Finding Your Own North Star: How to Claim the Life You Were Meant to Live by Martha Beck

Inspirational Book To Transform Your Life - Secrets of Happiness

Your family of origin does not know how to get you to your North Star. They didn’t when you were little, they don’t now, and they never will. … People whose families were accepting and supportive have to face the fact that familial love can’t take them all the way towards their right lives.

Many people can’t figure out what they want to do with their careers until they restore themselves to physical health by resting deeply for weeks, sometimes even months. Whatever your body tells you to do, the odds are very good that it’s the next step towards your North Star.

The essential self and the social self

The essential self is the quiet voice that will ask you to “walk to the beat of a different drum” when you would prefer to stroll with thepack. The social self is the voice that may have determined most of your life decisions so far; it has provided you with skills, networked for you, and is basically “responsible.” Most people make their social self their master, but for you to live a fulfilled live it should be the other way around—take your lead from your essential self, and let the social self do what is practically necessary to get you where you want to go.

Bringing out the essential self

One of the most vital aspects of regaining your essential self is to learn how to say “no” again. Your body and your brain will happily tell you when the essential self has been ignored, be it through illness, forgetfulness, numb hostility, apathy, Freudian slips, or addiction. Listen to your body!

In a nutshell

The book for you if you feel as though your life has taken a wrong turn.