6. The Behaviour Behind Our Values

Another practical reflection - do take a moment, pause, sit, and reflect.

Building on Episode 5's dive into the stories behind our values, this episode invites deep self-reflection on our own behaviour as the first step toward humble inquiry, real connection, and healthier conversations with the people around us.

Before we can have honest conversations about values that don't match, we need to look at ourselves first. In this episode, I ask: what really happens inside you when someone else's honesty doesn't look like yours? Is it what you say, or what you quietly hold back? A reflective look at self-awareness as the first step toward humility, courage, and real connection with the people around you.

It matters because this is the single point of inner and outer conflict in how we relate to others.

I'd love to know what comes up for you.

Real Leadership doesn’t happen at the surface.

It happens Below the Waterline.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Below the Waterline with your host Ratna Majoria. Most of us move through life from the surface of who we think we are and react from that very place, which limits our potential in every aspect of our being here. What if the answers to being that conscious leader, the real and better version of you, is waiting for you beneath the surface? This podcast is your invitation to go there. To the beliefs that drive you, the values that define you, and the courage it takes to truly know yourself and your hidden potential to make a difference from who you truly are. We're going there with conversations human to human, heart to heart. Super excited you're here, so let's go deeper together. Welcome back. We're now on episode six, and if you haven't been able to listen to the previous episodes, go ahead, click back, start from the beginning, and there's lots of gifts waiting in there for you. So in episode five, we talked about uncovering the story behind our values because values are just a word. We bring meaning into the value when we are able to articulate the story behind them. So last time we looked at five steps about naming our values. Where did I first learn that this value mattered to me? But more importantly, going into the story of why it matters to you. And we talked about our values being shaped by our experiences, whether they're good, they're bad, role models, things that we believe strongly in, but we also looked at the shadow side of were some of those born out of a protection because we witnessed something that happened to someone else, or maybe something that happened to us. But did that value still serve us? Did they serve us because they were something we've just held because it's something that's come through our family, through our the systems that we live in? And is that what limits us to grow bigger than we should? Or maybe it's just the language that we have to define and articulate more because it doesn't mean that they are not your values, but the story, the language, your why behind why something matters to you is super, super important when we're relating with others. And when we go that deep, we can see the transformation that internally takes place when we have clarity about why a value matters to us. And that is the key to how we are able to relate with other people and have a conversation with somebody when sometimes our values or the meaning of our values don't match. Last time I talked about honesty, how honesty looks to me could be very different to you. But if we hold what it looks to us and it doesn't show up the same way in somebody else who has the same word as us, that's where the fractures of trust come in. That's where they start to break. And a lot of the time we just pull ourselves away and really start judging the other person about what trust actually means to them. But it's not what it means to them. We're judging them from what it means to us. And the next part obviously then has to be: are we brave enough to have that courageous conversation, to understand and have humble inquiry of why somebody sees things the way they do, and have the heart, the courage, and the humility to actually listen to their perspective. That's a lot there, isn't it? I did say that in this episode we would look at the why of the values and how to use them to have healthy, productive debate or conversation with people around us, even when they look different. But I decided one of the key things before we go there is first of all, before being able to have that conversation, do we understand how we behave when something doesn't land on the same frequency as us? Because it's that frequency, that change of energy every single time that leads to whether we are courageous enough to have the conversation or we step away from the conversation, do we judge, or do we have humble inquiry? So, how do you behave? How do you truly behave when your values don't match with someone? I do this work quite often, and it really means that we have to look at ourselves because we can't be responsible always for other people's behavior, and even if we can help influence that and get to a place where we can work through it, the first thing we have to have is humble inquiry about ourselves. Are we brave enough to look at what happens to us, what happens to our behavior when something doesn't line up with us? Now, here's the thing: behavior is usually understood as someone acting out, whether that's physically with their body or physically with their words. But I can tell you, even from my own experience, that behavior is also about stepping back, stepping back within myself and having all these words and judgments and sadness and fear, and I can't express the words for it to come out. I wonder how many times have you stepped back and just kept what you think to yourself? But that energy is just as powerful as the energy of what we act out as well in our behavior. And that energy doesn't allow the flow to go between another person or other people when there's a blockage, both sides, whether it's internal stepping back or forwardly stepping out in a way that is not conducive to healthy conversation, is a behavior. Honesty again. If your version of honesty does not show up in somebody else, what does it make you feel? What does it make you think? How does it make you act? Do we have that self-awareness about ourselves? If you need to stop at this moment and just take what I said, press the pause button and just think again. Take a value that you have. I'm just using honesty because that's the one we used last time. If honesty doesn't show up in another person or other people like it would to you, how do you think? How do you act? Whether that's internally or externally, and then how do you behave and be really meaningful, intentional about what that looks like? Do take the time to think about that, but if you're still listening, or if you just hit play again, I just want you to look at that, and in that moment, you can absolutely see, or you at least start the process of seeing what part do you play now in taking conscious action, conscious decision to move a conversation forward. Here's the real icebreaker, though. When you are able to look at your own behaviors, you actually create another layer of humility, kindness, and love to take that step back when something doesn't land with you and actually think about. I wonder how that person is thinking, acting, and feeling. But more importantly, it now allows you to look at what part do you play, but strengthens what we talked about in the last episode, the courage to tell your story why you have a certain view about the chosen word, in this case, honesty, how that shows up for you and why it matters to you, and have the humility to invite the other person in to talk about how honesty shows up for them, and that really is the connection, how we relate to each other below the waterline. There's a lot just packed in there, and I really want to invite you to think, take the time, pause, look at your own behavior. Because when we're honest about our own behavior, we pick up so many signals from the person or the people or the situation that we're in, which actually helps us live and behave from a higher conscious space. Okay. Thank you for listening to this episode. And please put in the comments on the either of the podcast channels, on my Instagram or LinkedIn about anything that you found. If you want to reach out to me, you can definitely DM me on either of those platforms, or you can even email me on ratna at dharmawakenings.com and I'll put that in all the social media platforms. So until next time, remember we look at ourselves with humility, kindness, and love, and that absolutely gives us a different lens to how we then start relating to others. Until next time, keep safe, keep well. Real leadership doesn't happen on the surface, it happens below the waterline, where it actually matters. If this landed for you, share it with someone who's ready to go deeper. And to help you do this work, make sure you click on the link below for your free guide, especially created for you to work through this foundational work. Come and find me on LinkedIn or Instagram, and I'd love to know what's stirring in you. Until next time, I'm Ratna and this is Below the Waterline.