Welcome to this guided exercise, the values compass,
presented by the Journeyman Foundation in partnership with
Balancing Life's Issues.
This short reflection is designed to help you
reconnect with what truly matters, your values, your
direction, and your purpose as a father, partner,
and a human being. It's a glimpse into
the kind of work that men do together
in journeyman.
Leading this experience is doctor Jason Frishman,
a psychologist,
men's coach, and founder of the Journeyman Foundation.
Jason has dedicated his career to creating spaces
where men can step out of isolation and
into meaningful connection
with themselves,
with their families, and with one another.
Take a moment to settle in. Grab a
piece of paper and something to write with.
This is your space to reflect,
reset and reorient.
Let's begin.
In your mind, is there a particular
tangible
struggle
in your
sort of, we'll call it your whole life,
right? Like as a
man,
partner, father, human,
employee,
right? Is there a particular and succinct struggle
that you're sort of dealing with at this
point?
So we're gonna hold that, but we're gonna
leave it. We're gonna, you know, kinda have
it hanging out in front of you here,
and let's leave it. And what we're gonna
do so first of all, is start with
a mindfulness exercise. I I have four sort
of cornerstones
of the men's work that I do with
with guys and and
I like acronyms and and men's work. MENS
is the acronym.
The first is
four cornerstones. I talk about the in and
the out breath of men's work, m e
n s. In breath is
all four of these things as related to
our inner worlds,
m e n s. And the out breath
is us being aware of all four of
these things in related to the context of
the people around us. So the four things
are mindfulness,
experiences
that are intentional.
So action taking
nourishment
and social service.
So
those four things are, are foundational and underlying
a lot of the men's work I do,
but there are kind of eight things right
there. Those four things for, for me, and
then my awareness of people around me and
my context.
So we'll start with a mindfulness
exercise just to get ourselves grounded
with today's experience. So what I want to
invite you to do is sort of sit
comfortably, feet on the floor.
You can close your eyes. You can gaze
off into the future. It's a very short
one just because we're gonna get ourselves moving
to the activity,
but it's always really nice to start with
a welcome. So welcome, fathers and fellow travelers.
You've stepped out of the day to day
and into the warmth of our inn, of
our space,
this quiet corner of your journey where you
get to breathe and remember who you are
becoming.
Let's begin with a few moments of stillness.
I wanna invite you to sit comfortably,
your feet planted, your spine
straight,
and take
a slow deep breath in,
one of those breaths that fills your belly.
Send the air into your belly and really
fill it up big.
Now what we do here is we connect
our body with our mind that way. You
feel your full belly.
So inhale
with presence
and exhale
tension.
Inhale
clarity,
exhale
doubt.
Now gently bring to mind
an image
of a compass.
You can imagine it in your hand.
The center glows warm.
This is the center of your purpose.
And the four directions stretch outward
like a map of your values.
You are the one holding the compass.
You are the one choosing your direction.
You don't have to have all of the
answers.
You simply need to stay on the path
as much as possible
and move
towards your treasures.
Holding onto your compass,
I want you to take a few deep
breaths again into your belly.
Again, bringing back that connection between what you're
thinking and envisioning and the feeling of your
body.
Feel the warmth of the compass in your
hand, in your mind's eye.
And when you're ready, you can open your
eyes and we'll begin.
Alright. So,
again, thinking
of or or holding the the sort
of the issue to Azure, I want you
to have that in mind and understand that
that those things, when they get in the
way, they're
an obstacle
towards you moving towards your treasure. Okay?
Fatherhood is a journey, you know, and that's
a foundational belief and an understanding.
And I think a truth.
You know, if we think about adventures and
journeys,
there's definitions, right? An adventure and a journey,
we don't know the end of it.
There's a little bit of risk. There's some
there are always obstacles. There's, you know, and
whether it's a grand hero's journey adventure or
a foundational adventure in journeyman,
we're always moving towards we're move. We're moving.
And so
we get to change and identify the treasures,
the goals,
Right? It's a goal or an intention,
what we're seeking
in the moment, right, where it may be
I want my kids to be great humans
and fly off the head, you know, in
in the world and be successful and always
thinking. That's a big one. I'm talking about
if you could imagine
what would be a a an in the
moment, a current
treasure, a goal or intention or change that
you're seeking for your own personal fatherhood journey.
I want you to write that in us
in the middle of a circle in the
middle of your paper.
So draw a circle and then identify your
treasure.
This exercise
I call the values compass.
Because as you're picking up a lot of
the metaphor I use is around journeys, adventures,
traveling,
and, you know, having a map and compass
is a pretty important thing for these kinds
of
experiences.
Developing a personal compass, but actually it's developing
the skill. Because as you know, I've made
it, you know, you're the issue currently, the
treasure currently, you can redo this compass over
and over again. Okay. So it's an important
skill,
but even in the real world, like you've
seen a real compass,
there's three things that have to be in
place for it to actually help you, you
know, not be lost in the woods. Right?
The first is
North, South, East and West have to be
labeled correctly,
right? If they're, if they're labeled incorrectly, you're
lost.
The second is you know how to use
it, right? Like using a compass and a
map is not is a skill that's trainable,
but it's not very intuitive.
So, you know, having
labeled correctly
and
the skill to use it leads us to
the third likely most important thing. You have
to take it out of your pocket more
often and look at it.
Right? If you're hiking in the woods and
you know how to use the compass and
it's in your pack and you're too lazy
to get it,
you're gonna get lost. By doing this kind
of exercise and holding it and looking at
it, you're
it becomes that you're creating not only an
awareness, but you're actually creating an internal map
of how to make better choices and how
to slow yourself down. So what I want
you to do is coming out of that
circle,
draw a simple compass. Right? Four directions. Make
a line coming out of the top for
north, bottom for south, and then the sides
for east and west. And leave some room
to to to write at each one.
