#34 - JOURNEY - Finding Your North Star: How to Align with Your True Path

Episode #34 - Finding Your North Star: How to Align with Your True Path

In this episode, I delve into the concept of finding your "North Star" – your true path in life. Drawing on personal experiences and insights from philosophy and psychology, I explore how you can align with your authentic self and discover the direction that truly lights you up. We’ll look at the importance of trust, the challenges of staying true to your purpose, and how to navigate the uncertainty that comes with growth. If you're seeking clarity and guidance in your own journey, this episode is a must-listen.

🔗 Related Links: The full blog post with resources, references, and transcript can be found on my website.

Transcript

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Vanished. Me. Podcast of. Sorry. In the previous episode, I spoke about finding my Northstar. How had a wonder what direction I'm supposed to go in in my life? But what is my purpose? How do I achieve it? And I've explored this before, and what I've concluded is how do we know our purpose if we don't know who we are? And so I think it's really important to do things like meditate and, you know, a journal and journey and go inside and try and like really facial shadow self and like, you know, learn who you are. I have a quote who says your purpose is you. Yes, bitch. I put that on a T-shirt too. If you want it, you can buy it on my store X but what I mean by that is I really believe, and this applies to me at least, that your purpose is the journey inwards. It's a journey of self-discovery, and the jobs are just a consequence of this. Something that we put out along the way. And Jordan Peterson says that we each have a thread in our life that we can follow. And he said that you didn't get to choose your passions or what you're interested in. And this is one way that you can orientate yourself towards what you true, calling it the pay attention to the things that lock you up inside and make you feel inspired. So for me, the main three topics that I love, psychology, philosophy and spirituality like these are the books that I read, the podcasts that I listen to. These are the topics where learning doesn't feel like learning. And then there are my creative outlets. So, you know, I love fashion and podcasting and writing. Podcasting is probably my favourite because it's where I get to talk about all the things that I'm like researching, and it's mixing with my personal experience. So while I walk the journey, the podcast is what I put out along the way. When I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to grow on the podcast, I realised that my podcast was not supposed to be my journey. It was supposed to be the thing that I put out along the way while I walked the journey. And so I started to ask myself, well, what is this path? You know, basically like, what do I really want? You know, in life, what do I really want to do? And at this time, I found a podcast with Andrew Haberman and Doctor Martha Beck. Martha has a book about finding your North Star. She has a practice where you imagine your ideal day, the perfect day from start to finish, and it can be as grandiose as you like. It's your imagination. And so you wake up and you imagine who is there with you. What do you look like? Feel closer in your wardrobe, Haberman said. When he did this visualisation years ago, his ideal day was him doing the podcast with Martha. And Martha says that she he's all the time that people actually come up to her and say like, oh my God, my ideal day came true. And so I lay down and I was wondering, I know what's going to come up for me. Like, what is it going to be? Is it me appearing on the chair of Rogan Experience? Like would be me sitting front row at the runway for my own very successful fashion brand? Would it be me on a book tour? After writing a bestselling book? So I laid, then I listened. And my ideal day was me spending the day with my soulmate. I know that sounds so aligned to even say the like. What can I say? I believe in true love and I realised that may finding that perfect partnership is like the deepest desire of my heart. You know that kind of love where you just feel seen on all levels and respected and valued. And the truth is, is that like, if I had the choice between having the most successful podcast in the world and the clothing brand and a bestselling book or finding like my true love, I would take the love any day of the week. I've also long since made the decision that I would rather be alone and settle. I'm genuinely so happy being alone that my standards and here are so high. Because to me, the sacrifice that you would have to add to my life. And so I've accepted that there's a high chance that I will end up alone. Because, you know, I'm not actually afraid of that because I like being alone. And there's nothing more whining than being in the wrong relationship. Well, I also came up with me. Troubling. I'm definitely happiest when I'm travelling. I love travel, and I was travelling like full time before Covid hit and and my wardrobe was very colourful and sparkly to. But it just, it made me realise it was like, okay, well these are really the