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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 2 years ago
How To Live Life By Your Highest Intrinsic Value
Every human being, regardless of age, gender spectrum, or culture, moment by moment is living with a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most to least important in their life. That set of intrinsic values is completely unique to each individual.
It’s not possible to have the exact same set of values, maybe similar, but even if you say the words “business is important”, or “family is important”, there’s different components of what those mean, so there’s still a distinction. So every individual’s set of values is like a fingerprint-specific set.
If any two people are the same, one’s not necessary on the planet. We’re like a snowflake, or a retinal pattern, or a voice print, entirely unique.
Now this hierarchy of values, or set of values, ranging from that which is most important to least important, higher in priority to lower in priority, higher in value to lower in value, is what is dictating our perceptions of the world because we’re filtering our reality through that hierarchy.
As you go down the list of values into lower values, they become more and more and more extrinsic.
What is an Intrinsic Value?
All your sensory input, goes through your sensory receptors, it then goes up into the spinal cord, the brain stem and into the higher areas of the brain.
It passes through the thalamus where it is filtered through a value filtering process, which decides either, what goes up in the cortex, where you’ll be consciously aware of it, or what goes into the amygdala where you’ll have unconscious impulsive (seeking) or instinctive (avoiding) responses.
Whenever something is highest on your values, you tend to absorb that information, and you tend to make decisions more efficiently and you’re more likely to act. This means in the areas of your highest values, you’re disciplined, reliable, and focused on what you value most.
Conversely, you’ll procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate about things that you value least.
When you are in a situation that is life-threatening, a more primitive part of the brain, you might say, or lower part of the brain, the subcortical part of your brain fires off and you’re now ready for fight or flight, which is all about quick responses.
But in your highest value, the very highest value, the thing that’s most important in your life at any moment, is the most intrinsic value. Your identity revolves around it, it’s how you’ll identify yourself. And it’s where you are spontaneously inspired to act upon it.
The ONE Highest Intrinsic Value
My intrinsic value is teaching. I teach 7 days a week, and sometimes 18 hours a day. I’m spontaneously inspired to do it. You don’t have to extrinsically motivate me to teach.
Finding out what’s highest on your hierarchy of values and accessing the most intrinsic value and finding out where you spontaneously are inspired to act, not react, where you’re most inspired to do things, that’s where you’re going to excel the most.
Your life demonstrates what you value most, your intrinsic value. And finding out what that is and prioritizing your life towards that is very empowering because, anytime you do whatever’s highest on your value, your self-worth goes up, your achievements go up, you expand your space and time horizons and give yourself permission to expand and have more certainty.
When you live according to your highest value, your leadership emerges.
I’m a leader in the field of teaching because it’s my intrinsic value.
When you’re living by your highest value, blood, glucose, and oxygen flows into the forebrain and you wake up your executive center, which is the source of your inspired vision.
Those with a vision flourish and those without a vision perish. Those who are inspired by a vision have more vitality in life than those who are not.
When you’re living by your highest values, you’re more likely to be objective in your relationships. You’re not subjectively biasing yourself with superiority or inferiority complexes, and you’re more likely to perceive you’re on an equal level with people and love them for who they are.
When you’re living by your highest value, you spontaneously act. You don’t need to be motivated.
If you need to be motivated to do what you say is important, then what you say is important, isn’t that important to you.
Your resilience and adaptability is maximized when you live according to your most intrinsic and highest value, that’s because you’re most neutral and resilient.
When you’re not neutral and you’re highly polarized with subjective bias, you fear the loss of the things you label ‘good’. And you fear the gain of the things you label ‘bad’.
When you’re living by your highest, most intrinsic value, you transcend both ‘good’ and ‘bad’, you realize that things are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, you’re objective and able to see both sides.
When you’re living by your highest most intrinsic value, you’re meta-ethical. You tend to transcend those labels. You don’t judge people. You love people. And you realize that every human being (including yourself) has all traits and both sides.
You Can Live By Your Intrinsic Value
Living by your highest, most intrinsic value is one of the most powerful things I could teach you, which is why on my website I’ve developed the Demartini Value Determination Process. This online process will guide you through 13 specific steps to help you determine what that intrinsic value is.
My recommendation is to do it now and then again in a week from now and then again in a month from now and after that, every three months. Make sure you keep records of your results each time (which the online process does for you) so you can see the evolution of your values through time.
Your hierarchy of values are changing incrementally all the time and will continue to do so throughout your life.
