You’ve just walked through the minefield with new eyes.
You’ve seen the terrain.
You’ve come face to face with fears.
You’ve felt the weight of clarity.
You’ve faced your fear and realized it wasn’t weakness – it was information.
And now there is room to awaken old hopes and dreams.

Before we move on to talk about walking out fearlessly, and learning guiderails, we need one final piece. To discover your answer to the question:

What direction am I going?

Not “What should I do?”
Not “What would someone else do?”
Not “What does my church expect?”
Not “What does my partner want?”

This chapter is about something deeper, quieter, and far more personal:

What direction is my soul trying to turn me?
What is God stirring in me?
What do I long for?
What do i need?

This is where you construct your North Star.

Why We Need a North Star

When you’ve lived in a minefield, your gaze stays down.
You learn to scan the ground, not the horizon.
You learn to anticipate danger, not imagine a future.
You learn to survive the next moment, not dream about the next season.

But healing begins when we lift our eyes.

A North Star doesn’t tell you how fast to move.
It doesn’t tell you when to move.
It doesn’t tell you what to leave or what to keep.

It simply tells you which direction is “toward life.”

And that is enough for now.

Hope Is Not Dangerous

Many survivors of volatile relationships learned early — explicitly or implicitly — that self-love is a bad thing.

Hope leads to disappointment.
Self-love leads to conflict.
Dreams impose on the dreams of others and lead to accusations of selfishness.
Trying to fly leads to punishment.

So we learned to silence desires and hopes.
To bury them all or spiritualize away our needs.

But desires of our hearts are not the enemy.
Desire is directional.
It is often the whisper of the Holy Spirit saying:

“This way.
Toward peace.
Toward dignity.
Toward clarity.
Toward safety.
Toward Me.”

A Picture of Desire: Walter Mitty

I first saw this concept in a move about a man named Walter Mitty. Walter lived a quite, disciplined life, suppressing every adventurous impulse inside him. There is a moment in the film where he walks passed a massive banner – a photograph of the story’s bold, fearless foil character standing in front of a wild, breathtaking landscape.

And in Walter’s imagination, the man in the banner comes to life and motions to him with a simple gesture as if to say:

“This way.
Courage and adventure awaits.”

Of course, the poster wasn’t actually moving.
But Walter’s long-buried desires were.

His imagination – the part of him that had been silenced by fear, responsibility, and routine – was beginning to leak out in uninvited daydreams. His soul was trying to get his attention.

That’s what desire does.

It nudges.
It whispers.
It beckons.
It points.

Not toward recklessness, but toward alignment.
Not toward chaos, but toward purpose.
Not toward selfishness, but toward abundant life.

Your desires are not the sinful. They are the compass for which God made you.

The Truth That Changes Everything: YOU MATTER

There was a moment in my journey when everything shifted — not because my circumstances changed, but because I did.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was nothing I said out loud. It was a truth that smacked me over the head:

I matter.
What I want matters.
What I need matters.
Even if no one else sees it yet.

For years, I lived as though my value was negotiable — as though my worth depended on someone else’s mood, approval, or comfort. I learned to shrink myself to keep the peace. I learned to silence myself to avoid conflict. I learned to defer to someone else’s needs because mine felt inconvenient.

But here is the truth that changed everything:

I matter because God created me.
I matter because my existence is intentional.
I matter regardless if anyone else knows or believes it.

This isn’t about confrontation or rebellion or suddenly demanding to be treated differently. This is a small, internal shift to warm your center. Because once you believe you matter, your need to prove it shrinks and your inner light has a little room to glow.

Since your life is not an accident. Your desires are not dangerous. Your voice is not disposable. Your soul is not optional. Because you matter.

Your direction matters. This is where your North Star begins.

What Do You Long For?

Before you choose a path, you need to know what your heart is reaching toward.

Not the logistics. Not the consequences. Not the fears. Not the “what ifs.” Just the longing.

You might long for:

• peace
• safety
• clarity
• stability
• partnership
• honesty
• gentleness
• spiritual alignment
• emotional steadiness
• a home where you can breathe
• a life where you don’t have to tiptoe

These longings are not selfish. They are sacred. They are the imprint of God on your soul. Your longings a clues. They point toward your North Star.

~

THE WHY That fuels Your Lantern

People and characters with a strong North Star are inspirational and seem unstoppable.

Martin Luther King
Oscar Schindler
Daniel Eugene “Rudy” Ruettiger
“Sarah Conner”
and my all time favorite “Neo”.

Persona’s with passion. Passion that came from pain and dreams.

Neo is my favorite because of his calm nature and how he so easily prioritized truth over his circumstances.
In the Matrix he “feels something” is off and stays up night and day obsessed with finding out what it is. In the end, it wasn’t him looking for the answers, it was the answers looking for him. Fantastic! a must see.

The Matrix was one of my all time favorite movies. The main character “Neo” is one of my all time favorite characters. But he is lost. He is searching for a life that has meaning in a life that has only control.
There’s a moment in The Matrix Reloaded where he has gotten as far as knowing he needs to save his friends and a character called the Merovingian has the keys he needs. But the Merovigian refuses to hand them over without being inspired. He refuses to help Neo unless Neo can prove he knows specifically what he’s fighting for. He says this:

“Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without,”  The “why” separates those who wield power from those who don’t. Those have have a true “why” have the power.
The WHY is the best fuel.

He’s right.
You cannot move forward — not into conflict, not into aloneness, not into clarity — without a why.

This is your red-pill / blue-pill moment.
Not choosing is still choosing.
But choosing without a why is chaos.

Not a reason someone else gives you. Not a reason your church gives you. Not a reason your spouse gives you. Not a reason your fear gives you.

Your reason. Your fire.

Finding What Fuels Your Fire

While you may not be a matrix fan, I hope the analogies found in films like this light a spark.

Every survivor eventually reaches a moment — not of anger, not of rebellion, but of clarity — where something inside them says:

“I can’t live like this anymore.”

That moment is not the decision. It’s the ignition.

It’s the spark that lights the fire‑reason.

Your fire‑reason might be:

• “I want my children to grow up differently.”
• “I want to be who God created me to be.”
• “I want to achieve my dreams.”
• or mine… I want to break the generational curse of abuse.

Your fire‑reason is not a plan, a behavior, timeline or a strategy.

It’s the why that will eventually give you courage to take the next baby step — whatever that step is.

What movies or stories make YOUR heart skip a beat?

This chapter is about finding the why that will eventually fuel the next hard steps — whatever those steps may be.

When your ready for the next chapter, we’ll talk about the risks — not to scare you, but to give you the beginning of awareness that is needed to navigate a maze with pits and traps.

Take your time. Search your heart. Find your North Star.

For now, breathe.
Imagine your dreams coming true for yourself or your family.
Let your North Star come into view — not as a destination, but as the beginning of understanding.