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

Square Four is when your dreams are finally coming true, and you have a chance to stop, rest, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. The whole objective of the change cycle is to get to this point as quickly as possible (though, as we’ll see, you can’t do this by skipping the other phases of change) and to stay there as long as you can.

In fact, not acting on anger is often far more destructive and immoral than using it—in a calm and constructive way, of course.

2. Make small moves; gather information.

If you’ve really positioned your life by consulting your internal compasses and setting a path to your own North Star, you’re going to experience a lot of good things. Celebrate them. Comment on them, frequently. Tell people about your reactions to both success and failure. Be both overwhelmed and open. You’ll maximize your own happiness and lay th

As you wander around the nothingness of the threshold, follow your internal compasses no matter where they take you.

James Bond is a fictional character in a made-up story. But so are we all.

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.

In short, things aren’t just changing. They’re changing very, very fast, and they’re not going to slow down. This is all the more reason why your Square Four, the life you put together in the outside world, must accommodate the reality of change. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be upset by things like aging, death, betrayal, decay, and the emergenc

You never hear about truly self-actualized people, like Buddha or Christ, telling people they’re stupid losers. It goes against the nature of enlightenment. On the contrary, people who exemplify truth are always turning up in the lives of “stupid losers” and telling them that they’re priceless and beloved, that their essential nature is literally d

Healing your emotional wounds means shattering the soft-focus lens of denial that pretties up ugly truths of family history and personal experience. It also means taking responsibility for your own misdeeds, whatever they may be. Once you’ve got the facts straight, you must also tell the truth about the feelings caused by hurtful events. This kind