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

by Martha N. Beck

In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Way, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The best way to make your fortune in today’s economic climate is to master the spontaneous, creative “not-doing” of the essential self.

Pay attention if your own words begin to surprise you. You probably don’t have brain damage or multiple-personality disorder; on the contrary, you’re getting crucial information to take you toward your North Star.

Whenever you feel trapped in a situation that your essential self knows is keeping you from your North Star, you may either lie awake night after night, churning with anger and anxiety, or sleep fifteen hours a day without ever feeling rested.

All of them were trying to stop their compulsive behavior by controlling or eradicating their essential selves. This was the most counterproductive thing they could have done. There’s nothing to love about addiction, but it will not loosen its grip until addicts learn to act lovingly toward their essential selves. The true self becomes destructive only when it can’t endure what’s happening; when it’s being starved, tortured, and dragged away from your North Star. Aligning your life with your deepest sense of purpose is one of

Of course, this meant that Allen began to rethink his role in his family, where his social self had been trained to ignore all personal needs and longings. His mother and siblings threw fits when Allen changed this pattern.

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What kinds of activities increase your energy levels? Does being with certain people seem to pep you up? What about places—do you feel perky and energetic near the ocean, at the movies, walking through the mall? Look back over your history, both recent and long-term, to see if you can recall times of notable peppiness. EXERCISE List three things that can always get you moving. (Examples: “The family New Year’s party,” “Playing pickup basketball,” “Going to the mountains.”)

You may not even know that you don’t like something until you drop it

EXERCISE Try to remember three times when your health seemed better than usual. What was going on in your life at the time?

You may regularly forget your phone number, your mother’s birthday, and everything you ever learned in school, but in this one area, you’re a memory genius.

I’ve noticed that most people aren’t impressed with their own super-memories. Because a topic is easy for them to learn, they decide it isn’t impressive or useful. Mary was actually embarrassed about her ability to remember everything about celebrities and their exploits—she admitted it with a red face and downcast eyes. She didn’t realize how useful her skills could be in areas like publicity, marketing, and entertainment.

Where’s your supermemory? If you can’t think of anything, you’re probably overlooking the obvious. Ask some friends and loved ones what they’ve noticed about your ability to pick up certain categories of information. List these categories below. Info type No. 1: ______________________________ Info type No. 2: ______________________________ Info type No. 3: ______________________________ Circle the type of information that interests you most. Be honest; nothing you really enjoy is stupid or trivial.

Think how differently time flowed for you when something wonderful was happening in your life. During your childhood, did you ever settle in to play a game and forget the time until your mother called you for dinner? Have you ever become engrossed in conversation with someone who seemed to be a kindred spirit, and suddenly realized that hours had passed without your noticing them? Is there anything you do now that swallows your sense of time, allowing you to simply experience the present? If so, list it below. EXERCISE Write down three types of activities that make you forget what time it is.

Not only can your essential self shut down your social skills in order to get you out of bad relationships; it may also enhance those skills when you’re headed in the right direction. When you meet someone who is part of your true path, you may be surprised and gratified at how well the whole social-interaction game unfolds. You’ll say just the right things, at just the right times. Your jokes will be genuinely funny; in fact, even if they’re not, people will seem to think they are. You’ll feel waves of positive attention gravitating toward you. Your social self won’t have a clue about why things are clicking so beautifully; it will just ride along in amazed delight

EXERCISE Name three people who make you feel socially adept and confident, people who seem to understand you and enjoy spending time with you. Person No. 1: ______________________________ Person No. 2: ______________________________ Person No. 3: ______________________________ Please circle the name of the person who makes you feel most comfortable and relaxed. For a printable PDF of this page, click here.

It will pull you toward someone who can help you get on your true path, then disappear, leaving you to do the much less intoxicating work of long-term human interaction.

Like attractions to people, Urge to Merge reactions to activities come and go on their own mysterious timetable. You’re more likely to experience these sensations when you’re at a change point. Crisis, loss, transformation, and growth all tend to weaken the grip of the social self, and demand some quick decision making on the part of the essential self. Since it can’t explain itself logically, the essential self may just throw out a grappling hook and latch on to something or someone that might pull you toward your true path. When have you “gone crazy” over a person or activity?

