Middle-Pause Pump-Priming Prompt
What is Your True North? Look to the Compass of Your Heart
It’s never too late to discover what makes your soul sing!
My inside self and my outside self used to match. A compass needle pointed true north. Now the needle spins around and around indicating the sad direction of nowhere. ~ Elizabeth Berg
Just what is meant by the expression, true north?
Besides an allusion to the fact that the magnetic needle of a compass may be a few degrees off of alignment with the earth’s north pole.
According to Steve Pressman who wrote two books about it, True North is your orienting point — your fixed point in a spinning world — that helps you stay on track. It is derived from your most deeply held beliefs, values, and the principles you lead by. It is your internal compass, unique to you, representing who you are at your deepest level.
True north is different for everybody.
Not only its contents but also its form.
Its content can be a vocation or avocation, paid or unpaid, such as creating music, teaching teens, or helping combat climate change. Within our vocation or avocation, we may have a specific, often higher purpose we serve.
Marian Anderson (1897–1993) was an African-American contralto whose musical range included both spirituals and opera. She sang at integrated outdoor venues back when Jim Crow segregation ruled.
She sang at Dr. King’s march on Washington in 1963 and was the first black singer in New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Her north star appears to have been breaking barriers and serving humanity through song.
Playing for Change’s mission is to unite and harmonize and spotlight the amazing talent of street musicians around the world. They bring them together through the miracles of modern technology and sound mixing in show-stopping arrangements during the course of a single song.
They do it all to raise funds to start music and art schools for children in far-flung places all around the world. These kids are showcased now in their videos!
Threshold Choirs come to the bedsides of dying people and sing heavenly music accompanying them on that transition process, singing at the threshold between life and death. They celebrate and affirm the beauty, dignity, and wholeness of all people and believe that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness from their first to their last breath.
All of these folks have made music their north star. But note the wide variety of forms and passions that takes!
But our truth north doesn’t have to be an area of work or talent.
It can be a principle:
“Honesty is a principle. Service is a principle. Love is a principle. Hard work is a principle. Respect, gratitude, moderation, fairness, integrity, loyalty, and responsibility are principles. There are dozens and dozens more. They are not hard to identify. Just as a compass always points to true north, your heart will recognize true principles.” ~ Sean Covey
Sean Covey is the son of educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker Stephen Covey, famous for his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and related books and workshops. While Stephen is no longer alive, his legacy continues through the Franklin-Covey Foundation.
True north can also be guidelines to live by. While similar to principles, these usually are spelled out a little more specifically. Aphorisms they’re sometimes called.
Examples include the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Leave a place a little better than you found it.
Slow and steady wins the race.
The Compass of the Heart
Thank you, Sean, for pointing out that our heart knows its true north. It’s not a head trip so much as it flows from our hearts. Whether it’s a specific passion like music or a guiding principle, it calls to us and we answer its call.
To the extent possible, we organize our lives around it. We make space and time for it. We honor it with our time, our devotion, and our enthusiasm.
It honors us by waking us up to what we’re all about in this life. It honors us by inspiring our minds and energizing our bodies to follow it, work with and from it, and apply our creative imagination and magic to it.
We may even join with others of like minds, hearts, and passions to pursue our true north. Like a cellist in an orchestra, or Grandpa Elliot playing in the New Orleans’ French Quarter not just for the local tourists, but for the world via Playing for Change.
Or like we visionaries here on Middle-Pause creating written and aural content like this post and our STOMP! podcasts.
Which leads me right to this week’s Middle-Pause Pump-Priming Prompt: What is YOUR true north, and what form or forms does it take? It’s okay to have more than one form — an area of work, creativity, or play AND a guiding principle.
Perhaps the two fit together. If I can take a guess at the true north of Playing for Change, their passion is music, but their guiding principle is showcasing the talent of the street folks who might not otherwise get an appreciative global audience. No wrong answers here!
Shall I go first? As long as I’m already here…
What is my true north? Three words immediately come to mind — creativity, integrity, and humor.
I create in a variety of ways — writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Improvisation, clowning, and more recently, Commedia dell’Arte, that Renaissance precursor to so much of the world’s physical comedy, based on a cast of archetypal characters. Zanni is my personal favorite and my alter ego.
Humor lives at the heart of much of my creative work/play. It often creeps into even my most serious pieces — evidence of how much a part of my core it is. Funny thoughts and lines occur to me all the time.
Thanks to my other principle, integrity, I usually know when not to say them out loud. I may make a mental or physical note so as not to lose the inspiration. There’s gold in them thar silly bits. Or at least aluminum!
One definition of integrity harkens back to Elizabeth Berg’s quote at the top of this post. When our insides and outsides match, we are in integrity.
When they don’t, we get to ask, why not? Are we too busy, too scared, or too frazzled to make time and space for our true north? Let’s not get to that point in our lives when the Threshold Choir enters our room to sing us through that final doorway before figuring this out.
Our time is now! Our question is: What is YOUR true north, and what form or forms does it take? This is a question to help you acknowledge and honor yourself. But we hope you’ll share your answers with us. We so look forward to hearing from you!
Here’s how to do the thing you think you’re too old or scared to do.
Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She writes about faith and prayer for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!