Personal North Star

I don't like letting the idea of something help lead my life. Part of that is my personality and part of that is the fact that being disabled throughout my life people close to me and not have always tried to help. Sometimes the help was needed but many of the times it was "Help". I'll write about that another time, but basically, it created an almost constant feeling me that I was given help, and expected to receive help. This along with being raised with a complicated description of what god is and how you are supposed to relate to it, made me hate the idea that someone else was in control of my life and I had to communicate with "God" for him to give me a good life. I hated the fact that the answer to anything going bad or good that it was god, with no responsibility for any of the people involved(this is not everyone's relationship with god, this is the feeling I got from my education both formal and informal at home.)
This complicated relationship led me to a long while of pulling away from any version of god and religion, I wanted to be in charge of my own life, including the choices and outcomes. I didn't want any connection with something or idea of some kind of god that removed my individual thoughts, actions, goals, and ideas. This lead to pulling back from anything of any sort of religion and focusing on myself, regardless of my enjoyment of reading some religious texts, I cut it all out.

These thoughts came to the surface when I started listening to the book Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein, a main focus in her book is connecting to a higher power, labeled in any way that works for you to connect. To be able to let go in some areas of life while gaining a lot more in many ways. When I first heard this I balked, I said it sounds like everything else I've heard a hundred times and I want nothing of this god that takes all the responsibility out of my own actions in my life. The more I listened and relistened I understood more of the point that it is creating a personal channel with a higher power in the world to create balance and growth inside you, to give you direction in which to use your skills and abilities in the best way to change the world. Creating the balance of what you want to achieve and what the universe has for you as well.  After I realized this wouldn't be the worst thing in my life, maybe it could create a different balance and a release of some of the non-helpful responsibilities.  I have piled on many different "types" of responsibilities in order to keep control of my life around me, most of them don't work because at the end of the day, they make me stressed and anxious without any ability to change most of it.

The first thought I had when I came to this conclusion was "You have heard this 100x times, in many different forms of religious/ Chassidic words, written, spoken, discussed. Why does it take listening to a non-Jewish book to somehow connect and hit me in a place that created a desire to create a personal name and connection to something larger than me." It took a conversation with someone close to me to come to the conclusion of "whatever way of connection and an ability to process an idea is great, just because you have heard it in many different ways, you connected with this one, so run with it." Among Gabrielle's many different words she threw out for connection with a higher power was "North Star".This term spoke to me on a few levels, firstly I love nature and love the idea of finding the north star in the forest or by the ocean. Secondly, part of my very detailed and personal tattoo (I'll go into detail in another post on the meaning of the tattoo) is the form of a compass and the four directions. I love the idea of being able to look at my arm and be reminded amongst other things to connect and listen to the information coming through the personal connection to the universe and find the calm and direction from my channel with the universe. I am still in charge of my actions and goals, yet I am able to focus and listen to the inner connection between me and my north star.