Here's the million dollar question. As you go through life, from this point forward, will you be guided by your whimsical, fleeting, transcendent feelings? Or will you be guided by your values? Everybody, when they hear that question says, I'll be guided by my values. That's what we all want. And in theory, it's that easy.

But in reality, in practice, it requires a very keen sense of awareness, personal and situational awareness, we have to be vigilant of our actions of our thoughts of our decisions every single day, all day. And in practice, it's much more difficult. So we have to be willing to call bullshit on ourselves. We have to be willing to audit ourselves. We have to be willing to be objective, but also non judgmental. Remember, we just talked about this in the last video of assigning guilt or shame or what beating ourselves up or thinking a certain way or acting a certain way, we have to be able to realize, acknowledge, let go, make the plan for the future and act according to those values.

So this is what we're talking about when we say awareness creates choice. And when we get that moment of awareness, take a breath. Breathe in through your nose, hold it. Exhale. One note on breathing. If we want breathwork to be parasympathetic, the exhalation needs to be longer than the inhalation.

Alright, and we'll talk a little bit more about breathing in a few videos when we get into changing physiology to change our states and our feelings. Excuse me. So awareness creates choice. What will guide you your feelings Were your values. And it's in those moments of awareness, the better we can become, at realizing what's going on in real time, maintaining that witness or that objective view, looking down at ourselves, or looking at our actions from an outside perspective, rather than being in our own heads. We get awareness, we get perspective, we get the opportunity to make a choice, right?

That's what this is all about the difference between who we are and who we want to be. Or the difference in whether or not we will become or realize that is the choices we make and how we spend our time. And it all comes down to awareness, bringing an awareness to are you spending too much time watching other people live their dream? are you allowing your feelings to dictate your choices and decisions and how you spend your time? Or are those things being guided by your values and your goals? Right, the greater The greater awareness you can develop, the greater you can be vigilant and audit yourself, especially in real time, the greater strides you will make in being a person whose actions reflect their values.

And in just a few minutes, we're going to talk about what your values are, and how you can make sure that you're acting in alignment with those values.