When I was a child, baseball was important, then surfing was important to me, and now for the last 50 years, researching and teaching what I’ve learnt in human behavior and universal laws has been important to me. So although that has been my highest value and focus for the past 5 decades, I may later have another thing that might evolve.
As I said earlier, whatever your intrinsic value is, your identity revolves around it. And that’s where you maximize your epistemological knowledge.
That’s where you grow your knowledge most. That’s why you’re the expert in that area.
What’s highest on your hierarchy of values gives you a core competence. It allows you to have a competitive advantage and awareness in that area of your life.
Your highest value is also your teleological purpose, it’s your most meaningful purpose and inspired mission in life.
What happens in the brain when you live according to your highest and most intrinsic value
Your intrinsic value, your real identity, is a non-derivative value.
It’s not coming from outside ‘should’s’, ‘ought to’s, ‘supposed to’s’, ‘got to’s’, ‘have to’s’, and ‘musts’ from society.
It’s initiates an intrinsic spontaneous action, something you love doing, something that just comes from within.
In the brain, you have evoked potentials from outside stimuli, and you have spontaneous potentials from within.
When you’re living according to your intrinsic value your spontaneous potentials go up, and you’re more balanced.
Your autonomic nervous system, which is made up of your sympathetic system, which is for fight or flight (beta waves), and your parasympathetic, which is for rest and digest (delta waves), come into perfect balance.
Your sympathetic system gives rise to beta waves at about 13 cycles per second and your parasympathetic gives rise to delta waves at about 3 cycles per second.
When they are in balance, instead of the delta and beta waves you now get an alpha-theta wave which is 7 – 8 cycles per second, which is right in the middle.
In that state, you get gamma waves and their corresponding synchronicity or eureka moments.
Your True, Authentic Self
When you bring your mind to balance, when you balance the autonomics and give rise to the alpha-theta states, you get inspiration. You’re inspired by your life. And your brain is more synchronous. There’s more coherency. There’s more physiological balance.
The circadian rhythms in your physiology are synchronized and maximized. Your health is empowered. Every area of your life is empowered by that state of living.
That’s why in every talk I share the importance of values, particularly your intrinsic value. It’s the foundation of all the work that I teach in the Breakthrough Experience and all the seminars that follow on from that introductory seminar.
The highest value is your most intrinsic value, your ontological identity, your teleological purpose, and your epistemological knowledge revolves around it.
Your area of expertise, your leadership skills, your expanded awareness, and your enlightenment state, all revolve around that highest value. That’s your identity.
That’s your true, authentic self.
I believe that every symptom in the body, physiologically, is trying to get us there, is trying to offer us feedback. Because anytime we’re not living by our highest value, our intrinsic value, and going into lower values, derivative values, we automatically create symptoms in our physiology.
How To Be Your Authentic Self
Anything that needs external motivation, an external derived source to get people to move and do things is a derivative value. It’s an extrinsic value. It’s lower in value.
In the hierarchy, as Hartman described, the hierarchy of values, intrinsic always override extrinsic.
I learned a long time ago, don’t waste time on low-priority things.
Fill your day with high-priority things, and delegate lower-priority things to people who love to do those things that’s high on their values. Cause if it’s high in their values they’ll do a greater job than you will. They’ll be inspired to do it. You’ll surround yourself with inspiring people.
You’ll liberate yourself from things that weigh you down, that are drudgery to you, and that you must be motivated to do. Motivation is not a solution for human beings. It’s a symptom. It’s a sign of doing something that’s not inspiring. A quiet life of desperation, not a life of inspiration.
I do whatever I can in my Breakthrough Experience program, and every talk I do, to help people live an inspired intrinsically driven life.
And so, if so if while you’re reading this you recognize some of the signs of living by your lower values and you’d love to align your life so you can open up the opportunities of living by your highest values, then join me at my signature seminar the Breakthrough Experience. It’s been a profound turning point for so many people and can be for you too.
Know that if you’re living by your lower values, you’re automatically draining yourself. Your energy goes down, your mitochondria reduce their energy producing ATP the second you perceive you’re doing lower-value systems.
So if in any way you’re sitting there subordinating to the world around you, putting people on pedestals and thinking, “well that individual’s smarter than me”, and “that individual’s more successful”, and “that individual’s wealthier”, “that individual’s more stable in their relationship”, “that individual’s more socially connected”, “that individual’s more physically fit and pretty”, “that individual’s more spiritually aware” then you’re not honoring the true you and you’re trying to be somebody you’re not.
The magnificence of who you are far exceeds any fantasy or comparison you could ever impose upon yourself. If you’re not honoring yourself as you are, then it’s time to transform that at the Breakthrough Experience seminar which you can find out more about here.
