Finding My North Stars

(Photo of Little St. Germain, Wisconsin — one year ago)

I’m on a personal and professional journey this year. Sometimes it seems I’m in a pick-the-ending book, skipping along happily from one adventure to the next. Other times I want to watch Netflix in an escape room, just waiting for time to run out. On one of those days, I ordered the book Finding Your Own North Star (by Martha Beck). Despite the somewhat desperate-sounding title, the book has been quite helpful. Here’s what I’ve learned so far, in case you don’t have time to sit in the escape room and read:

• Be you, your essential self, the one that brings you joy. Sometimes you have to dig out of years of not being you to find your essential self. If you wanted to teach band but went into accounting because it was a high-paying job, chances are you might have to do some internal work to admit to your CFO-self that teaching trombone scales is what really brings you joy, and now just might be time to do it.
• Don’t let the pressure to conform to social norms or others’ wishes outweigh your passion. At this mid-life point, comparisons are a waste of precious time. I tip my hat to one of my favorite rules: No one cares about you; they are too busy worrying about themselves. What a relief!
• Your body gives you signs you are being true to yourself. Listen to it. Sometimes it is loudly protesting. I truly believe, even as a “mind over matter” person, your body tells your mind to be quiet so you can just feel what’s going on. I’ve heard you can be in an interview and have a physical reaction telling you this is not the job for you. This is actually a gift of intuition, and you should listen to it.

There’s also a bunch of stuff in the book about how to make changes once you identify which direction to go, which I will get to, but I took a minor break from reading to watch Never Have I Ever on Netflix. This show was absolutely worth the diversion. I highly recommend it, especially if you will be parenting teens in the future and they find themselves choosing between the hot/athletic mate and the cute/smart mate. Life as a rich teen in L.A. can be so tough and funny!

Looking for new inspiration, I drove to Ames, home of my alma mater, Iowa State University. I wandered through Reiman Gardens and walked through the Memorial Union, which still smells the same. I did my old class walk — the music building, past Carver (all those Calculus classes), Beardshear Hall, where we used to wait in line to pay our bill with an actual check, and over to the engineering buildings Marston and Sweeney. Marston has a pretty rockin’ makeover (for an engineering building) with some science art. Sweeney Hall, God love ya, is still gray and stark and perfunctory; a camouflage for the geniuses who work there, many of whom did their best to shape my thinking or at a minimum teach me how to turn in a lab report on time.

As I left campus, there were no angels singing with delight for my great mid-life epiphany, but the visit provided perspective, reminded me how far I’ve come and reminded me of some really great times and great people. I also discovered a new (at least new in the last two decades) restaurant in Ames with a nice glass of wine and a decadent French dessert. Another sign that grown-up me is a pretty good version of me. No more 90’s flannel shirts and frat parties.

There are things shifting inside me, and sometimes it’s not so obvious. Today I was angry about something minor, but it had been a bit of a long day, and I may have thrown some potato chips out of frustration. Luckily, my son called me out on it. He said, “Really, Mom?” So, I explained that sometimes when I’m afraid or sad I get angry. He replied, somewhat under his breath, “It’s more ‘sad’.” Like the good Brene Brown listener I am, I asked him if he thought I seemed sad. He said, “Not anymore. Not like earlier this year.” Whoa.

I’m taking his comment as a sign I’m on the right path. What a gift to have these smart, beautiful, little human “north stars” to shine some light on the situation. I have a feeling listening to my “essential self” and finding my true north doesn’t have to be as hard as memorizing organic chemistry. It’s already inside me, inside all of us, if we just listen, stop resisting and keep moving toward more joy.