Exercise: identifying your values and their protectors
Change how you relate to your inner critics
Below is a simple values sort + journal prompt that helped me shift how I relate to inner critics. I’m sharing the exercise itself, a journal prompt to do after you’ve tried it, and two real examples from my life where it changed how I saw things.
Start Here: Your Values
When I was about halfway through treatment for orthorexia and overtraining, I did a values sort. It’s the kind where you go through a big list of words — things like creativity, achievement, adventure — and narrow it down to the five that feel most important to you.
I didn’t expect it to change much. But looking back, it shifted a lot.
At the time, I was constantly battling these inner critics — voices in my head that felt sharp, harsh, and honestly exhausting. They’d show up when I tried to rest, or when I moved away from routines that had once made me feel “on track.” And what made them so painful was that part of me believed them. Believed I was falling short. Believed I was betraying something important.
And in a way, that made sense. Because when you're living out of alignment with your values, it should feel bad. That kind of pain can be a signal — a compass trying to steer you back to what matters.
But my compass was miscalibrated.
Those voices weren’t wrong about what I cared about — they were just stuck on a narrow, outdated version of what those values looked like. So when I started acting in new ways, they panicked. To them, it looked like I was abandoning everything I believed in.
But I wasn’t. I had just outgrown the definitions.
The values sort helped me see that. It gave me language — and permission — to expand what it means to live in alignment. And once I saw that my new actions were still honoring the values underneath, it became easier to follow through. I wasn’t betraying myself. I was finally catching up to myself.
So now when a critical voice shows up, I can say:
“Thank you for trying to protect me. I still care about that value. But I think there’s a better way now.”
Example 1: Reframing My Avoidance of Rest
When I started treatment, my care team told me to stop working out completely. I agreed — logically, I knew it was the right move. But emotionally, I panicked.
A voice inside kept saying:
"You’re lazy."
"You’re giving up."
"You’re losing everything you worked for."
At first, I thought this was just the voice of truth — the harsh but necessary motivator.
But the values sort helped me see it differently. My top five values were:
Growth
Authenticity
Honesty
Compassion
Health
I realized that voice wasn’t attacking me. It was trying to protect my values:
Growth — because it believed workouts were the only way to grow.
Health — as it defined it: physical performance and consistency.
The issue was that the way they were doing it was based on old, narrow definitions. So when I tried to act differently — to rest and not work out for multiple months in this case — it felt like a betrayal. Like I was living out of alignment with what mattered most.
Once I updated those definitions and realized that, in that season of life, resting actually was contributing to my health, and the self-trust I was building with my body and the emotional work I was doing was it’s own form of growth, I could see: I wasn’t abandoning my values. I was still aligned, just in a way I hadn’t expected to need to go. And that gave me the courage I needed to trust my treatment team and eased the internal tension that was eating at me.
Example 2: Reframing my Aversion to Setting Deadlines
More recently, I’ve been thinking about adding more structure to my life — especially with writing posts like this. But every time I consider setting up a consistent schedule, another voice pushes back:
"You’re going back to your old ways."
"Structure = burnout."
"If you act out of discipline, you’re betraying what this site is about."
That voice felt protective. It didn’t want to see me spiral into rigid discipline again. It was trying to guard:
Health — by avoiding systems that once led to obsession.
Authenticity — by making sure I didn’t start performing for approval.
Compassion — self-compassion in this case, by encouraging be gentle with my expectations.
But the part of me that wanted structure wasn’t wrong either. It was trying to serve:
Honesty — by helping me show up consistently.
Growth — by pushing me to develop my craft.
And maybe honesty could create more authenticity, and it could be healthy to work on a balance between extreme discipline and completely going with the flow.
So the tension around this eased once this helped me realize it isn’t about choosing one side, but rather seeing both parts clearly, and asking:
How can I bring in structure that respects my health, supports my honesty/authenticity, and honors my compassion?
I realized I didn’t need to swing between extremes — rigid discipline vs. total freedom. There was room for nuance. And structure, when done with care, could actually serve the values I’ve been working so hard to protect.
📓 Try It Yourself
Do a values sort. Here’s the one I used: Link
Pick a voice in your head that feels critical, demanding, or rigid.
Ask it:
What value might you be trying to protect?
Is there a more supportive way I could live that value now?
Sometimes listening to where the protective energy behind the criticism is coming from can go a long way in easing some of the inner chaos. Even the most stubborn critic might just be trying to help.