EXERCISE List times when you felt strangely drawn to a person, place, or thing. You may have temporarily become unable to concentrate on anything else. What was the object of your desire?

EXERCISE List the last three times you experienced a wonderful mood, particularly if your good mood came at a strange time or from an action other people may have criticized.

the simultaneous loss of self and complete connection with the universe.

Plunged into the soul of the world

EVERYBODY ON DECK Step 1: Finish the following sentences by writing down whatever comes from your gut, no matter how silly it may sound to your brain. 1. People judge me because

Step 2: For each statement above, write the names of six people you know who actually, verifiably hold the opinions you’ve ascribed

Moreover, my body often knew what my essential self wanted, even when my brain was muddled and confused by social-self demands.

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Step 5: Identify Gaps of Feeling If, like most people, you’re a high-to-medium somatizer (someone who holds a lot of tension in your body), you’ll probably find that some parts of your body are easy to feel while others seem numb, tight, or paralyzed. Good—now you know where your body is storing useful information that your brain doesn’t know. When you’ve identified a “frozen” area, let your attention linger there. Breathe into the numbness. Imagine the warmth of your breath thawing it out, allowing it to relax.

Not always, but often, a physical problem is a coded message from the essential self, a dramatization of needs or problems the conscious mind can’t or won’t articulate.

EXERCISE: CHANNELING YOUR BODY After climbing back into your body (see above), have a conversation with any part of it that feels locked up, frozen, numb, or hurt. As a solo exercise, this seems to work best on paper. For example, if your thumb hurts, take a notebook and write, “Thumb, what are you trying to tell me?” Then write down whatever response you feel coming from your thumb: “I’m longing to hitchhike again,” “I wish I were a lower primate—opposable digits entail so much responsibility,” “You hit me with a hammer, you idiot.” Don’t censor or criticize, and most of all, don’t think. If nothing comes up, relax and focus your mind on your breathing. Unexpected responses may bubble up as soon as your brain looks the other way.

THE BIG PICTURE: HOW CLOSE IS YOUR NORTH STAR? In the spaces below, write the labels you’ve created for the most positive and most negative reactions you’ve seen in your own body (for example, “Trapped” or “Free,” “Panicky” or “Calm,” “Knotted up” or “Loose”).

I believe that almost everyone who feels as stymied, aimless, or directionless as Ron is carrying an unresolved emotional wound. A lack of enthusiasm for life is always a sign that the deep self is hurt. Every person’s essential self is pure productive energy, and yours will send you into a fulfilling life almost automatically if your emotional psyche is in good repair. If, despite honest effort, you can’t imagine a life full of enthusiasm and delight, it’s time for a little triage.

Here’s how emotional surgery works: 1) First, you have to locate any damaging alien objects that may be lodged in your psyche. This is done by searching your memory for the events that caused your emotional injury. 2) To clean out your wounds, you must identify at least one person who can hear your story with compassion and empathy. The ultimate goal of this step is to learn self-love. Compassion toward the self always starts with receiving understanding and acknowledgment from someone else, but once you’ve mastered the art of comforting and accepting yourself, you’ll be able to heal many of your emotional injuries without anyone else’s assistance. 3) Whether you’re talking to yourself or a confidant (and here, I’d strongly suggest getting professional help, especially at first), give this person a full account of the events

that hurt you. Don’t recite them like a police report; include your emotional reactions to the events, and express any emotional pain you’re still feeling. 4) The equivalent of stitching up the cleaned wound happens when you get a compassionate response from your listener, allow yourself to accept that love, and begin to feel it toward yourself. 5) Even after the first four steps have been completed, you may need to rest a bit while you finish healing. Time, which only makes things worse as long as you’re toting shrapnel, heals emotional wounds with surprising speed once they’re cleaned and bandaged.

there anything you really, really don’t want to talk about? Something you don’t even want to do think about?”

