How your values set you apart from everyone else

It’s amazing how a film can evoke such strong emotions in you… My husband and I sat down to watch the next instalment of the oh-so gripping Killing Eve drama last week and whilst he popped off to make a cuppa, I was lining up the episode on BBC IPlayer. However, I was distracted by the film playing out as I switched on the TV.  Even though it was 40 minutes in, I was gripped and as my husband walked back in, apparently I was clutching the remote as if to say: “Don’t even think about Killing Eve.”

The film in question was The Light Between Oceans, based on the book by M.L.Stedman and starring Alicia Vikander (Isabel Graysmark) and Michael Fassbender (Tom Sherbourne). If you haven’t watched it, the premise is that mentally and emotionally weary from serving in the First World War, Tom takes on the job of a lighthouse keeper on a remote island off the Australian West Coast. It’s a life of solitude until he meets and marries Isabel. Sadly, they lose children in childbirth and are devastated. One day, not long after their recent tragedy, a small dinghy washes up on to shore carrying a man who has passed away, and a young infant. Tom needs to report this but Isabel begs him they keep the little girl because surely, she has been sent to them. Tom struggles with his conscience but Isabel is desperate.

They keep the little girl and raise her as their own but during a trip to the mainland, Tom discovers who their daughter’s biological mother is. Does he tell this woman? Does he tell Isabel? At a later date, Isabel happens to meet the woman and realises who she is; she too is then struggling with her conscience. What’s the right thing to do? Tear her daughter from the family she now knows? Lose another child? Or deprive this woman who’s already lost her husband but who hasn’t actually lost her daughter…

The whole story revolves around values – wrestling with what you believe is morally right but how do you go against who you love?

There are so many scenes in the film when the values of so many of the characters are tested and it’s so interesting to see the choices they make.

My goodness me, it was a roller coaster of emotions and I asked my husband at various points of the film what he would do in that situation. It really is fascinating because we will each have our own point of view based on our individual Mental Map. It absolutely depends on our experiences in life, our beliefs, moral compass, values and paradigms. The choices we make – and it might not be an easy decision in certain situations that we need to make - these choices are based on what sits most emotionally comfortable with us every time i.e. our values. It’s about what and who is most important to us.

It’s therefore vitally important we know what our values are because every decision we make in life – from which brand of baked beans we buy, to where we choose to live, is based on our values. If you don’t know what your values are, you’re bouncing around life like a pin ball.

Think about what your top five values are and start working out the motive for the decisions and choices you’re making. You’ll then make conscious decisions, which are easier to make, knowing what they revolve around.