By Dave Berman

Your feelings reflect your thoughts.

It may often seem that your emotional state is caused by external circumstances, but this “outside-in” paradigm is an illusion and your reality is actually created “inside-out.” The Thought Compass is a way to remember how true this is and to guide you in selecting better feeling, more useful thoughts.

Just as a regular compass points north and helps you find your way in the forest, your Thought Compass is calibrated to True North, represented by holding both arms straight out in front of you with the palms of your hands together. In this position, you sense connection to your inner wisdom, an emotional GPS system. You are aware of feelings of freedom, love, joy, appreciation, knowledge and empowerment. True North indicates high quality thinking that can be believed, trusted and acted upon. Take a moment now to recognize your relationship to True North. Find some thoughts that bring you to this good feeling place.

Feelings are always the indicator of when your thinking is on course, as well as when thoughts are off course. Remember a time now when you had to make a big decision but weren’t yet ready to choose. Indecision is common. Use your Thought Compass now to calibrate how it feels. Keep your left arm straight in front of you and begin moving your right arm clockwise until you find the point that represents this feeling. Indecision, by definition, is a lack of readiness to take action. Notice the contrast between this feeling and True North, where you do feel that inner direction to take action. Sometimes we may call this a “gut instinct.” When it kicks in, it means you’re ready to believe the thoughts causing that feeling, ready to take action based on them, and you’ve calibrated back to True North.

Play around with some other feelings now.

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