330 Holly Worton ~ How to Develop Your Own Inner Compass

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I’m back again, with another solo episode! For about a decade of my life, I got way off track. I got involved with a person who was very manipulative and who engaged in gaslighting on a regular basis (what’s that? Read this article). I totally lost touch with myself, and completely lost my inner compass – my trust in myself and in my decisions. You see, I made a series of bad decisions that got me into that situation to begin with, and which also kept me there for far too long. It was really, really hard to make different decisions to get myself out of there – I simply didn’t trust myself. I understood the concept of a “true north” or inner compass, but I didn’t have one. I had lost it.

Whether you’ve lost your inner compass or whether you’ve got one (but it’s not quite what you’d like), this episode is for you. It will help you to trust yourself and to make better decisions for yourself, so you can create the life you want to live. Ultimately, only YOU know what’s best for you.

Listen To This Episode

What You’ll Learn

What is your inner compass
How to work on developing your inner compass
Dos and don’ts to changing your decision-making habits
How to trust yourself
How to more easily make decisions

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 330. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today I am going to talk about self-trust, inner compass and this is something that I have touched on before in episode 285, which was on how to trust yourself and trust that everything is working out and I think that was a pretty good episode, but I was just going through the show notes for that and looking at the bullet points and what I want to talk about today is a little bit different. So, I hope you find this interesting and useful.

Self-trust is something that has been on my mind lately, because I just finished reading this really, really, good book by Debbie Mirza, I don’t know how you pronounce that, but it is called, The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognising The Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse. I can’t remember the last time that I highlighted so many things in a book, like so much of this, it was so helpful. So as you probably know, because I have hinted at this before, for about a decade of my life I got way off track in life, I got involved with a person who was I think a covert, overt, hybrid narcissist, because apparently people can be both, so this was a person who to some people was very obviously a narcissist. To other people they couldn’t see through the mask and they just thought this was a really great person, super-charming, but also super-manipulative and I am taking responsibility for this in the sense that I co-created the situation, this decade of hell with this person, and I am partly responsible for it. But the point is I got way off track with life and I allowed myself to be manipulated, and I allowed myself to experience abuse, and I allowed myself to experience a really shitty ten years of my life. And, this is important because of the gas-lighting that was going on in this relationship I lost my trust in myself, I just completely lost it. I did not trust myself, I trusted the other person, I just felt completely out of touch with myself, completely lost, lost within myself like a shell of crap. And I remember during that time reading a lot of business and marketing books and I came across this book by Bill George, Discover Your True North, it is a really good leadership book that teaches you how to find your inner compass, your true north and use that in corporate, business, leadership settings. And I remember reading this book and thinking: oh that sounds amazing, I would love to have that for myself! And of course I read the book which talks about how to do it, but it was like it didn’t feel like it was possible for me – I was just so out of touch with myself.

So that was ten years of my life and then the last ten or eleven years of my life have been a lot about recovering from that, about recovering my true north, about recovering…actually not recovering really just developing it for the first time, because I don’t think that my inner compass was that strong to begin with, because I think, if it were, I would have allowed myself to get in that situation and make the decisions that led me into that situation. So the past ten or eleven years have been more about building, or developing my inner compass, from probably next to nothing. So I wanted to share this with you because as I said these things have been on my mind, because I just read this book, and I really think that life is so different when you have an inner compass, when you have a true north, when you trust yourself deeply and completely. And I think that is why, with my heart-centred-energy-work, one of the most important parts that we work on in heart-centred-energy-work is self-trust and when we do the balance for the heart centre, it is about self-love and self-acceptance and self-trust, because those are three really important pillars to having a great life. If you don’t trust yourself you make bad decisions, you are probably very unhappy, life is really difficult. But when you do trust yourself, everything just flows so much more smoothly, it is a huge difference. But as I said, this is something that has taken me years to develop, again, coming from a very dark place.

