When It’s Not About Love and Security . . .
It’s About Following Your Own “North Star”
Have you ever felt that you love your mate, respect him or her and are even friends and, yet, something deep inside your being is saying that your “dance” with this partner is over? Do you have a great job but feel unfulfilled? Do you identify so strongly with the ideals and expectation of the roles enveloping you that you have become deeply unhappy? Have you stopped long enough to check-in and feel whether the existence you are leading is truly an expression of your best life or are you just settling for it? If I have hit a nerve with these sincere questions, you are not alone and, as best-selling author Martha Beck states in her book, “Steering by Starlight” says, you are probably not following your own “North Star.”
Like a North Star, there is an intelligence that guides and calls to you; it dwells within you and is constantly magnetizing you towards it. Your North Star has the clarity and foresight to encourage you, and it may well issue such thoughts as “You deserve more. Don’t compromise. Break the rules and follow your heart’s deepest desires!” I ask you sincerely, can you bear to adhere to such potentially life-upheaving words? Or maybe a better question is, can you bear not to?
Tell me, whose permission do you think you need to begin leading your most authentic, courageous and fulfilling life? And by the way, your mate, family, peers and friends will probably not encourage you to follow your North Star, because they may feel much safer to leave things as they are—the status quo. In fact, they are probably also digging their heels in against the pull of their own North Star.
I would venture to say that millions of people feel this way. I know I have felt this way. You hear this “voice” or feel this unrest, this hunger for more, and yet you stay in your dying or complacent relationships, jobs, roles and adopted identities. Why? Because it is safer . . . or so you think.
In part, people stay because the outer appearance of their union seems to indicate that matters are okay or even great. Yet, they feel numb or uninspired. We also stay because of the huge influence over us of religious, moral, cultural, social and familial expectations. We want to be accepted and approved. Unfortunately the approval comes at a high price—our joy and the surrender of the best life we were “coded” to live.
Individually and collectively we are so afraid to slip outside of conditioned roles and expectations and follow the call of our own North Star; we stay in mediocrity or worse. I wonder if, in fact, the huge and growing health problems we face, the enormous use of drugs and alcohol, and the over-eating are not symptomatic of a humanity that is becoming paralyzed by the desire to remain within the perceived norms and expectations, which were supposed to make us happy but ultimately cannot.
It takes incredible courage to look honestly at our romantic relationships and ask ourselves why we are really in them. Are we there for love or for security? For some, the reason is simple, honest and pure: you are in your union because there is no one with whom you would rather be; you are deeply in love, and it is the love that keeps you growing. Your relationship offers you many ways to become increasingly self aware and personally responsible.
To evaluate your career and see if it is truly allowing you to bring forth your greatest assets as a human can be quite unnerving, but that evaluation and exploration is mandatory if you hope to be truly happy and purposeful in your life.
Regardless of this part of your life that needs a change, a complete turnaround or even an ending, you will not be able to lead your best life until you have the courage to stop living the life that you think you should want but clearly don’t.
So, what does it take to gain the courage and strength to claim your best life? It takes incredible guts, faith and trust. It takes saying “yes” to your own Soul’s nudging and your heart’s pull towards the unknown. And might I add, it is helpful to be aware and even understand that you will upset the people closest to you when you draw nearer and nearer to the magnetizing pull of your still somewhat unfamiliar North Star!
To survive the shift, it will take valuing your own guidance, your own heart’s wisdom and your own life, and it will take an acknowledgement and honoring of your own strong gut feel—over everything and everyone else.
And let me tell you this, you will get all kinds of warnings and negative opinions from people who are themselves trapped in a “safe and patterned life.” So, expect them—better yet, welcome them—and view the comments as proof you are heading “home.” As you do head “homeward,” you may feel fear and even some terror. However, each time you do not allow the thoughts of doom, gloom and complete financial failure to echo in the recesses of your still somewhat hypnotized mind, and instead, you press onward, you will begin to feel freer and on purpose.
The reward for following your own North Star is that you will be happier, you will feel more fulfilled, and you will feel as though you are leading an authentic life. You will attract other North Star followers, too! With increasing certainty you will soon have the joy and sense of purpose for which you hungered. The challenges that will surely come will feel softened by a deep inner knowing that you are heading in the most purposeful direction available today, towards the destiny, brilliance and function you were born to know!
Marriage is the evolutionary “workbook” for you to become all you were meant to be. Ideally, spouses should help one another to grow; this way, we feel safe and empowered, but when our spouse goes against our basic desires, our primal fears are activated, and sparks fly. When this happens we tend to doubt our mate and our matrimonial commitment; this is natural, but if you want more love, emotional and physical intimacy, and just more friendship, do these powerfully transformative actions … and improve your marriage today.