EXERCISE At the top of a piece of notebook paper, write the words “This Is What Happened.” Then put down a description of something that hurt you emotionally. Next, write “This Is How I Feel About It,” and describe your emotional response to the event. Very nice; that’s out of the way. Now turn to a fresh page and write “This Is What REALLY Happened.” Recount the same event, only tell all the shocking, rude, blunt, unkind details you left out the first time. When that’s done, write, “This Is How I REALLY Feel About It.” Dig deeper into your gut reactions, taking especial care to describe any feelings you think may be “inappropriate.” Keep

you’re feeling a confusing welter of emotions, try categorizing the sensation into one of four major areas: sad, mad, glad, or scared. Most of my clients, even those with very tenuous attachments to their emotions, can usually put their feelings in one of these categories. Doing so seems to prime the pump, allowing people to get more specific,

that seem to match what you’re feeling. For example, think of a piece of music that matches the mood you’re in right now. What comes to mind? Is the melody wistful, triumphant, calming, exciting, buoyant?

EXERCISE 1. Right now, are you feeling more mad, sad, glad, or scared? Even if your feelings are very mild, try putting them in one of these categories. 2. Now write down at least six different words, besides those listed above, that describe your feelings at this moment.

If your needs are being frustrated by another person’s behavior, it’s especially important to ask “Why?” enough times to reach the root of your feelings, where they can be expressed in terms of your needs, not other people’s behavior.

EXERCISE Think of something that scares you. Then answer the following questions: 1. Exactly what are you afraid of? ______________________________ 2. Does your fear tell you to do anything specific? If so, what? ______________________________ If you aren’t able to answer these questions, your primary fear is of the unknown. Check to see if you’re covering up another emotion. If not, proceed to the next step.

EXERCISE Is there anything you “don’t want to know”? Are you avoiding information (medical testing, a good hard look at your finances, the truth about your romantic relationship) because you’re afraid it might reveal something terrifying? Take a deep breath and name your pain by listing the information you’re scared to know:

Fleeing in a panic won’t cause your fear to dissipate as fast as doing some research will. Let your fear motivate you to pay very close attention to the scary situation.

something is scaring you, learn everything about it that you possibly can. EXERCISE Think about the topic you listed in the last exercise. Today, take one step toward getting more information about this topic. Schedule the mammogram, call your bank, get ready to confront your spouse about the unfamiliar undergarments that have been cropping up in the laundry hamper. Tomorrow, take another step toward full disclosure. Knowing may be scary, but not knowing can be deadly.

The rule is to follow your desire. If fear and desire give the same instructions, run away. If fear and desire give opposite instructions, feel your fear and stand your ground. In other words, you should run from anything that scares you and holds absolutely no appeal for your essential self. If the thought of attending medical school makes you queasy with dread and you’ve never for one second wanted to be a doctor, stay away from medical school. I don’t care if your parents donated their life savings, their spare kidneys, and your little brother to Johns Hopkins in the hope that you will become an M.D.; your fear and your desire are both telling you that it will never happen. Spare yourself the long scenic road to failure. Run. Now.

do? EXERCISE 1. Complete this sentence: If I only had the guts, I would

If you begin to face your fears, something bittersweet is going to happen to you: You’ll grow up. You’ll lose your dependency on the grown-ups of the world, because you’ll realize that there is no time, no age, at which fear suddenly fades and you become one of these impervious beings.

Loss always lies at the root of grief. Every time you lose something you hold dear, you must grieve, and every time you feel grief-stricken, you can be sure you’ve lost something dear.

People who don’t honor their losses don’t grieve. They may lose all joy in living, but they don’t actively mourn, and this means that they don’t heal.

EXERCISE Is there any sadness you carry that has not been honored, either by you or by the people around you? What is it? ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Now give yourself permission to grieve this loss, no matter how “inappropriate” or silly it might seem. Processing genuine grief is never inappropriate. It’s the only way to your North Star. For a printable

Whatever loss you’re grieving, examine it very carefully for replaceable parts. Even if you can’t recapture exactly what you’ve lost, you may be able to jury-rig an arrangement that fills all your desires, precluding the need to spend painful hours, days, and weeks in rending grief.

EXERCISE Cast your mind back to something you have lost, something that left you feeling cheated. Exactly what about this thing do you still miss? Is there any way—any way—you could get something to fill this need? Be creative.