Science doesn’t yet know the answer to the question if the universe has a centre. It’s also unknown to science if man’s inner universe has a centre or not. If there is such a centre it will be where the boundaries between the outer and inner universe merge, where everything becomes one and everyone part of it, of that magnificent and harmonious building of atoms, of the constant movement of information around smaller or larger nuclei, of the constant change and development. The information, saved and organised in our body is not physically different from that saved and organised in the body of the cosmos. We, like the cosmos, don’t contain anything apart from information. Our psyche is a tool for regulation of the information. We develop and become more sophisticated and perhaps one day we’ll learn to reach and influence consciously the very centre of information. The possibilities which communication reveals to us are limitless and I believe that we’ll manage to use them for the better.

If our beliefs are the planets around which circle the satellites of our inner states, our values are the stars, which attract and organise these planets. Our inner world is not linear but tree-like. Closest to the roots are the branches of the values. That’s why they are the most stable, hardest to destabilise, most inaccessible and often the most hidden nuclei in our inner model.

Value is, in simple words, what is most important to us. Every communication starts in the tree branches and makes its way down to the values. Communication is information. It is organised in nests of inner states, which are constructed following the plan of the beliefs. The basis of this plan lies in the values. That’s why communication is always a juxtaposition of values.

If our values contradict those, which have been laid in the basis of the incoming information, we will probably obstruct its way. This is our natural defence system, which has to protect the foundations of our inner world. The formation of one value requires huge amounts of energy, taking in billions of units of information, organising them in similar beliefs and establishing an exchange between them. The formation of a value resembles the birth of a new star.

One of the most common reasons for failure in therapy, consulting and any other communication is the mismatch of the value systems of the communication partners. We are naturally immune against contact with anyone who doesn’t share our values. Regardless of how good a specialist he may be, how knowledgeable, how much he may pretend that he accepts and understands our values. Even in a marriage the lack of similarity in values and their ordering is a common cause of difficulties.

Beliefs determine our behaviour, but values define the beliefs. This is why it is not possible to do something, which contradicts our values. However much we try, force ourselves, however much we think we want to. Any attempt to go against our values always ends in their victory and sometimes it is expressed in illness, frustration, psychological disturbances, unexplainable dissatisfaction with ourselves, painful inner struggles. Pills won’t help. The harmony in the body cannot be restored before the harmony in the values is recovered. Something, which is not important for us, is not us, cannot fulfil our life and make us happy.

Nature has constructed a mechanism, which on unconscious level checks the match of our values with the information which comes through our senses; similarly unconsciously the information shapes our values. Probably what was important for us 10-20 years ago has been replaced with something else. But this mechanism is often slow, particularly now when the amount of information which comes from outside has increased 100-, 1000-fold, compared to what this mechanism was constructed for. Values are the most conservative part of our psyche and the outside environment has begun to change too quickly. We live in a race and we can’t rely only on unconscious changes.

Values, like every phenomenon in our inner world, have their biography. They are born, mature, fight for influence and power, constantly are re-ordered according to the amount of information they attract, weaken and sometimes die if they don’t receive the sustenance of the support of beliefs and inner states. It often happens that a value climbs up the ladder or loses its importance without us realising it. This is one of the most common sources of inner conflict. Our behaviour should be consistent with the values, which are important for us now, not those which mattered years ago and we assume still matter. Hypothesising is not helpful; moreover it’s very easy to examine one’s current values. One needs to simply ask oneself what is important for him/her now. Now, and for oneself, not for the others, not to please somebody else, and not yesterday or the day before. What is important for one now?

The conscious control over our values is even more important now when the attempts to undermine, weaken and replace them with somebody else’s values are more and more frequent. There is nothing wrong in changing our values when we discover that the world has changed. But when somebody else holds in his hands our values and controls them we are only chess pawns. Our immunity can throw out the foreign inner states if our values are stable. Even imported values will be weakened and thrown out if they contradict our healthy value system. But to uproot our values means to uproot our psychological structure. Our entire self-defence is suddenly destroyed. Robbing a man off his values is robbing a man off himself, and there is no cure for that, no recovery, in the same way as a felled tree cannot grow again.

The modern, digital time offers modern structures for the destruction of the value system of the individual, the community and the society. Sometimes the quick changes in the environment and the attempts of the inner system to match them make it particularly unstable and vulnerable. It is easy to become a victim of these circumstances if you are not prepared. So the demise of socialism - a quick external change - was skilfully used to deform and paralyse the values of the individual and the society. Day after day people were bombarded with information about breathtakingly cruel crimes, which were not only not punished, but brought reaches and recognition. The message was that you had to be a criminal, murderer, mafia-man to obtain wealth, flashy car, respect and recognition (and not last, the attention, recognition and admiration of the mass media). The message was that crime was not punished, but rewarded, that to be evil was valuable, whereas values, like hard work and decency were laughed upon and associated with failure and old-fashion. This public campaign turned an entire society into invalids. Its results resemble the damage caused by the ? meteor: they can be seen even now, decades after the initial explosion. And the burnt forests of values will not recover for several more decades.

In NLP language is not only a tool, but a barometer of the harmed inner world. For example, the verb, “to take”. In Bulgarian, this verb used to mean - stretch my arm and take something; it wasn’t connected in any way with the exchange of something with something else, or the procurement of something - a process for which there was another clear verb -to buy. But nowadays “to take” is widely used as a synonym of “to buy” - and not only in everyday speech, but also in the official language of the press and television. It has become common to say “take a house, take a car” - expressions which carry the idea that people nowadays really take cars, houses and other valuables without giving money for them, and thus strengthens the status of theft as an acceptable behaviour. Even when the author of the information doesn’t mean theft, he unconsciously transmits and strengthens the belief that theft, “taking” is the same as buying. Particularly journalists today transmit the parasites of destroyed values, though often unconsciously.

NLP asserts that if one takes language literally, the entire inner world of the individual and society begins to take shape in front of your eyes, and you begin to hear, see and perceive things, which until now you weren’t able to.

However much we try to mask and hide our values, one day they simply come out.

Tags: Science, inner world, Information, Psyche, Beliefs, Inner States, Values, Communication, Energy, Therapy, communication partners, behaviour, illness, frustration, psychological disturbances, unexplainable dissatisfaction with ourselves, painful inner struggles, harmony, happy, unconscious, Senses, Psyche, inner conflict, important, conscious control, psychological structure, environment, NLP, Language, Neuro-Linguistic Programming