"The process of striving to make sense out of a potentially overwhelming world of experience involves internalizing thoughts and feelings about what is right or wrong, normal or abnormal, good or bad, and so forth. These are the value judgments that serve to define the limits of experience." ("When Living Hurts," Michael Yappo, 1994) And it is a person's value system, more than any other single factor, that is the greatest determinant of what one is and is not able to do.

Morris Massey in "The People Puzzle," 1979, described how personal values at the individual level have been determined in large part by the values that were dominant in society-at-large as the individual was growing up. Massey claimed that 90% of our values are integrated by 10 years of age, and close to 100% by age 20.

Massey further claimed that values only change when one experiences an event that is emotionally powerful enough to effect the very core of the individual. And since they provide stability in the face of an ever-changing world, we do not like to let go of our values.

What are our core beliefs and values? Are they of the society in which we grew up, those mostly acquired by age 10 and virtually all by age 20? Or have we been able to let go in order to permit our Thought Adjusters to replace them with values appropriate for a child of God?

Overlaid on our value system is an alternating pattern of rigidity or flexibility. Basically, rigidity is a means of self-preservation as we protect what we know and believe. The more limited our range of experience, and the more we have been indoctrinated to believe that there are absolute "rights" and absolute "wrongs," the more rigid will we be. Then, by asserting the exclusive nature of our correctness, we are liable to attempt to control others via the pathway of inducing guilt, or through intimidation and other such negative tactics.

A value that, in essence, fosters an earnest desire to maintain stability in the face of change has embedded within it a number of other related values-- such as a commitment to an ideal in spite of changing circumstances; or to maintaining an outworn tradition in the face of progress; or to "what has been" over "what can be."

In order to take a step forward, the "rigid" individuals must be determined to leave behind those values that hold them anchored in concrete.

Flexibility is a more sophisticated response. It comes about when one is willing to accept that others can do things differently and still be "correct" in their actions. Unfortunately, in our current society, accepting that each person must evolve their own "right" way to live seems to require more flexibility than most people possess.

The "flexible" person, when confronted by external pressures or challenge in the form of adversity, is open to the possibility that a better, more adaptive, alternative may be found.

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Floating around in society are numerous belief systems that are harmful in their potential to distort experience. Three such beliefs are:

• 1. Where there's a will there's a way--or stated another way--if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This paradigm has equal capacity to either frustrate or to motivate. Often people invest increasing amounts of themselves in a cause of some sort, believing that through determination or commitment, success will be inevitable. And they will hold on, and on, and on, despite repeated failure.

• 2. All things happen for a reason. A seemingly ingrained and inherent characteristic of human beings is their need for things to "make sense." When an event occurs, a search for the relationship between cause and effect begins. Then, when no apparent reason arises to explain the event comes forth, guesswork and imagination take over--and subjective speculation soon becomes objective fact. We human beings need to feel "in control." Hence we tend to hold tenaciously to explanations that provide meaning--and restore our feeling of being "in control."

• 3. There is only one right way to live. Perhaps the most rigid of the three belief systems, this particular one underlies deep prejudice and irrational violence on a broad level, and intrapersonal and interpersonal difficulties on a lesser scale. The message conveyed by the more dedicated adherent is "Do as you are told or risk disapproval, rejection, or even worse." For an individual who is easily made to feel guilty and who values acceptance over self-validation, depression is a common consequence.

Introjected without much thought from parents and society at large, these values and beliefs are the fabric through which we, as adults, perceive life, ourselves, and others. It may be helpful for each of us to explore for ourselves, the values with which we have been indoctrinated during our formative years-- and to consider whether they are now a help or a hindrance for our progress towards cosmic citizenship.

Can we rid ourselves of false values? "And when Jesus heard these words, he looked down into the father's anxious face, saying: 'Question not my Father's power of love, only the sincerity and reach of your faith. All things are possible to him who really believes.' And then James of Safed spoke those long-to-be-remembered words of commingled faith and doubt, 'Lord, I believe. I pray you help my unbelief.'"

Ann Bendall, Nambour, Australia