Viterbo, September 20th 2026
Dear Friend,
Could you name the three main values you live by, off the top of your head?
I remember talking about this some time ago, and today I want to remind myself and you of the importance and the urgency of this question.
In this world that’s spinning around like crazy and keeps accelerating; that keeps warming up, both metaphorically and literally; that keeps changing at a speed that’s a real challenge for so many people, we all need to get clear on our core values.
This is a conversation that goes way beyond nice concepts. You might say that your top value is peace, but are you embodying peace in your day-to-day life? Or that your top value is kindness, but are you embodying kindness all day every day?
Getting clear on our real values is crucial, it’s a huge first step. But then living in alignment with them is our most important, and sometimes toughest, task.
Identifying our values means identifying the kind of world and the kind of life we want.
So many people do things, and live lives, that are not aligned with their values. This happens out of fear, out of lack of obvious alternatives, or out of habit, and it will take their lives to unwanted places.
I’m seeing a very sad example of this here in Italy at the moment. All over the country, in big cities and small towns, hundreds of thousands of beautiful trees are being cut down. I swear it’s unbelievable! In Rome alone, over the last few months, while people were away on holidays, 30.000 gorgeous pines and sycamores and many other trees have been taken down. Rome isn’t the same anymore, it has been tragically mutilated.
And the same is true for hundreds of other places. Beautiful alleys, parks, urban forests, gardens, are being annihilated. The reason for this is, as usual, greed. I’ll spare you the details, it’s basically about some special funds from the EU, about corrupt deals with big “gardening” corporations, and about selling the wood to “green” energy enterprises. The city councils are devastating their own territories in order to grab tons of very dirty money.
Now, let’s say the Mayor’s and the head of the big enterprise’s top value is money at any cost. Maybe, down the ladder there will be a few more people of the same kind. But further down the line, and down to the person who wields the chainsaw and takes down the tree, there must be many people with different values. Imagine the guy cutting down a tree under which he played as a kid, and his own kids were playing there too until a few days ago.
He might be someone who loves nature and loves seeing the kids playing there. He might have felt bad about it, but he was scared he’d lose his job if he didn’t obey. Fair enough, as long as he believes that he’s powerless, isolated in seeing things in a different way, and that he wouldn’t stand a chance to change anything.
But what if he had more than just a bad feeling and a lot of fear? What if he had absolute clarity on his values, like his love for nature and for his kids? What if these values permeated his conversations, his actions, and his choices?
What if he refused to take down the tree? And they called the next guy, and he refused too? And the next one, and all of them refused to take down the tree? There is no war without soldiers. At the end, the Mayor and the head of the big enterprise would have to take the chainsaws and cut down the trees themselves…
Our real, deep values are often a pretty reliable expression of what our souls want. Some souls are here to experience greed, violence, abuse of power and all of that. Most others are here to experience love, harmony, expansion, and compassion.
And every soul should follow its own path, and that’s perfect.
What I’m talking about here, is the fact that we’re often unaware of what our soul wants from us, because we don’t really listen.
I believe that when we all start exploring our deepest values and consistently living by them, never putting them aside to make space for other people’s values, we will be way more connected to our own, and to our planet’s soul.
Do you know what your deepest, personal, not borrowed, non-negotiable values are? And are you willing to commit to them in this lifetime?
They might make life feel a bit tougher at first, but the rewards for that will be worth it, I promise 💗
PS: If you know someone who might like to get my news, feel free to forward them this email! And in case someone forwarded it to you, and you would like to sign up for it too, you can do it here ⬇️
