the coin home and they can put it someplace where they can remind themselves of this is why I'm trying to be a good big brother.
And every parent has a bunch of coins, you know,
Jenna Lejeune: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: you know, yeah. All the, the, the, you know, the, the fourth time you've played Candyland, you know, in that hour and your left eye is starting to twitch, you know?
Jenna Lejeune: That's right.
Chris McCurry: so yeah, I mean it's, it's, we have to, we have to continuously remind ourselves, you know, that this is, this is a package [00:28:00] deal.
Mm-hmm
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. Yeah. I don't do that. I don't choose these values because they make me feel good. I choose them because this is the life if I had, if I got to choose, this is the life I would choose to live. I would choose to be a present and open hearted auntie and you know, all of my other values just, just cause, just because that's what would be a good life for me, And a lot of times it feels good, but certainly not 5 a. m. when I'm walking my dog in the rain. Does it feel good?
Balancing Parenting and Personal Values
Emma Waddington: as we're talking about parents, I guess one of the things that sometimes I wonder is this values dilemma or this values conflict, or even not as a parent, like just generally. So I was thinking of these examples like playing. So I have lots of moments with my three children where I have to [00:29:00] make a decision on who I hang out with or.
You know, do I finish my emails or do I just sit down and watch a program and have them complain about my neglect or, you know, whatever it might be that is happening in those moments where all of that might feel important or maybe, you know, they do want me to hang out and play a board game, but I'm feeling really tired.
And a bit over Candyland or whatever it might be, I'm actually not great at board games, that is one of my weak spots, but you know, how do we make a decision, in those moments on what to lean into, because it's not feelings, right? Not feelings that are going to guide us necessarily, but how do we make a decision?
Jenna Lejeune: a really wonderful point.
Understanding Values in Therapy
Jenna Lejeune: And what I would say is that so without getting into too much of the kind of philosophical stuff in [00:30:00] ACT, the type of therapy that we're talking about here, my orientation. What is true is what works. And so when I say it's true or not true, I'm simply meaning because it's useful or not useful, right?
Navigating Time Conflicts with Values
Jenna Lejeune: And so I would say the, am I going to hang out and play a board game with my kids? Or am I going to spend that time, you know, preparing for a session for a client that is suffering both, you know, honorable, potentially activities. I would say that is not a values conflict. I would say that is a time conflict.
You, you can't be doing both of those things at the same time, but you could be.
Values in Everyday Actions
Jenna Lejeune: Engaging in your values while you are playing Candyland or while you are doing the kind of prep for your client, that values are always [00:31:00] immediately available to you in any context.
Addressing Guilt and Work-Life Balance
Jenna Lejeune: So what I would say is an example, like, when I'm working with clients who, let's say they're feeling guilty about whatever, spending more time at work than they would choose to, and they're, Doing that for a variety of reasons, what would, if you knew that you were going to be at work, how could you be at work and do that in a way?
It helped you be more of a loving parent. Could that be you practiced being loving with your colleagues? Could that be you practiced being patient with yourself even though you're frustrated that you're still at work and feeling guilty? Would those be qualities that you would want to bring into your parenting life that you could actually be intentionally practicing while you're at work so that you're not making these things in competition with one another? [00:32:00] And of course. Yes, there are lots of things to do about, you know, navigating time commitments and all of that stuff, but I, I don't think it's useful to frame them as values conflicts
Emma Waddington: Yeah, because the bottom line is it all, they both matter. For different
reasons or they all
matter.
The Universality of Values
Jenna Lejeune: and, also I mean, this is actually when you think about like why I got into values work and what I, what is my favorite part about it? Is I see values as the great equalizer truly does not matter what your history is, what has been done to you. It doesn't matter where you are in this particular moment.
I could be in solitary confinement in a prison and there is an opportunity there for me to take a step towards my values. So you could be at work, you could make that choice to stay at work, or maybe you don't see it as a choice [00:33:00] to stay at work, or you can do Candyland. And you could do that in a way that embodies your values.
And that's why I love values. It feels like there's so much inequity in this world, but this is like the one place where everybody's on an equal playing field. Everybody gets to live a life that is in the service of what would matter to them. Mm hmm.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. There's a lot of freedom there. Isn't there
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah,
Emma Waddington: in that place?
Jenna Lejeune: you can flip burgers at McDonald's in a way that is in line with your values or you could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and do that in a way that embodies your values. It doesn't really matter.
Emma Waddington: And the flip side of that is you could do either of those and not be living.
Jenna Lejeune: absolutely. And we see plenty of examples of [00:34:00] that, yes.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. Really? Oh, you do.
