Our Values are the things that are important to us; they drive all of our behaviours. In many respects indistinguishable from Needs (we can have a need for peace, for example, because it is one of our values), we often don’t pay attention to our values as long as they are being met… so we don’t tend to walk down the high street, see a bank and have to think, “I must remember not to rob the bank” because not robbing banks is (hopefully!) part of our value around honesty, trust and law abiding behaviours.
We do notice values when they are walked on, however, or otherwise transgressed…
Last week, Violet developed a problem with her eye. It was a bit snotty, and she kept it closed for a lot of the day. I bathed it in some warm salt water and monitored it for the rest of the day. The following day it was no longer closed, but the eyelid seemed rather red. I resolved to take her to the vet after my morning client – she could probably do with some drops or something…
Unfortunately it turned out that she had developed something called a ‘Melting Ulcer’ (yes, it is as nasty as it sounds) which because it was under her eyelid I hadn’t seen it. In order to save her eye, the vet told me, we would need to administer two lots of eye drops; one lot to be delivered every two hours night and day and the other ones every four, half an hour after the first ones… so basically no sleep, then!
Now, sleep is very important to me – I don’t function well with less than seven hours’ sleep a night – but this was a good example of the hierarchy of values… in the ‘My Sleep’ versus ‘Violet’s Eye’ stakes, Violet’s Eye won hands down and Violet and I camped out downstairs on the sofa each night – my phone waking us every two hours, (or two, half, one and a half) from Thursday until Monday, when a review at the vet allowed us to extend the gap to every four hours, which was slightly less intense, but still exhausting.
I managed to function during the day during this time on a diet of stress and adrenaline until we had another review on the Thursday, a week after we had originally found the ulcer. Happily for Violet (who incidentally hadn’t been at all distressed during the whole time, and had really enjoyed receiving cuddles and a biscuit every two hours) and for us, the treatment had worked and the ulcer had healed sufficiently for us to discontinue the drops.
Meanwhile, I’m still recovering, and sleep has once again moved back up the hierarchy of Values and Needs…
