Values Under Pressure

Focusing Values Inwards: A practice for staying steady when integrity feels exhausting

It’s a curious thing. Many speak of values as navigational guides: the heart and soul of our deeper experience. And maybe they are. But it’s also true that values can feel burdensome in high-stress environments. For people with strong integrity, values can become almost like a self-weaponised measuring stick.

The stress of trying to live up to values outwardly, such as, being kind, loyal, open, courageous, authentic (ah, the authenticity paradox…), can lead to burnout or moral distress when the situation is difficult or unrelenting.

Over the years, I’ve worked with many clients navigating long stretches of stress at work. These are times of significant uncertainty, insecurity, and a lack of psychological safety. Just surviving the stretch can be exhausting. And paradoxically, the very values they hold dear can become another source of internal pressure.

For one such client recently, what helped wasn’t pushing harder to live her values outwardly. It was something more nourishing. She turned her values inward:

‘Focusing my values inward has been so valuable to maintaining both distance and professional behaviour.’—AW

The shift was subtle but powerful. Instead of asking, ‘Am I living my values well enough?’, she began asking, ‘What do these values look like when I offer them to myself?’

One challenge clients often face with this is the inner critic that says, ‘If I focus inward, people will think I’m selfish or self-centred.’ It’s true that self-focus can sometimes take the form of rigid ‘me first’ rules. But that is not how this client operates. What others actually see is someone modelling resilience, boundaries, and professionalism.

That phrase, ‘focusing values inwards’, is a beautifully succinct frame. (Thank you so much for sharing, client, you know who you are!). We often associate values with action: how we treat others, how we show up professionally, how we respond to difficulty. And although it may seem obvious to also steer our gaze inward, high-stress situations naturally narrow our focus. Fight, flight, freeze, appease. We lose access to the grace and space that self-directed values require.

The Spiral Inward

This is where the metaphor of the spiral shell comes in. To me, it represents that turning inward is about growth and integration. I’m thinking here too about adult development stages, and if you don’t know about these, I do recommend staying with me. I’ll write more about this over time.

A spiral doesn’t break from itself. It deepens. It holds its centre. It’s whole.

When we focus our values inward, we’re not giving up on them. We’re reclaiming them as a source of steadiness, not strain.

• Compassion includes self-compassion.

• Responsibility includes boundaries.

• Integrity includes dignity, for self and others.

• Openness can include discernment.

• Authenticity can include loyalty to oneself, to all parts, including fierce self-compassion, self-protection, and perhaps even a shifting relationship to how one holds the concept of authentic ‘self.’

Focusing values inward doesn’t mean we are letting ourselves off the hook. Others matter. (Remember the MWe idea, ‘me plus we’: Where do ‘you’ end and ‘I’ begin?)

We’ve still got choices about who and how we show up. But it also means we include ourselves in the circle of care. After all, if you’d never expect a [team member / colleague / friend / etc.] to keep going without rest and self care, why expect it of yourself? Focusing values inward isn’t indulgence - it’s modelling sustainability, integrity, and respect in action.

So…

Values aren’t just about what we do. They’re about how we relate to ourselves when things get hard.

A practice of self-respect. A way to stay grounded without burning out. As this client reflected:

‘I’m holding on to the view that I’ve done what I can, and still focusing on feeling empowered for being so bold.’

Yes! May we all get to say that, and mean it.

Reflection

If you’re reading this and nodding, or considering, or even wincing a little, here are a few prompts you might like to chew on:

• Are any of those things, your ‘values’, feeling heavy or effortful right now, in any part of your life?

• What might it be like to embody this value inwardly, with the same generosity I’d offer someone else?

(Assuming you have an idea of your values, or virtues, or the things that matter most to you.)

This is about letting your values become a source of nourishment instead of depletion. In a way, it’s returning your values to something that lives in you, as well as something you give for others.