Most people listening to this probably won’t be in that bad of a situation, at least I hope not, if you are, I am really sorry, feel free to drop me an email and we can chat. Not from a professional perspective, not trying to sell you sessions, because I am not really doing sessions these days, but just to see if I can give you some resources that maybe you don’t have available to you, because when I was in that situation I really didn’t have resources. I mean, yes, there was the internet, but I didn’t see how bad it was and I didn’t even know how to put words to what I was experiencing. So again, it is a bad situation, if you are there please feel free to reach out and I am happy to send you some resources, things that can help. And this book that I mentioned: The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist…so good, so good. If something in your gut told you that book was right for you just get it, even if you try to analyse the person in your life and you are not sure if they are a narcissist, just get the book. Read it, I got the kindle, it is not very expensive, and it is a great investment, so just do it.

So, what is your inner compass?

To me it is that inner sense of knowing what is right and what is wrong for you. I think it is made up of, not only your intuition, which kind of informs that inner knowing, but it is also your personal power that helps you to act on it. The inner compass is that intuition that tells you what is right, what is wrong, and then, your personal power is what allows you to act on it. So, what is it made up of? It is made up of your intuition, as I said, but I think your inner compass is also made up of your self-worth, because if you don’t value yourself you are not going to be able to value your own opinions and you don’t trust yourself. You won’t value your own perspectives, it is made up of your self-trust, of course, it is made up of your self-awareness because that’s what helps inform everything else of really knowing yourself. It is made up of your self-talk, so if you are telling yourself constantly that you always make bad decisions, you never know what to do, you never know what is right, that’s going to affect your ability to make good decisions, even if obviously you are capable of making them. Self-acceptance is also a part of it because. You need to accept yourself to trust yourself, and self-acceptance is a big part of self-knowledge, because it is accepting who you are. Self-respect is a part of your inner compass, if you don’t respect yourself you are not going to respect your opinions, your perspectives, your decisions and your values. I think knowing your values is really, really, important in order to be able to make good decisions, because you need to know what is important to you. And again, this inner compass is all about what is right and wrong to you, not about what is right and wrong for society in general, what is right and wrong for your partner, for your family, for your family of origin, it is what is right for you. And this is not you being selfish, this is you knowing what is right for you so that you can act accordingly. And I think knowing yourself, and accepting yourself and being yourself, is a very huge part of this, because if you don’t know yourself, how do you know what is right and what is wrong for you?

Now I have written a lot about self-knowledge and I have talked a lot about self-knowledge on this podcast, most recently with episodes 315, 316 and 317, where I talked about how to answer the question of: who am I? How to answer the question of: where am I? And how to answer the question of: where am I going? And I will link to these in the show notes, but it is 315, 316, 317; and I think those are a really good introduction to working on developing your own sense of self-knowledge. But, I think when you are doing this work, it is really important for me to remind you to look at yourself from a position of being open and curious and trying not to judge yourself, and I know a lot of us are really used to doing that so it can be hard to move from a place of self-judgement to self-acceptance. So if, when you are on this journey of self-knowledge, you ever feel yourself judging yourself just stop, become aware of it, stop and think about how you can look at this from a different perspective, that perspective of being open and curious and accepting this is who you are. Would you like to be different? Okay, then look at how you can change things, if you want to. But judging ourselves is not really going to get us anywhere, it is just going to make us feel like crap and it is going to damage our inner compass.

So how to work on developing our inner compass? I think this is of course as I said, I think it is a journey of self-knowledge, and I have tons of resources on that, some of which are I am going to link to in the show notes, but I think it is also making different decisions and taking different actions, in our everyday lives. So, I think a lot of us when we don’t trust ourselves, me for example, I used to always ask other people for their opinions, because I didn’t trust my own, I didn’t trust my own perspective. So, it was always asking other people: what do you think? What should I do? What is your perspective on this? And I was putting more faith in other people’s perspective when really I am the person who knows what is best for myself. So, maybe don’t ask for opinions while you are trying to shift this and develop your own inner compass, if you are really stuck, I don’t know, do what is right for you. I would say hold off on asking for other people’s opinions, don’t trust other people more than you trust yourself, don’t place higher value on other people’s opinions. So do what you need to do to make your decision, whether that is making a pros and cons list and keep it to yourself and try, rather than as a kneejerk reaction reaching out and asking someone else first, try making the decision for yourself, on your own. Of course if you need other information you can ask other people for further information or details but try to make that opinion by yourself and try to not isolate yourself from making the decision, but try to shift how you make the decision, in terms of just doing it, like within yourself, before you seek out other people’s opinions.

