Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live

by Martha N. Beck

Many of my clients can’t figure out what they want to do with their careers until they restore themselves to physical health by resting deeply for weeks, sometimes even months. Whatever your body tells you to do, the odds are very good that it’s the next step toward your North Star.

Some people get so used to doing this that it becomes a lifestyle: every relationship is another chance to recount the terrible things that have happened to them. Don’t get stuck in this place. After the first few times, the healing effect of telling your story will already have taken place, and you’ll feel less emotional energy with each conversation. That’s the signal that it’s time to move on.

If someone you deeply love wounded you emotionally, you may spend years in futile efforts to convince that person to change, to see how valuable you are, to treat you as you deserve to be treated. When these attempts fail (because they usually do), you’ll feel magnetized toward romantic partners, friends, and sometimes even employers who are similar to the person who hurt you. You’ll try to get them to treat you right, because that would feel a lot like getting love from the original injuring party.

Eventually, you’ll get it at a deep level: Your life has changed. You have changed. You can’t go back to your old routine, your old identity, any more than you can fit into your baby clothes. Since you’re not yet sure who you’re becoming, you don’t really have anything else to wear. You’re going to feel mighty naked for a while. Moving forward may be scary, humiliating, and painful, but going back is impossible.

“three N’s”: noticing what you love, narrowing your focus, and, finally, naming the thing you most desire, the identity that fits as though it’s custom-tailored.

The needs for certainty and permission are the electric fences in your mind.

can tell you from observation, as well as experience, that people don’t cry when they lose their hope. They cry when they get it back.