When you live by your North Star, you care less about what other people think.
When live by your North Star, you rely on the well of wisdom inside to help you make decisions both big and small.
When you live by your North Star, you have a clear sense of direction that guides your daily and moment-by-moment actions. It’s like being on autopilot in the best possible way, trusting in the rhythm and wisdom of your body as you flow with a life force that you trust instead of resist.
What is a North Star? It’s the outgrowth of filling your well of Self with warm, clear waters. What is a well of Self? It’s the place inside that is nourished by turning inward and attending to your physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual realms.
Everything in our culture encourages you turn outward and look to others for your direction, answers, and opinions. From the time you’re born (and possibly even in utero), your innate and natural needs are sidelined in favor of your caregivers’ needs. Slowly, bit by bit, the waters of your well of self are drained as you develop the belief that others know you so much better than we know your own self. When the well is empty, your self-trust is ruptured. It’s at this point that you lose touch with your inner compass, your North Star, and fall into the common pit of caring what others think and looking outside yourself for direction.
The good news is that the waters in the well of Self can be replenished, and, thus, you can emblazon the light of your North Star. When you learn to turn inward, to spiral into a deeply feminine place of being, non-achievement, silence, and stillness, the waters begin to fill. When you learn how to stop the incessant, run-on sentence that the culture encourages and instead insert commas and periods, the waters begin to fill. When you learn to find comfort and even essential nutrients in the silence of your own company, the waters begin to fill. When you learn to identify your inner “yeses” and “nos” and take action from that well of knowing, the waters begin to fill.
We’re taught to believe that answers – whether about our relationships, jobs, or what to order on a menu – can be derived by “figuring things out”, which implies spending time making lists and weighing pros and cons. While there may be some value in such techniques, ultimately there are no answers in your head. The answers live in your body. The answers (if we can even call them answers, as they’re really more like signposts of possibilities) emerge from the still point. This still point, this clear central channel, is your rudder. Without it you have no orientation. Without it you are completely dependent on the opinion of others.
One of the most essential and effective ways to fill the well of Self is through being alone, in stillness and silence. Sadly, we live in a world where it’s increasingly more challenging to spend time alone as, even when we’re physically alone, most people reach for their electronic devices to fill in the empty spaces. Instead of sitting in silence, you text. Instead of turning inward, you turn on a movie. So we need to make the distinction here between true stillness and distraction. Distraction is the current habit. Distraction is spending time alone but engaged in an activity that turns you outward in some way (texting, watching, reading). If you’re going to learn to fill the well and cultivate a North Star, you must replace this habit with stillness.
Many people, especially anxiety sufferers, fear stillness because when they stop moving, planning, talking, texting, reading, and watching and simply sit with themselves, the thoughts and anxious feelings can be overwhelming. That’s why, in these cases, we take it in small, manageable steps. And that’s why we work together in a group, moving forward day-by-day with compassionate guidance and a supportive community to learn how to turn inward without overwhelming ourselves.
And that’s what my Trust Yourself 30-day program will offer you. If you know you need to turn inward but resist it like the plague, if you’re addicted to approval and care deeply about what others think, if you long for the self-confidence that some people seem to possess, if you sense that there’s a quiet wisdom inside of you that you’ve rarely been able to access, please join me for this next round, which will begin on January 9th, 2016. It will be my privilege and joy to guide you toward reclaiming what is rightfully yours: your self-trust, your well of Self, your North Star.
Click here to learn more: Trust Yourself: A 30-day program to help you overcome your fear of failure, caring what others think, perfectionism, difficulty making decisions, and self-doubt.
