Do Your Values Have Permission to Come Online?

It sounds nice to say, “Just follow your values and life will work itself out.” But that idea skips over something crucial. Values do not operate in isolation. They require permission from the nervous system.

I want this to really sink in. So ill repeat a few things from before.

It’s easy to say that our environment triggers our values, but that is not actually what is happening. What is really happening is that our nervous system interprets the environment first, shifts our internal state, and that internal state determines which values are allowed to come online.

So the sequence is not simply values → behaviour.

It is:

Environment → Nervous system state → Value hierarchy → Behaviour

Your environment does not directly trigger your values.

Your environment triggers your sense of safety or threat.

Your nervous system then reorganises your value hierarchy based on that state.

When the nervous system feels safe, values related to growth, connection, honesty, intimacy, courage, leadership, creativity, and purpose are allowed to operate.

When the nervous system feels threatened, values related to protection, certainty, control, avoidance, reassurance, withdrawal, or dominance take priority.

This is not because you suddenly stopped caring about your higher values.

It is because your nervous system temporarily revoked their permission.

Your capacity to tolerate uncertainty, and the way you project past experiences into the unknown, will dictate how your environment impacts your nervous system. That internal state then determines which values you are able to act on in that moment.

This is why someone can genuinely value growth, love, or purpose, yet procrastinate endlessly when it comes time to act. It is not laziness. It is not lack of discipline. It is an internal state that does not feel safe enough to allow those values to be expressed.

It is extremely difficult to act on growth-based values from a nervous system that feels under threat.

This is why:

·       A woman does not want intimacy or connection when she does not feel emotionally safe.

·       A man withdraws or disengages when he feels unappreciated or unseen.

·       A person avoids action on something they deeply care about, despite

knowing how important it is to them.

In each case, the value itself has not disappeared. The permission to act on it has.

Values for connection, contribution, and growth shut down when safety is compromised. Protective values take over instead. And from the inside, it feels confusing and often shame-inducing, because consciously we still believe in those higher values.

Are you starting to see the pattern?

This is why changing behaviour is not so much about forcing yourself to “be more aligned.” It is about creating enough internal safety for your nervous system to allow your values to come online in the first place.

Acting despite the fear can re wire the nervous system to feel safe when once safety in a new strategy is validated. We are not taking action in resistance to fear, but to teaching what we forgot, “That it is safe”.

We will go deeper into this as we move forward, because once you understand how values, safety, and behaviour are linked, a lot of self-judgment starts to dissolve.

Hold tight. It gets more interesting from here.