deepest desires of my heart. Like, what am I actually doing to make these happen? You know, obviously with like finding love, but it's not really something you can chase. I don't think, you know, I think there's things you can do, like making yourself the ideal partner and putting yourself out there more and things like that. But I also don't think I'm going to meet my soulmate in Geelong or probably not Australia. I feel, but the one thing that I can control is travel and, you know, I kind of analyse, like, why aren't I travelling? I've told myself the mental story that I need to make sure I have a successful business or a podcast making money before I'm able to go travel. It was like I had to achieve a before I could accomplish be, and I started to question if I could cut straight to B. And I think because of this, I put so much pressure on myself to make my business or my podcast work because I feel like I can't go and leave my life and travel and do all these things I want to do until that's done. And right now, I'm starting to question that belief. And, you know, just even the thought of like, what if I kind of just did it? What if I just, you know, we're travelling now and, you know, realigned all my priorities because, you know, you don't need a whole lot of money to travel. Like I was living in Bali on $15 day. So if I can rely on my friends where I can make it possible for me to go and travel and just go start living my life instead of feeling like I have to figure everything out first. Is that something that I can do? And just the thought that, like, led me up inside and made me feel so excited, and that is a sign that you're on your true path, according to the author. Anyway, so Martha has a book called Finding You Our North Star. She gave some really productive ways to actually find your north. So one of them is to notice how you feel in your body when you push yourself doing a certain task or decision or direction or opportunity, she says. If it makes you feel oppressed or constricted, it's not for you. If it makes you feel free, then that's a sign that you're on the right path. Enlightenment feels like freedom, she says. Another thing you can do is practice mindfulness and reflection, because these can help make it clear as well, as well as identifying your core values. Because this can act as a compass. And then she said that once you do have kind of your direction, focus on small steps that can actually help you getting there instead of feeling overwhelmed. And it's so out of reach. So for me, I'm figuring out how I can mirror overseas. And so now I'm currently in the process of trying to find some remote work. So and setting up multiple streams of income. If I can, so that I have like a bit of a safety net. And so it's really made me reflect on the last four years because like I said, I was travelling full time, I was living in Bali and then Covid hit and I was forced back home. But I really needed to spend the last four years here. I've done so much healing here. Mentally, physically, spiritually, like mentally. I had some trauma. I was running from that. I finally turned around and faced physically. I got to the root cause of my chronic illnesses and found out that I have autism and PCOS. Spiritually, I feel like I'm fully committed to the journey now, like I'm in a really good place and I just got really emotional kind of reflecting and thinking back and just realising, like how grateful I am to have had the last four years to heal. And I'm so grateful that I had the most supportive family ever who has just allowed me the privilege of healing. And they paid me to go to therapy and things like that. So, yeah, just like quite emotional, just reflecting on that, but also like, you know, where I am right now, I feel like I'm healed, I'm thriving. I'm just like, ready to go and leave my fucking life. And Martha said that when you realise that you go in the wrong direction in life, there is often a meltdown stage where you're full of confusion, fear and uncertainty as to your old ways of thinking and like having them no longer serve you. And so this is when I came home from Bali. I think, this is when I knew I had to do all of my shit. And she creates this face to being the caterpillar the next stage. And this is when you withdraw and you retract. And this is often accompanied with depression and a lack of motivation or direction. So for me, this was the depression chapter. And then after enough time, there is the butterfly stage. And she said, this is when you start to have an idea of your North Star and the new direction that you want to go in. So the signs that you have into this stage is that you start to feel restless and actually want to work, not in 95, but like work towards your dream. And this is where I am right now. I'm ready to fly the curve as a butterfly. So this is the conclusion that I've come to recently. However, this has been a really scary decision to make. It means leaving behind a lot of security, like the renewal of secure, my chances of buying a house, my disability support, pension and NDIS access, and more. But I've actually found this to be relief. And this is what I'm going to talk about in the next episode. Surrender and trust in this economy.