Decision-making

So, another thing I would say is don’t share too much with people who don’t support you or who are fearful people in general, because that opens you up to the possibility of taking on other people’s fears, which is not useful. So, if you are trying to make a decision about something, sometimes if we don’t ask for other opinions we will share with someone: oh, I am trying to decide what to do here, I might do this, I might do that. Be very mindful of who you talk to and who you share your plans and your projects for the future with, because some people are not going to support you because that is what they are like and be aware of the people in your life who support you and who don’t support you. Maybe sit down and make a list, because you need to know who to share your plans with and who not to and make a list of the people who are really fearful, unnecessarily fearful, that you don’t share your plans with them because if you are having doubts about a plan or a project or a goal and you share with someone who is naturally fearful they are going to project their fears onto you. And give you a whole bunch of reasons why you shouldn’t do this thing, that you really want to do, when really it is their fear and it has nothing to do with you. And they might do it under the guise of trying to be helpful and trying to protect you, but again it is their fears and not yours, so don’t open yourself up to other people’s fears. Know who you can share stuff with and who you can’t and be honest about that because sometimes maybe your parents are really fearful and they tend to tell you not to do things, or your best friend, or your partner, be honest about who you can share this kind of stuff with, because expecting them to help you, or support you, when really they can’t because they are too paralysed by their own fears, is not going to be useful to you. So be honest.

Avoid Comparisons

Next don’t compare your choices or your decisions to other people’s decisions. So every decision that week make in life takes us down a different path and we keep refining and shifting our bath based on the choices and decisions that we make. Other people even if they have started on the same path as us will have made different decisions so stop comparing yourself to other people’s decisions and I have done a podcast episode on this, it is about how to quit the comparison game for good and I will share that in the show notes. That will be useful to you if you are the kind of person who really has a problem with comparing yourself, but just recognise yourself that you are on a different life path from other people, if other people have an outcome that you want and don’t have, then look at how you can get there from where you are, but it is all about the outcome you want for your life, but don’t beat yourself up because you didn’t make decisions that other people made, start from now, this is where you are.

So one thing that I think is important to do, when you are developing your inner compass, is to give yourself permission to make mistakes, quit being a perfectionist and if you have problems with perfectionism recognise that and work on that. We are all going to make mistakes and if you are not making mistakes then maybe you are not taking enough action, or you aren’t taking enough risks, mistakes aren’t the end of the world, they are how we learn, they are how we pivot, they are how we lean to make better decisions. And when you make a mistake and you end up in a shitty situation in life, analyse what went wrong, what were the decisions that led you to that point, and what you could have done differently, so you can avoid making bad decisions again. This is all about learning, learn by doing, learn by taking action and by making mistakes they are really useful, NLP they always say there is no failure there is only feedback and I think that is a really, really, important perspective, mistakes are just feedback, you can refine and make different decisions next time. Don’t beat yourself over this and do give yourself permission to make mistakes.

Being Still

Another thing that is really useful is to be still. And this is something that is a challenge for me, but I do try to add this to my schedule {laughing}, I do try to be still, be quiet or just sit, try to quiet my mind because I think when we make time to be still it helps to reconnect with ourselves, and it helps us with that journey of self-knowledge and I think that being still is an important part of developing our inner compass. Also another thing to do is to make decisions based on love and not fear. So when you are making a decision, ask yourself: what am I feeling now? Am I feeling love, or am I feeling fear? Am I making the decision based on love or fear?