Identify Your Values So Your Life Is Decided By Your Intuition And Inspiration
When you minimize yourself to everybody around you, you’ll inject their values, which are derivative values. You’ll cloud the clarity of your own mission because now you can’t see your own vision because you’re so bombarded by all these expectations that are injected.
You’re not objective. You’re now unfulfilled. You’re operating from your amygdala, which is the subcortical area of the brain.
When you’re run by your amygdala, you’ll be driven to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
The amygdala wants to bi-polarize you. It wants you to be biased. It wants you to judge. It wants you to be prejudiced. It wants you to discriminate. It wants you to avoid anything that challenges your values and seek anything that supports your values.
It makes you go towards impulsive behaviors, addictive behaviors, and consumption.
The amygdala makes you overspend and wipe out your wealth. It makes you overeat; makes you wipe out your health. It makes you go and lust.
All the “passions” that are so popularly talked about, which are sources of suffering are a result of the amygdala’s response, not the executive function.
The second you live in your lower values you end up devaluing and depreciating yourself.
It’s unwise to live your life decided by impulses and instincts. It’s wiser to live your life decided by your intuition and inspiration.
So that’s why I tell people automatically to live by their highest values and prioritize their life because when you live by your intrinsic value you grow in self-worth, and even your net worth grows.
Because that’s where you’re most objective, most likely to have a sustainable fair exchange in your transactions with people where people want to continue to do business with you, people are engaged, you’re engaged, people want to refer to you. You end up with more social connections and power, and more business opportunities.
When you’re in your highest values, you’re more magnetic in relationships.
The Breakthrough Experience
In the Breakthrough Experience program that I teach around the world, is where I explain to you:
- how to determine your highest and most intrinsic value,
- how to structure your life according to this most purposeful value
- how to delegate lower-priority actions,
- how to prioritize your systems,
- how to live more objectively by being guided by your executive center,
- how to have foresight, not living with only hindsight,
- how to empower your life, instead of disempowering it. Because if we’re judging, we’re disempowered, and we have emptiness, not fulfilment. You can’t have fulfillment by judging, you have fulfillment by loving.
- how to love,
- how to appreciate, I show you how to not subordinate to people or superordinate to people, how to ordinate with people.
- how to manifest things by concentrating on congruent goals. If you exaggerate yourself, you’ll set too big a goal in too short a timeframe and undermine your life. If you minimize yourself, you’ll end up setting too small a goal in too long a timeframe and you’ll hold back your achievements.
But if you’re being authentic, you’ll set real goals in real time to real strategies and achieve something meaningful.
So, in the Breakthrough Experience, I teach people how to set real goals in real time that help them manifest what it is that they want, that are true objectives and not fantasies that lead to nightmares.
People are depressed because they’re comparing their current reality to a fantasy that they’re addicted to.
If you put people on pedestals and inject their values and try to be like them and envy them and imitate them and try to fit in, you’ll end up with a fantasy and try to live outside your own values. Just remember that each of your perceptions, decisions, and actions are based on your values so living by injected values is going to have you doing lower priority actions until you get back to your intrinsic values and priority.
High Energy And Vitality Throughout The Day
If you’d love to have more vitality and energy, if you’d like to have more awakened creativity, then know that when you live by your highest and most intrinsic value, that’s when you’re waking up your genius.
It’s going to help you in your business, your finance, and your relationships. It’s going to help you in your leadership, health, well-being, and vitality. You’re not going to age as much.
Every time you live by your highest value your aging drops. Every time the lower values, your aging goes up. Because it’s negentropy, life physics when you’re living by your highest values, and entropy when you’re living by your lower values.
Anybody that’s fulfilling their intrinsic value is inspired and that’s their spiritual contribution to the world.
Every symptom in your life is trying to get you back to living by your highest and most intrinsic value. And all the derivative values are all going to create symptoms to get you back there.
Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?
If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.
You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.
Book Your TICKET for Dr Demartini's Breakthrough Experience
If you’re ready to go inwards and do the work that will clear your blockages, clarify your vision and balance your mind, then you’ve found the perfect place to start with Dr Demartini at the Breakthrough Experience.
In 2 days you’ll learn how to solve any issue you are facing, transform any emotion and reset the course of your life for greater achievement and fulfillment.
You’ll unlock your true potential and lay the groundwork to empower all 7 areas of your life.
Get ready to take your life to a whole new level of meaning and purpose.
Today is the day you step into your power and value yourself by investing in your inspired life when you sign up for Dr Demartini’s signature seminar the Breakthrough Experience:
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