Seek After Good and Righteous Things
Values, Virtue, and Building a Life of Meaning
Guiding Text
Teaching Section
Authentic Values and the Thirteenth Article of Faith
Lesson Plan
Transition from discernment to values. What will you build? Authentic values identified from within.
ACT framework. Introjected values absorbed from environment; intrinsic values from authentic self-reflection. Many will discover values like 'I value celibacy' were introjected under institutional pressure.
'If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.' Note what it affirms and what it omits: conformity, silence, institutional obedience.
ACT Bull's-Eye (Lundgren et al., 2012) mapping four life domains and rating alignment.
One introjected value recognized and one authentic value discovered.
Detailed Lesson Content
In ACT, values are not goals. A goal is achievable: 'Get married in the temple.' A value is a direction: 'Love fully.' For LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints, when the institutional goal structure collapses, values survive. Introjected values were installed by your environment; intrinsic values arise when you strip away expectations and ask what you actually care about. The Thirteenth Article of Faith is a values statement: anything virtuous, anything lovely. Not 'virtuous by handbook standards.' Virtuous. Period. If your love is virtuous, it qualifies. Read honestly, the Thirteenth Article of Faith is one of the most affirming texts for LGBTQ+ believers.
Recommended Videos
Russ Harris, ‘ACT Made Simple: Values vs Goals’ (1 hr 50 min)
Dr. Russ Harris explains the core ACT concept of values—your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being—and the crucial distinction between values and goals.
Watch on YouTube →Susan David, ‘The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage’ (TEDWomen 2017, 16 min)
Psychologist Susan David challenges a culture that prizes positivity over emotional truth, sharing powerful strategies for emotional agility—the courage to face difficult emotions with curiosity and compassion.
Watch TED Talk →Kerry Spencer Pray, ‘The Book of Queer Mormon Joy’ (Signature Books Podcast)
Dr. Kerry Spencer Pray discusses the collection of essays by queer Mormons who, when they looked inside themselves, found divinity rather than sin—affirming that joy is possible and present.
Listen to Podcast →Additional Reading
- Hayes, S. C., et al. (2006). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25.
- Lundgren, T., et al. (2012). The Bull's-Eye Values Survey. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(4), 518–526.
- Thirteenth Article of Faith; Philippians 4:8; Moroni 7:12–13.
Academic Framework
Values-based living is a core component of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al., 2006), which has shown efficacy in reducing psychological distress among LGBTQ+ populations (Yadavaia et al., 2014). ACT distinguishes between values (freely chosen directions for living) and goals (specific, achievable outcomes). For LGBTQ+ people recovering from religious trauma, a critical step in healing is the identification of authentic values—values that arise from personal conviction and spiritual experience rather than from institutional compliance.
Research on post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004) identifies 'new possibilities for one's life' as one of five domains of growth following trauma. This session invites participants to envision those new possibilities—to build a life of meaning that is not defined by institutional metrics of worthiness but by the virtues that the Thirteenth Article of Faith actually names: virtue, loveliness, good report, praise.
Theological Reflection
The Thirteenth Article of Faith is one of the most beautiful distillations of Latter-day Saint values—and one of the most underutilized. 'If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.' The article does not say 'if there is anything the handbook approves of.' It says virtuous, lovely, of good report, praiseworthy. These are aesthetic and moral categories, not bureaucratic ones. A gay person's love can be virtuous. Their desire for companionship can be lovely. Their faith, held together through decades of pain, can be of the very best report.
Discussion Prompts
- What does a 'virtuous, lovely' life look like for you—not as the institution defines it, but as you define it?
- What values are most important to you right now? How are those values different from the values you were told to prioritize?
- What are you building? What do you want your life to stand for when the institutional noise fades?
Integration Exercise
Values compass: Participants identify their five core values—the principles that guide their decisions when no one is watching and no institution is evaluating. They then assess how their current life aligns with those values, and where the gaps are. The exercise ends with three specific, actionable commitments to bring their life into closer alignment with their own values in the coming week.
Therapeutic Methodology
Primary Modality: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) — Values Clarification. This session is the program's most direct application of ACT's values work. Clinicians should guide participants through a structured values clarification exercise using the ACT Bull's Eye (Lundgren et al., 2012), which maps four life domains (work/education, leisure, relationships, personal growth/health) and asks participants to rate how closely their current behavior aligns with their stated values. For LGBTQ+ participants recovering from religious trauma, the key clinical intervention is distinguishing between introjected values (values absorbed from the institution and experienced as one's own) and intrinsic values (values that arise from authentic self-reflection). Many participants will discover that values they believed were their own—such as 'I value celibacy' or 'I value a heterosexual marriage'—were introjected under institutional pressure and do not survive genuine scrutiny.
Secondary Modality: Motivational Interviewing (MI; Miller & Rollnick, 2012). As participants begin to articulate authentic values, they will encounter ambivalence—the pull between the life they want and the life they were conditioned to pursue. MI's spirit of collaboration, evocation, and autonomy support is essential here. Clinicians should resist the urge to resolve the ambivalence for the participant and instead use reflective listening and open-ended questions to help the participant hear their own voice. The four processes of MI—engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning—map naturally onto this session's movement from values identification to actionable commitment.
Cultural Competence Note: Clinicians must be aware that for many Latter-day Saint participants, the institutional value system is deeply entangled with family relationships, community belonging, and even professional identity. Choosing authentic values over introjected ones may carry real social costs. The clinician's role is not to minimize these costs but to help participants make informed, autonomous decisions with full awareness of both what they gain and what they risk.