By Joyce Willis, Therapist, The Meadows

Value, power, and abundance are connected to the five core issues in the Meadows Model of Developmental Immaturity as taught by Pia Mellody.

The Five Core Issues are…

• Self Esteem
• Boundaries
• Reality
• Dependency
• Moderation
• Containment

Value

Value is related to issues of self-esteem. When you have healthy self-esteem, you are in a place of “I’m okay, you’re okay.” You are not coming from a place of “I’m okay, and you’re not,” or “You’re okay, and I’m not.” You want to be in a place where you fully recognize that we all have self-worth simply because we are human on this planet.

When I practice healthy esteem, I realize that my strengths don’t make me better than another person, and my weaknesses don’t make me less than another person. We all have strengths and weaknesses in different areas. I might be very good at playing the piano but not so good at athletics. Understanding value means being able to realize my inherent worth as a person.

Power

Power is related to the core issues of boundaries, reality, moderation, and containment. With boundaries, I am able to protect myself from things that are coming in that I don’t want to believe about myself, and I can contain myself in a way that doesn’t offend other people. If I’m able to do that, then I’m more able to be real about who I am as a human. I’m not trying to be the best of the bad or the best of the best at being good and perfect. I’m accepting and appreciating that I’m perfectly imperfect and I’m human.

I’m setting and maintaining functional adult boundaries, and I’m real about who I am. I’m then going to find myself living in more moderation and more containment somewhat naturally. I’m not going to be out of control with my behaviors and will not be too controlling of others. So, any unhealthy issues I may have with either too much power or too few people will begin to be resolved.

Abundance

Abundance is related to the core issues of dependency. Dependency is about being able to take care of my needs and wants in a way that is functional. In a way, I’m not giving away too much of myself in the way that I’m taking care of my needs and wants. So, needs and wants are about taking care of my physical body, so I can also take care of my mind, body, and soul. So, I’m not only taking care of my physical body, but I’m also taking off my emotional body and my spiritual well-being.

When we’re talking about wants, we’re talking about having simple wants. Keeping our wants simple. Oftentimes, as Pia says, when we make our wants very, very extravagant, we’re not able to be relational with other people. So, it’s about keeping our wants simple. It’s about coming from that place of having inherent value and self-worth, coming from that place of having power, but not too much power so that we’re going over other people and not too little power so that we’re going under other people, and about having abundance in a way that shows moderation and containment.