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In iheart, the resilience and wellbeing programme I’m teaching in schools, we use a very powerful question to help children discern where they are at, in this moment of time. The question is ‘Do I think someone or something is giving me or taking away (threatening) my wellbeing?’ We call this our ‘compass question’. In my mind, this question almost has magical powers, but it’s not and can never be a magic wand.
A compass has a very simple job. It only ever shows True North, no matter where you are. A compass gives no detail on the path, it gives no guarantee that you won’t be heading in the opposite direction again, at some other time, or even at the next turning. It has no opinion about that, at all. (Only you may do.) A compass only ever points towards True North. It doesn't need a battery or will ever run out of power and you can check at any time.
In our context of teaching young people to understand their mind, their feelings and their responses to their feelings, learning about True North comes with delicious incentives. Incentives, that once we’ve tasted and discovered them, are so easily recognised and told apart from all the things we may have used in our lives to replicate its deliciousness. Every other direction though, comes with a familiar air of stress and labour, urgency and yuckiness. The compass is a very powerful tool to check the direction we’re headed in our minds.
iheart children learn to read their feelings as sign posts. They learn that we have a 24/7, real time check-o’meter, that gives us feedback on where we are at, in every moment. The compass question is powerful enough to make us pause and remember that our safety and wellbeing cannot be achieved or acquired through anything outside – it is part of our fabric whether or not we can see it at this moment. What gets in the way of us seeing our wellbeing, is always the same: unhelpful, repetitive, urgent and busy thinking. Our inbuilt compass only tells us one thing: ‘Am I moving away or towards my natural state of wellbeing (True North)?’ This question does not magic my feelings away, but it invites me to get curious and it gives me a break. ‘What am I attaching my wellbeing to, in this moment??’ What do I think I need in order to be okay? Nothing more but also nothing less. This questions will help us stop, check, remember and ideally, redirect towards True North. I’m using it all the time. Not because I am in danger where I am, when I feel uncomfortable feelings, but because I know that I am more productive, much clearer in my thinking, much wiser in my decisions and so much more connected with life and the people around me, when I am in my wellbeing.
A magic wand works very differently. At first it looks extremely attractive. It could alter your uncomfortable state radically and fast. There are some drawbacks though, we've all experienced. For one, I need a spell or a trick for every effect I’m trying to achieve. Then, there is the challenge that all spells seem to wear off after some time. It also always seems to come with a catch or it needs to be repeated again and again with stronger and stronger spells. What is typical for the magic wand approach, is that if one problem is fixed, another one bubbles up somewhere else. And the biggest disadvantage of this route is that in real life, there are actually no magic wands. I have seen a lot of techniques and practices that promise a major turnaround, and some of them do, for a bit. But they all have one thing in common. They focus on the symptom, the experience we don’t like and not on the system that created it.
It's very helpful to know the difference between those two approaches and not to expect the effect of the one from the other. We seem to get muddled when we use a compass as if it was a magical solution. It can only point the way, you still have to walk it. If we use the iheart question like a spell or mantra and tell ourselves that nothing can put a feeling in us or take away our wellbeing without understanding what this question is actually illuminating for us, well, nothing will happen. It's like using a real compass without knowing which direction I want to go to.
Using this inbuilt compass only makes sense if you know that there is a True North. It’s only useful if you learn to read the sign posts that will clearly tell you if you’re on route towards that, or not. Consciously orienting ourselves towards that (with all the higher frequencies and levels of contentment that comes with it by default), knowing that this is who we really are, can feel like magic. It is very different to applying spells and cures for all our different ailments.
This is easily tested, just try it for size. It's not just for children. Come and chat if you'd like to know more!
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