Okay. And so
at North,
you can write
childhood
or ancestral
values.
At the South side, I want you to
write partnership
or relational value.
On the East side, which is often on
the right,
is personal or individual value.
And then on the West,
fatherhood
or legacy values.
Now notice
all of those values I wrote as plural.
We're only gonna pick one for each one,
but they're plural as an acknowledgement that we
have many values. We don't have to struggle
with like finding the four that encapsulate all
of them. That's really important for this exercise.
We're looking for values that are specifically
connected to moving you towards the direction of
your treasure. So we have lots of values.
Right? But but if you think about your
specific treasure and frankly, a little bit about
the issue that gets in the way of
it,
what I want you to do is I'm
gonna ask a few questions. And and if
I was doing this with a group longer
term, this would be a much longer exercise.
But, you know, we're gonna spend time first
looking at the center of the circle and
looking at your treasure.
Okay?
And,
you know,
this idea of the North will go to
the childhood and its structural values. I'm gonna
ask a few questions and then give you
just a minute or so. You can write
what comes to mind. You can always change
this afterwards. But
if we look at the childhood and ancestral
values section, the northern direction,
you know, I want you to think back
to your childhood or even your family history,
your cultural history,
and what values were alive in your upbringing
or passed down from your family.
What values served you
or might you wanna reclaim?
Things like curiosity, loyalty,
courage, hard work, and I want you to
write that at the north point of your
your compass. So it's a value from your
childhood or your ancestry,
culture, family,
that is specific
to potentially if you followed it, if you
lived that value,
you'd move towards your treasure.
I like moving clockwise, so we'll go to
East, which is the personal or individual
values.
You know, these are the values you hold
deeply, separate from any of your other roles
or relationships. You know, what makes me feel
like myself?
What do I stand for just as me?
Freedom, integrity, creativity, growth, discipline, any things like
that.
And again,
pick core value that if you do express
inaction,
leads you towards your treasure and write that
down on the East.
Moving to the South, our partnership and relational
values.
You know, I want you to think about
your relationships
as a partner, friends, any number. And what
values help you to love well,
communicate clearly, and stand alongside others?
Things like compassion or honesty, presence, playfulness,
devotion,
service,
and pick one core partnership
and write it in the South.
And then lastly, we're gonna move to the
West. I know I'm going quickly, but,
these are your fatherhood or your legacy values.
Think about your children and the legacy that
you're shaping.
What values guide how you parent or leave
and pass things on?
Things like wisdom, adventure, accountability,
grit, gentleness, listening.
And write one of your core fatherhood values
in the West.
So taking a moment, I know you're doing
it, taking a moment to look at your
compass, physically look at it. Right? There's a
tangible thing. You now have a map.
Right? Your treasure's at the center and four
values that can guide you towards it.
So at the very simplest, which is not
simple at all, but in those moments when
we are having struggles with budgeting time, when
we're struggling with fuses and anger and irritability
and all those things
with practice of mindfulness and all sorts of
things, if we stop,
you know, and give ourselves
even a fraction of a moment
to think about, look at and notice these
four values and check your map.
It's almost like, Oh, if I choose to
yell or be irritated,
is that putting me in the direction of
one of my values? Or if I choose
to do this and it gives you a
directional, it gives you an element of, oh,
let me pull this out along my way.
Now that's harder than it sounds, but it's
a great place to go. I want you
to look at those four values.
Choose one value that you would work to
deepen
this
week and because values are often
femoral and vague, they're like, oh, I value
the environment. I vile value. I value peace.
I value, you know, which are lovely, but
there's, they're kind of vague.
What we're looking at is how do we
move from a value to sort of a
vision and, and, and to ship, you know,
which then creates meaningful stories, meaningful experiences and
relations.
So for one week, one value that in
this week you're going to deepen. How will
I practice this value with my kids? How
will I practice it with my children? How
will I have that practice it with myself?
And even
take some time? And we'd often do this
right now, but think about what would be
a specific
action to do. What would be as tangible,
specific thing that you can do to live
those values? Okay.
Don't have to think about that or go
there now, but that's, that's sort of your
homework.
And then lastly, what, what I want to
invite you to do, the last thing we're
going to do with this experience is, and
because this is a big part about bringing
back
community and togetherness and those kinds of things
is
first, you don't have to do this right
now, but take a picture of your compass.
So you have it on your phone. You're
able to access it more readily.
If you so choose, share it with your
partners,
which then I imagine will bring up some
conversation.
If your kids are old enough to understand,
you can share it with your kids.
And if you, you know, like in our
men's group, in the, in the work that
I do with journeyman,
we share it with one another.
One of the things I'm I'm working on
is creating sort of a bank of values
so that, you know, Journeymen can go and
see, oh my gosh. Look at all these
values from other men
who are on this path. We can they
they're almost like
hareons or blazes along the way on the
trail that men can leave for one another.
And that helps us to rewrite and redevelop
new narratives and stories for men and thought
of it. So I would urge you to
take a picture of it. I'd urge you
to share it with one another, with other
people, because the stories that about ourselves that
we share
direct the reality of who we become.
Thanks for joining us for that practice.
If it resonated with you and you're curious
to learn more about Jason's work or the
community he's building, head over to journeymanfoundation.com
because every journey is better with support.
Thanks for listening to this is your job
now, produced by me, Kai. If this episode
made you think or made you feel, we
hope it also made you realize you don't
have to figure this out all alone. Leadership
today is about presence, not perfection. To learn
more, follow Wendy Wohner on LinkedIn, subscribe to
Balancing Life's Issues on YouTube, or stream the
podcast wherever you listen. Because if you're leading
people, this is your job now. Anything else
to add, Miles?