Dealing with Negative Values
Chris McCurry: Well, let me raise the issue of you know, cause I can imagine some listeners are thinking, well, what about people that have really like rotten values,
like, you know, sociopaths and people that say, you know, my value is to make other people really miserable and to feel powerful. In fact, You know, we seem to see that in the news every day that they're, they're just people out there who are very narcissistic and greedy and that's, they seem to be living those values to the detriment of, of other human beings.
How do we fit that into all of this?
Reframing Problematic Values
Jenna Lejeune: You, the, your turn of phrase there was helpful, Chris, you said living their values and Maybe one thing to kind of [00:35:00] highlight here is, people are valuing, you are valuing something, I am valuing something all of the time. Right now, by choosing to be here, I'm valuing something. It may or may not be what I would choose to value if I were free to choose. So, when I see examples of people who are valuing things That seem, at least to me, very problematic. One way I could look at that is, okay, well, maybe they're evil or they're sociopaths or whatever it is. Maybe that is the case. I don't know what to do with evil. And so, that's kind of not a helpful way for me to look at it. Instead, the way that I would frame it that gives me more workability is saying, I wonder if they are choosing, if they are valuing something that if they were really free to choose, [00:36:00] they wouldn't actually value that thing. So many people, let's take power for an example. Many people kind of organize their life around valuing being powerful, When I work with those folks are the people I know in my life that are kind of valuing that. When you can really dig and when they can get vulnerable, it's sort of like, well, I'm valuing that, I'm, I'm, I'm focusing on that, they wouldn't say valuing, like, I really want to be powerful because then I won't get hurt, or then I won't, be so scared or whatever it is or something like that, or then I'll feel good about myself, and so often we get back to what we were talking about before, it's trying to like feel a certain way, right, or more importantly, Not feel a particular way. And so when I'm talking with those folks and I say, okay, let's say you did [00:37:00] feel secure or you did feel really good about yourself and you were going to stay that way the rest of your life, would you still, would like having power still be the thing that you really want to spend your life focusing on being powerful?
Or would there be some other way of living that would feel like you might choose? And almost invariably people will say, well, yeah, I mean, if I already felt totally secure and I knew I would never get rid of that, then I would choose to be generous. So that is a useful way for me to frame it, especially when I think about the like clients that I serve or people that are in my life.
When I think about, you know, I'm a human being. So when I watch the news, I too have judgments about what people are choosing to value and not value. So. But with my clients, I can get to the place of like, ah, oh, darling, I don't think that's why you would choose to value. Let's see, let's see if we can give you [00:38:00] a bit of a sense of choice and then see what emerges where you're not so sort of under aversive control, where you're not so operating from a place of scarcity or fear, but you could operate from a place of abundance.
If you got to live from this place of abundance, what would you choose? And that's what I'm trying to help with my clients.
Chris McCurry: Well, I mean, if we think about it in those terms that, you know, some, some of the folks that we see on the news every day are operating from a place of insecurity and fear and, and a history that's shaped them that way,
Jenna Lejeune: Of course.
Chris McCurry: It, it does allow us to be a little more compassionate even while we're in fear of what they're going to do.
But Yeah, it's, it's anyway, we're not going to solve those problems with this podcast.
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. I'm probably not going to solve them at least so,
Chris McCurry: no, but it's, it's good to think about, you know, the choices that we can make and [00:39:00] you know, that, that even though it won't necessarily feel good all the time. We're, we're living a valued life, we're living a meaningful life, and that there's, there's something very positive about that, at least in my experience.
Jenna Lejeune: well, you also said something I think important there, Chris, in that, you know, we're shaped up our behaviors are shaped up by our history.
Intentional Living and Overcoming Programming
Jenna Lejeune: And I do think that that's a pretty important thing for people to attend to is that if we are always valuing something by our behavior, then if we're not intentional, We're going to be valuing whatever our history has shaped us to value, to important, right?
We're going to be importanting whatever our history has taught us to important. And one example I'll often give like if I give trainings on this topic is I have a history that taught me to value looking smart that this was really important in the context that I grew up in. [00:40:00] And so it's just sort of in there and certainly nothing wrong with looking smart.
I enjoy it when I look smart, but you know, if I get to the end of everything and again, my niece, Josephine's talking at my eulogy, like, Oh, auntie looks so smart all the time. That's just not really the thing I care about her saying, right. But what I notice happen is especially if I'm in a context where I'm, you know, training with professionals or with clients.
If I'm not really intentional, I start, my behavior starts being about, Oh, how can I look smart? How can I, and so I do think it's important for us to notice, Hey, what am I valuing right now? So that we can disengage that autopilot piece. Like maybe somebody's history. You know, shaped them to value being powerful.
Okay. So, how do you start noticing, Oh, there I'm doing it again. I'm valuing that thing. I'm important [00:41:00] ing that thing. Okay. I'm going to just shift. So, I stop valuing that.
