There was something reminiscent of a scary movie I once saw as a child as my compass wobbled and spun. With mountains on every side, I simply wanted to locate North, but my crazy smart phone wouldn’t tell me which way was up. Mr. Blackburn gave me some reasonable explanation as to why the compass application in my iPhone® wouldn’t work inside the car. I relaxed a bit. We got home safely, but the whole thing left me questioning just how much I can trust my compass… We all have an inner compass. We trust it to tell us when we’re headed the right way. If we feel lost or uncertain we’re travelling in the right direction, we look to our compass for guidance. As I experienced (literally), a compass isn’t always trustworthy. When this happens, it seems like the same scenes come around again and again. Like driving on the Main Plaza traffic circle in New Braunfels, it’s one big loop. No matter our intent to get off the roundabout, we find ourselves in the same place, every time we look up. When we continue to fall into unhealthy patterns, it’s likely that the old inner compass isn’t trustworthy. If you’ve experienced trauma, for instance, your compass may not function as it did beforehand. For instance, following a terrible automobile accident (even if a loved one was badly injured or killed in an accident), you may flinch or feel anxious as a passenger in a vehicle approaching an intersection. There may be no real danger, but your feelings say otherwise. I recently read that “…for abused children, the whole world is filled with triggers.” (Bessel Van der Kolk, MD, The Body Keeps the Score) For such children, who become adults, an inner compass may be terribly mis-calibrated through no fault of their own. An adult who survived an abusive childhood may be hyperreactive to some stimuli or non-reactive when a reaction might be expected. If this is you, take courage. For every one of us; feelings cannot always be trusted because they sometimes lie and often change. With practice, you can recalibrate your inner compass by practicing principles of wellbeing. This means you will begin to make decisions based on principles, not feelings. Begin by learning more about the various aspects of your needs, including physical, metaphysical (spiritual, emotional and mental), and social needs. Discovering your needs will help you to identify the areas that require your most focused attention. You’ll also come to see where safe boundaries are required. Establish safe boundaries and enforce them. You deserve to feel safe. Before proceeding into the crossroad, take care to calibrate your inner compass to your true north. Be well.

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