What the heck does that mean?, you know when you are feeling afraid and you know when you are making a decision because you are afraid of something you are afraid of what might happen. So if you are making a decision based out of fear, and you recognise that, stop, calm, maybe write out what is the worst that can happen if this decision goes wrong, oftentimes the fears we have in our head are just ridiculous, it is this escalating avalanche of one thing leading to another which ends in total life chaos. And if we take the time to recognise this and maybe write them down on paper or in our journal we realise how silly they are, and we realise how exaggerated they are, and we realise how unlikely they are to happen. So I think it can be really important to look at this, look at what we are afraid of. And then love is the opposite of fear so just get in touch with your sense of self-love and I know that we are all still working on developing that and I think just getting still again and just maybe having a nice cup of tea or doing something nice to yourself, getting yourself in a state of calmness will help you make that decision from a better spot.

Also, do pay attention to your body, pay attention to your gut feeling, when you are making a decision what does your gut say? I get a really, really, strong gut feeling as to whether something is right or wrong for me and I have gotten better at paying attention to that and taking action based on that gut feeling in recent years. I think many, many, years ago I would feel that gut feeling and ignore it, and then ended up in not great outcomes. So pay attention to your body, pay attention to your gut feeling, and take action accordingly. Also, surround yourself with the right people who support you, so I talked about not asking for opinions from people, not sharing with people who don’t support you, conversely you want to surround yourself with the right people who support you, because that is going to help you be yourself, live from your values, and make better decisions.

So, How Do You Trust Yourself?

I think all of these things that I have just mentioned help us to develop our inner compass, help us to trust ourselves, and I think what you need to remember is that you only you know what is best for yourself. Your partner knows what is best for your partner, your friends know what is best for them, but the more you know yourself, the better you know yourself, the easier it will be for you to trust yourself and the easier it will be for you to make decisions. And the easier it will be to live a life that is aligned with your values, and I think that is why it is so important for us to know our values, and I have got a blog post on this from ages ago, I think like eight years old and I will link to that in the show notes because doing a values exercise is something that I find really useful to do on a regular basis, not because my values necessarily change but because I know myself better and better with each year and so it is easier for me to really hone in on what my top values are. If you have never done a values exercise or if it has been more than a year since you did it I encourage you to go to my blogpost which is linked in the show notes and do it, it only takes a few minutes but I think that will really, really, help you to make better decisions and develop your inner compass and do what is right for you because ultimately the whole point of developing your inner compass is so that you can make better decisions for yourself so that you can create the life that you want for yourself.

Life is really short I think it is really important to consciously make decisions, consciously create the life that we want to live, because not only does it make life more enjoyable, but I think it helps evolve as souls so that we can have a better experience in future lives, hopefully and again develop ourselves as souls. I do believe that we come back again and again but that is no excuse to have a shitty life this time because the more work we do the more developed we are.

Patreon

So, I hope you have found this useful and if you want some help working on you self-trust then sign up for my Patreon the $5 a month level will get you four done-for-you heart-centred-energy-work sessions which will help you with self-love, self-trust, self-acceptance, which are all things which will help with your inner compass. So if you go to http://Patreon.com/hollyworton you can get done-for-you heart-centred-energy-work, there are all kinds of different tiers, which give you all kinds of different stuff and I think that one is a good one, because you don’t have to invest the time, you get this done-for-you every week.

Show Notes and Future Podcast Topics

So that’s all for this week, remember to visit the show notes at http://HollyWorton.com/330 and in week or two after that the transcript will go up, usually takes a couple of weeks for those to go live, and that’s a really good way to review what you have listened to, I know that I am not a very auditory learner I learn more from reading and other people learn more from listening. If you don’t, the show notes are really useful to kind of review stuff you have heard, and of course links to all the stuff that I mention.

So please drop me a line and let me know, you can email me at: [email protected] or get in touch online.

I am also always looking for topics for this podcast, I tend to talk about what is going on for me and what I have been thinking about, but I really, really, love when listeners write in and give me ideas because that lets me know what you are interested in hearing me talk about.

So that’s all for now, remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/330 for the show notes on this episode, thank you so much for listening.