Chris McCurry: Well, it's, it's like our programming,
and you can't delete programming, you know, it's not, I, you know, I used to tell kids, you know, our brains are very much like computers, because they both have programs in them, but you can't delete our programs in our brains. All you can do is override them with new programming.
And you can notice when I'm doing old programming and say, oops, and then try to initiate the new programming that hopefully will work better. But yeah, it's, it's there. It's not going anywhere.
Jenna Lejeune: Nope, I will probably always be pulled to that when I'm not intentional, and that's fine. I've learned some skills about then how to be more intentional and catch those moments so I can course correct.
Chris McCurry: I like what you said about, important thing. Important thing. Yeah. It's yeah. So a lot of this stuff is, you know, these are verbs, not, [00:42:00] not nouns in our
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. Definitely. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: Important thing,
Jenna Lejeune: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: a little awkward, but I think the awkwardness actually makes us slow down and pay attention a little bit.
Jenna Lejeune: And the same thing with meaning too, like my, my take on it is not that meaning is this thing that is out there, but meaning is something that we, we create. We choose, we say, this would be what is a meaningful life for me. And then we create that meaning for ourselves by living in line with our values. So yeah, it's very much, these are verbs, not.
Not, not nouns.
Chris McCurry: I I've always liked the aphorism paths are made by walking.
Jenna Lejeune: Oh, yes. I love that. That's very nice.
Emma Waddington: And as I was thinking about the programming, I love that idea that obviously our history shapes us and
we can't get rid of [00:43:00] that much to our horror. You know, this programming, there's nothing that we can do short of a lobotomy. and even then I'm not, that would help, but to get rid of those parts of us.
I was thinking of the programming that you described, you know, trying to be, sound clever.
That's okay. As in. It's it, you know, it could you up, but it's not a disaster, but I can hear some programming of you know, I'm a bad person or, I'm in trouble. That's a big one for me.
Jenna Lejeune: This is
Emma Waddington: and how, when we have those, that, that programming, it really narrows our attention, doesn't it?
To really try and find you know, if I'm, if the programming is something about us, sort of. Us, you know, self descriptions about ourselves, then we sort of narrow our attention to look for, is it true? Am I sounding like it? Am I a bad person? am I going to get in trouble here? and it [00:44:00] kind of cuts out a lot of the experience of what's happening in that moment.
Chris McCurry: Well, our threat system has been activated.
Jenna Lejeune: Right. Right.
Chris McCurry: And so of course our attention gets narrowed because that's adaptive to narrow focus on the threat. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Emma Waddington: but it's so, you know, you're absolutely right. And I think in those moments, clients will go, well, why would I want to look stupid or why would I want to be a bad person or why would I write, and that's the suffering that we're trying to get rid off and nobody wants you to be a bad person
or to sound stupid or to get in trouble.
But in those moments, it's, that's the invitation to think about, you know, what do I want this moment to really be about?
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. Is the, is the ultimate kind of, again, if, if you could really freely choose from anything, I Are you really going to say like, I wasn't a bad person. That's kind of the life that you want to live or [00:45:00] no, probably not. Probably you want something else in your life and that story about you being bad or broken or harmful or something like that, that the more that you are like focused on, I have to fix that story.
I have to become unbroken in some way. Like, you're just sort of, you're getting trapped by that old programming that you have. And maybe you could just sort of let it be there. That's why I like my smart example is because it's not, it's not a big thing. And so it can just sort of be there. It's just like, meh, okay, I'm supposed to look smart or I'm not looking smart or whatever it is.
And maybe I'm Broken could also be a story that just sort of sits there. Like, okay, I'm Broken sits there.
Emma Waddington: And as it sits there, we can be whatever we want to be in that moment. So for example, you know, you're having the, I do like your, [00:46:00] I'm smart example because most people could be okay with that. Well, not everybody, but I think, you know, most people wouldn't feel massively tripped up by that story. but the, I'm a bad parent or I'm a bad person, or I'm a burden can massively trip us up.
But often what it tells us to do moves us away from a life worth living. Life that brings meaning. It, you know, makes us hide or makes us, you know, scramble to try and, you know, Be a good person and do everything right.
a very tight place and very nice versus if we either, and we could freely choose, like you said, in that moment, what kind of person do I want to be in this moment,
Jenna Lejeune: I love that in this, in this moment, Emma, right? Because in that moment, what's happening in that moment, you are coming into contact with a [00:47:00] person that feels like, that believes that they're a terrible parent. And how would you want to be towards that person who's suffering in that way? that's where values can come in.
