Each to Their Own – Finding Your True North

“Finding my Truth North gives me the courage to focus my energy where I believe it should be, not according to what is popular or pleasing to others.” Jennifer Cummings, Author

My friend and I had been discussing our different perspectives over a protracted conversation. Her tone fell flat, disappointed that I seemed rather dismissive of the ways and abilities of the Shaman.  Another friend, observing the conversation, commented it was like watching one of those high brow literature discussions, except on spirituality.

Perhaps we sounded like we knew what we were talking about, I suspect our adoption of Alberto Villoldo’s analogy of the particle and the field may have sounded somewhat intellectual. In reality, we are just two people trying to find our own version of our truth.

We are both very much motivated in our quest, earnestly searching for answers from many sources, the best of which is – in my opinion - inside our own hearts.

It’s a strange thing, beliefs. My friend and I would both agree we are spiritual but, beyond agreeing on the existence of a higher intelligence, it was quite fascinating to uncover where our similarities and differences lie.

That said, I suspect we are more alike than different; it’s just that our differences define the edges of the relationship between us.

I find it a fine line to allow someone their beliefs and be interested in exploring them and comparing them to my own, without appearing either disparaging or so keen that I might want to adopt them.

This was likely what my friend was sensing as we discussed a Shaman’s abilities. I was not shunning her beliefs, it’s just that some aspects of those don’t resonate with my own truth. While the Shaman’s ways are a bit too abstract to appeal to my nature, I actually hold them in absolute reverence.

When I wrote an article last year called Awkward Social Conversations About Your Beliefs it was interesting to see what it elicited. One man who conversed with me on the subject was quite keen to discover and categorise my beliefs (he had a stab at the Dharmic faiths), whereas I think he was really just trying to orientate himself on whether to pay me any heed.

That was how I felt back in 2014 when I had an ‘awakening’, which I will define as the process of moving from a vague sense of something bigger to a more conscious awareness of it, and then a friend invited me to see Eckhart Tolle at the city theatre.

My first thought was “who’s he?” accompanied by feeling a bit threatened that this person might not believe what I believe and try to convince me otherwise. Having just discovered my truth, I felt a bit protective of it and I didn’t want to hear anything that might contradict or convince me of something else at that point.

Then I read The Power of Now and, instead of contradiction, it inspired me to new depths of my freshly founded beliefs about the world. Not only did I buy a ticket to accompany my friend to his talk, I also signed up for the Presence Through Movement class beforehand with his partner, Kim Eng.

Kim’s class was another turning point in my life, she’s an amazing teacher, again adding new words and depth to my thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

That led to my exit from the corporate arena and opened me up to more seeking. I started to write to help focus my thoughts, and began to share my writing to encourage others to do what they love and become the person they are on the inside.

Shortly afterwards Sounds True (a multimedia publishing house) ran a free month-long event with founder Tami Simon interviewing a whole raft of authors about their relationship with spirituality and their experience of awakening. There were as many divergent experiences as there were similarities, and I realised then that there is no one truth, only one’s own truth.

No one else has my DNA, my heritage, ancestry or experiences, nor the lenses through which I see the world; we are each unique. And so our truths are similarly so, speaking to us in different ways.

When I’m open to new information, I’ll either happen upon it or go and seek it. I don’t like even the faintest whiff that someone might be trying to convince me to their way of thinking on anything. I’ve had enough of that in life.

It’s my observation that we humans appear to have a bad habit of trying too hard to emulate philosophies or principles that someone else has lived by. Systems, rules, and rituals then get created, based on someone’s interpretation of these philosophies, and there becomes a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to do things.

This isn’t just unique to religious groups, it happens in all walks of life. Yet I’m fundamentally not into a one-size-fits-all of anything. I don’t care how good, how amazing or how miraculous it’s been in someone else’s life, it might not be for me.

It’s not that I’m closed to new things, it’s more like I feel the other person is making a judgment; that what they have is better for me than anything I might have already.  No one else is invited into my belief system, in fact it would repel any followers, since no one else is walking in these shoes.

The most empowering thing about more consciously exploring who I am, and what I believe, is a more solid sense of what my needs actually are. My default belief system, like yours, was formed by my early experiences growing up. When I examined the things I believed, I found there was a lot that simply didn’t serve me at all.

Often, while attempting to ‘be a good person’ or ‘do the right thing’ or simply just fit in, I’d find myself doing activities and making commitments that the inner me was really not on board with, and I’d be stressed, anxious or unhappy too much of the time.

There are so many ways to think about the world, the things that happen to us and the things we have control over. I have now more consciously woven my beliefs together from a smorgasbord of offerings I’ve heard, read, seen, felt or experienced over a number of years. More than that, I’m constantly resetting my compass as my beliefs evolve.

I personally feel I’ve hit upon a truth when it’s something that inspires me and empowers me in the here and now. I certainly don’t hold any beliefs that would do the opposite.

But I also accept that others do; and I’m okay with that. Of course I’d love it if everyone believed in things that empowered them and made them happy, but since only experience can really teach each of us anything, the best I can do is be an example and inspire others to explore their own beliefs. 

To make conscious decisions, rather than run on default, when it comes to every aspect of my life is hugely satisfying and liberating.  

Just as I would encourage anyone and everyone to explore and be who they truly are, I think a huge part of that is about claiming our own truths without the need to explain or justify them to anyone else. If you can set your own true north, you’ll never get lost, you will always manage to navigate the way towards your best life.

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