A POINT3 Journal by Sarah Mayo, October 2025
My word for 2025 is Courage. Little did I know back in January, just how relevant this word was going to be for me this year. And my word for October is Vulnerability… These words act as an additional compass to help guide me, over and above my values.
And as Brené Brown’s work shows us, Courage and Vulnerability go hand-in-hand… which is just as well, as this post is about me leaning into both words to share a little about what I’ve been grappling with behind the scenes this year.
Leaning into Vulnerability
For me (and many others), this has been a year of feeling all the feelings… Grief, sadness, fear, anxiety, hope, love, happiness, guilt, frustration, anger, disappointment, shame, judgement. To name a few!
I am feeling them all (and more!) most days. It feels vulnerable to share this, like it’s an overshare. Why is that, since Esther Perel, psychotherapist and author, tells us that feelings (all of them) are part of what it is to be human and they are all there to be felt. Yet how many of us feel safe or able to really lean into the often uncomfortable work of “feeling the feels”?
Because emotions, particularly the “negative” ones, carry with them stigma. Society leads us to think that somehow life is only successful when we feel the so-called “positive” emotions – of happiness, joy, love etc… But that’s impossible, right? That’s actually toxic positivity. If we think it’s not normal or somehow we’re doing something wrong if we feel the difficult emotions, surely we’re just setting ourselves up for failure?
I’ll spare you the details of why I’m feeling all these emotions this year – after all, everyone has hard stuff to deal with. And that’s not the point of this blog. As someone who has learnt to mask and numb uncomfortable emotions for most of my adult life (by staying busy, running, drinking, shopping), this year has been a baptism of fire in terms of feeling, acknowledging, articulating, let alone truly understanding the emotions I’ve been feeling.
This is where an understanding of my values is helping me, and I could benefit from leaning in further to them, to really practice what I preach in our training sessions! Side note – this year has also been a reminder that you can know all the theory but can still find it difficult to implement it in practice… especially when life gets tough, which as I’m coming to accept, is much more than we like to admit.
Leaning into Values
My values have evolved in 2025. We recommend regularly checking in with your values, as they will change depending on what’s going on for you in your life – age, stage etc.
Ask yourself, as I did, do they still resonate for you? Are they still holding you to account in the areas of your life that matter most? Are they still offering you a compass to help you make decisions and show up in the way that you want to? At work, with your loved ones, in your pursuit of happiness – whatever that means to you? Are they helping you, or are they hindering you?
My three values are:
- Connection
- Energy (my newest one)
- Freedom
The next question to ask yourself is – how do I express these values in my behaviours day-to-day?
Let me give you an example of what I mean. I’m a bit of a habit junkie and love my various daily routines. One of the most regular (and powerful) ways that I bring these values to life are through daily movement and my morning check-in with my partner (one word, what am I grateful for, who am I sending energy to?).
When I walk in the morning, I connect with nature. When I go to the gym, I connect with the community there. Both of these are energising in different ways. When I check in with my partner – it helps give me a sense of perspective and belonging at the start of the day.
It’s more important than ever that I do these values-based habits, that I know support me, so that I can be as resilient as possible to the stresses of life. Life is a juggle and a struggle – that unfortunately is what it is to be human.
As Susan David, author of Emotional Agility says, it’s hard “to human”. Uncomfortable emotions are the price we pay for a meaningful life. She goes on to say that when we feel emotions, they are data signposting us to a value or need that is either being neglected or betrayed. So, we need to “get detective” with our emotions… Why are we feeling shame, guilt, sadness? What value can we harness to help us through the emotion? And it might simply be acknowledging what’s going on and being compassionate with oneself.
So, courage feels like such an appropriate word for me this year. This is the year to feel all the feelings and to work a bit harder at understanding why I’m suddenly feeling judgemental or guilty all of a sudden. And to acknowledge that this is actually what it means to live the full human experience.
A final note about my third value of Freedom, which I realise is a privilege in itself to choose as a value.
This quote by Viktor Frankel says it all for me: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
I get to choose how I respond to life and how I show up every day – either in or out of alignment with my values. No one else is going to do the work for me. That is what freedom is for me.
You can read Nicky’s last ‘Look-in’ here – also about Values.
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