Cultivating our resilience starts with us. No surprise then that the first chapter of Onward is Know Yourself. Elena Aguilar shares that “Understanding your self as it is constructed socially and politically is empowering. Regardless of your race or gender, your age or ethnicity, or any of the other social identities that you claim, you’ll have greater insight into how you move through the world, how others respond to you, and your options for actions.” So putting the work in now is essential. In Onward Elena talks about core values and The Onward Workbook shares on activity on identifying your core values. I have done this exercise a few times over the last couple years, and I have been surprised by the change in my results.
I just read this article, Neuroscience backs up the Buddhist belief that “the self” isn’t constant, but ever-changing, and have more of an understanding as to why my results might change. More importantly I am reminded why coming back to this work time and time again is necessary. This article talks about how “Buddhists argue that nothing is constant, everything changes through time, you have a constantly changing stream of consciousness,” Evan Thompson, a philosophy of mind professor at the University of British Columbia, tells Quartz. “And from a neuroscience perspective, the brain and body is constantly in flux. There’s nothing that corresponds to the sense that there’s an unchanging self.”
So if it’s been awhile since you explored your core values, it may be time to revisit this work. And if you haven’t started chapter 1 of Onward, today is the day to start. It is available as an audio book now too!