Is, this is where you know, we talk about in ACT, we talk about this as flexible perspective taking or selfless context. The idea is can you step outside of yourself in that pain in the moment and look at, there's a, there's a you there, there's a person there that's in pain. And what do your values tell you about how you'd want to be to somebody who's in pain there?
Emma Waddington: And that's that self
Jenna Lejeune: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't probably say, Oh God, you're totally right. Let's really work on making you not a bad parent.
Emma Waddington: Yes. and sometimes, you know, we have to do hard things and these, you know, feelings show up.
Practicing Values in Difficult Situations
Emma Waddington: Be it, you know, you have to let someone go at work or you have to say no to your [00:48:00] child or you've got to, you know, sit down and do a really difficult piece of work when your head is telling you you're useless at this.
You know? Life brings us these opportunities to really practice living a rich and meaningful life, which includes doing those things that feel really difficult and bring up a lot of our programming.
Jenna Lejeune: Absolutely.
Emma Waddington: often I think our programming shows up the most, like, you know, Chris was saying, when we are up against what matters the
Jenna Lejeune: Oh, of course. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: It's, it sucks. Sometimes.
Chris McCurry: I've felt, I have felt guilty about making parenting decisions that I knew were the right decision to make, but I felt guilty about it because it didn't make my son feel very good, but it was in the moment You know, I think the right decision to make, even though he wasn't happy with it, [00:49:00] and I felt terrible and I still feel terrible if it's been 20 years, but, um, and that's only just one example but you know, yeah, the feelings that you're having doesn't necessarily validate or have any significance to, to whether or not what you did was the right thing to do.
And I'm not saying that well, but.
Jenna Lejeune: No.
Yeah,
Chris McCurry: in the same way that, you know, the boredom and the tedium and the frustration you feel listening to, you know, your niece or standing on the side of a field in the rain watching your kid's team lose again, you know, I mean, that didn't feel very good, but damn, I was being a good dad,
Jenna Lejeune: and if your eye is focused on how do I not feel like a bad parent, then what you would do in that moment, Chris, is you would actually. Have not done the quote, right thing. You wouldn't have done the thing that you sort of knew was the, was the parenting [00:50:00] thing that was in line with your value because you didn't want to feel guilty.
You didn't want to have like the, the, Oh gosh, there, I'm a bad parent because my kid feels bad. And so this is where trying to not feel bad can very often take us off course from our values.
Chris McCurry: Yeah, avoiding that. It's playing not to lose. They
Jenna Lejeune: yeah,
Chris McCurry: say in sports,
Jenna Lejeune: yeah, yeaH.
Emma Waddington: Is there anything
Final Thoughts on Values and Self-Compassion
Emma Waddington: we've missed? Any little thing that you do on a daily
Chris McCurry: A little nuggets of go forth and do,
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Jenna Lejeune: I guess maybe this would be a thing for me, especially kind of in the last many years, I have, I've really found that my values work both with clients, but also in my own life. It's really important for me to be able to step outside of myself [00:51:00] when I do that. And so oftentimes that means connecting with me as part of something greater than simply myself or my own little bubble.
And then sometimes that means, kind of like I was describing to you, Emma, stepping outside of my own immediate kind of story about, oh, I'm terrible or oh, I stink at this or whatever it is. And I look at the person that's there, and as soon as I can, like, look at there's a person that's suffering, or in my world, I care a lot about non human animals, so I just say, look at that critter who's suffering, you know, whether it's a bipedal or quadruped, and like, how do I want to be in the face of suffering?
What do my values tell me? I, how do I want to show up in the face of suffering? And then sometimes that means how I treat myself or how I treat others. But I try and have consistency there among all critters. And sometimes the hardest person [00:52:00] to live out your values with is yourself. Cause, Ooh, it's easy to get real frustrated and real judgy of yourself. So I guess that would be maybe a last thing that I would, I would that people would also be able to have. Live out their values in their relationship with themselves because turns out like the relationship you spend the most time in is The relationship with yourself. So hopefully you are practicing living out your values in that relationship
Emma Waddington: I love that. Really important and often very much neglected. As in the way that we carry ourselves, it will influence the way we support others. So
Jenna Lejeune: if you just think about it, it's like if values were a practice or a muscle If I'm spending most of my time sort of practicing being a jerk to myself, that's the, like, values muscle I'm practicing. It's probably not gonna help me be open hearted in those times when I'm feeling kind of annoyed at [00:53:00] whoever it is that's annoying to me.
So I gotta practice that with myself. Oh, I really appreciate getting to talk with you both. It's been a real pleasure.
Chris McCurry: and we'll have the information about your, your books and your practice in the show notes.
Jenna Lejeune: That sounds great. Thank you.
Chris McCurry: All right. Thank you, Jenna.
Jenna Lejeune: Absolutely.
