How To Calibrate Your Emotional Compass.

Contrast and uncertainty can affect us naturally in many ways. The two ends of this affect spectrum are confusion right through to clarity. Most of us in the world over the last 18 months have experienced higher doses of uncertainty then most of us are accustomed to. I know for me personally this has created incredible clarity of what matters most. Clarity of my values, clarity on where I stand in my world view of politics, relationships and career.

When we are clear on our values, which I call our emotional compass, we are aligned to what matters most. Fundamentally, a value is an emotional state we want to experience on a consistent basis. When we follow our emotional compass, we feel emotionally well. When we don’t, we feel emotionally unsettled and vulnerable to fear.

Intimately knowing our emotional compass, breeds certainty within us. When we are clear on our values the potentiality for anxiety and depression is reduced. Clarity of values energises us and provides the energy of momentum. We know from nature that all movement contributes to clarity.

Aligning with our emotional compass helps clarify boundaries. Boundaries around where we are willing to step and where we dare not tread.

How do we gain this clarity? How do we calibrate our emotional compass?

Here are some useful tips:

The key factor with these tips is that these patterns of behaviour need to be happening on a consistent basis, not something that happens as a ‘flash in the pan’ event.

• Notice any patterns of where or what you spend money on a consistent basis. For example, I spend many hundreds of dollars per month on health related products and services. Health and vitality is a core component of my emotional compass.
• Notice patterns of how you consistently spend your time, who you spend your time with and what you do with your time. Look out for any themes. Eg you may spend a lot of time listening and reading philosophy/history. Perhaps this could indicate you value wisdom.
• Notice where in your life you are most organised. This is an area of your life which doesn’t take much energy. For example, you may be really well organised with your finances. This is because this may lead to having a feeling of freedom, or peace, or joy or time itself.
• Observe what absorbs your mind and your conversations most of the time.
• Where are you most reliable? For example, you may be most reliable in your commitment to your art classes. These may bring great joy. This could be because you highly value creativity.

Hope these tips contribute to gaining more clarity on what your emotional compass is. Our emotions are like a behavioural loadstone. Loadstone naturally automatically find true north. Our emotional compass when facing our truth north, feels really good.

Listen to episode 63 of Insights