The Inner Compass
I count myself lucky: from a young age, I had a sense of an inner compass. I could tell if I was choosing my path or straying off. This inner instrument is fundamental to who I am. Such a central part of me that when I couldn’t access it, after giving birth to my daughter, I was totally lost, paralysed, unable to make decisions. For a few years, everything felt wrong.
What do I mean by inner compass? A friend suggested that it’s a sense of integrity. Cambridge dictionary offers the following definition for Integrity:
The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change
The quality of being whole and complete
The first definition rings true, but the second definition, which is usually used for materials or structures, resonates even deeper. This sense of integrity—what I call my inner compass—feels like belonging to something whole and complete. Something far bigger than me. When I’m guided by it, I know I’m doing my part in the way things should go for the benefit of the whole. When I act with that sense in me, there’s a sense of meaning and purpose.
Piero Ferrucci describes “Will” in a way that sounds similar to my sense of inner compass. In his book “What We May Be”, he uses the metaphor of a boat. When you are not tapping into your will, life feels like you are in a rowing boat. To get to where you want, you have to work hard, pushing the oars through the water, fighting with the currents. But when you are tapping into your will, life feels like being in a sailboat. You still need to work the boat and make sure you’re holding the helm, but the wind is pushing your sail in the direction you need to go.
In both of the metaphors above, navigating with a compass or sailing with the wind pushing us forward, there’s a sense of ease, connection to something bigger, momentum, and purpose.
The tension comes when, in reality, those experiences were always followed by hardship. And while I dedicate much of my time supporting people in finding their inner compass, fine-tuning their will, and crafting their stories with integrity, I don’t spend much time sharing the dark side of this path. Choosing to follow your inner compass, that choice is easy, but the path is not.
What do I mean? As a child, I chose books over hanging out with the other kids. I didn’t like their games and did not enjoy their company. I chose to spend my days in the local library. It meant that I was alone a lot. Those years gave birth to a fear of loneliness that I still carry inside. They also created a bridge to my imagination, a bridge so strong and wide that I’m able to take people there with me.
As a teenager, after seeing the movie Into the West, I realised that home is not where my ancestors are, where my family is, where I understand the language and culture. I realised that Ireland is home. At age 26, I bought a one-way ticket and started my life in Ireland. On my own.
In the same way, I chose to start Think Visual, to close it, and to relaunch it.
At each junction, I stayed true to my inner guide; the path I walked was full of hardship, loneliness and grief. The path also had a deep sense of meaning and purpose.
Until the moment I realised that meaning does not guarantee safety.
All those years, I believed I had a contract with the creator, whoever created that compass. I will follow the path, I will welcome whatever hardship comes, and you will make sure things turn out ok. That I’ll be safe.
In 2013, with this imaginary contact deep in my subconscious, I set out to create Think Visual. My wish was to step out of the lonely life of a freelancer and work with colleagues, together we were to help transform organisations into places where the human spirit can thrive and grow. “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together,” was an African proverb I kept on repeating in each internal gathering and yearly celebration.
I didn’t expect that 7 years later, 6 weeks after giving birth, I would be letting go of the people who were like family to me. I will give back the keys to the two rooms we transformed into a church of creativity. That day, sitting in my kitchen, surrounded by all the boxes that contained everything I worked for, holding my tiny daughter, I felt neither together nor far.
This experience made me question everything I knew. The imaginary contract I believed in so strongly was void. I was not ok for a long while. And still, I’m writing this post with the same conviction. The same wind in my sail that got me to start Think Visual. And I can say without a doubt that given the choice, I would have walked the same path again.
Viktor Frankl is known to have said:
"Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning."
In the past seven years, since that day in the kitchen, I have been rising like the phoenix from the ashes of who I was. The process has been painful, and at times, harder than I thought I was capable of surviving. And yet I’m here to tell the tale.
The shift I’m sensing is that I stopped looking outside of me for someone else to keep me safe. I took the task on myself. Now my relationship with the inner compass is different. While I’m committed to following the direction my heart yearns for, I will make sure I am safe. If it takes a few more months or years, so be it.
And somehow, I’m never alone.
For the first time in my life, I am truly here with me.
A few years back, after reading Piero Ferrucci’s book, What We May Be, I was inspired to write the poem below. It was my first attempt to explain what it feels like to navigate life with my inner compass.
Sailing with the forces
I am on a boat with a beautifully painted sail.
It is stretched safely on the mast, ready to catch the wind.
Sometimes, I know the destination, and other times, I don’t.
But there’s always a pull that comes from deep within.
The pull is in the waves and the wind.
In the stars shining above,
Showing me where I am and where I’ve been.
Together, we are forces at work.
But then, somehow, I forget;
I dig out the old oars. I row for days!
I have plans, routes, and calculations.
I fight a good fight, only to be left exhausted.
When I can move no more, achy and disoriented,
Sweet surrender comes.
And in that moment, I can feel the pull again.
I take my position at the helm.
I feel the currents, I feel the wind
The sweet song of the stars.
I am the captain of my little boat.
We are en route again, we’re home.