I’ve been thinking about North Stars.
The idea that somewhere out there is a fixed point in the sky meant to guide your life. A singular, unwavering direction.
The internet loves this concept.
Find your why.
Name your vision.
Declare your path.
But I’ve never experienced my life as a straight line. I’ve experienced it as a pull. And a returning. Often times a pattern that keeps repeating itself no matter how far I wander.
When I was younger, I thought my direction was achievement.
Then I thought it was independence.
Then I thought it was power.Then I thought it was freedom.
Each version felt true for a while.
Each one dissolved.
What has remained is harder to name.
It isn’t a title.
It isn’t a company.
It isn’t even a mission.
It’s a feeling.
There is a version of me that performs.
She is sharp.
Efficient.
Impressive.
Strategic.
She knows how to win rooms.
And there is a version of me that disappears into the mountains.
No agenda.
Just the wild and wind and trees and dogs and silence.
For years I thought I had to choose between them.
Be powerful or be peaceful.
Be ambitious or be soft.
Be respected or be real.
But my life keeps pushing me back toward the same realization: I am most myself when I don’t amputate either.
Maybe my North Star isn’t about becoming more. Maybe it’s about becoming whole.
I’ve left rooms that required me to harden.
I’ve built things that tried to soften me.
I’ve chased speed.
I’ve chased stillness.
I’ve chased recognition.
I’ve chased solitude.
And underneath all of it has been the same quiet question: Can I live in a way that doesn’t require me to abandon myself?
Not my intensity.
Not my sensitivity.
Not my logic.
Not my mysticism.
Not my ambition.
Not my need for stillness.
All of it.
Right now I call the mountains home.
At night the sky is clear enough to see actual stars.
The North Star doesn’t move.
It doesn’t flash.
It doesn’t demand attention.
It just is.
You don’t run toward it.
You orient by it.
That feels important: what if your North Star isn’t something you achieve? What if it’s something you return to?
When I’m off course, I feel it physically.
My jaw tightens.
My chest hardens.
My mind speeds up.
I start proving.
When I’m aligned, it’s quieter.
My body softens.
My breath deepens.
There’s a grounded hum beneath everything.
Not excitement.
Not adrenaline.
Satisfaction.
Peace.
If I strip everything away—the roles, the businesses, the language—what remains is this:
I want to live in a way that feels integrated.
I want my strength and my tenderness in the same room.
I want my intellect and my intuition in the same decision.
I want my solitude and my connection in the same life.
Maybe my North Star is not success.
Maybe it’s integrity. Not moral integrity. Energetic integrity. A life where the outside matches the inside.
Where my power doesn’t cost me my softness.
Where my softness doesn’t dilute my power.
There is a pattern in my life of building spaces.
Physical spaces.
Emotional spaces.
Relational spaces.
But what I’m really building is room.
Room to breathe.
Room to question.
Room to feel.
Room to be complex.
Maybe that’s my essence: To create and inhabit space where complexity is safe. Starting with myself.
I don’t think a North Star is loud.
I think it’s steady.
It doesn’t scream “Go bigger.”
It whispers, “Don’t split yourself.”
It doesn’t demand visibility.
It asks for coherence.
Maybe mine is this: To live fully expressed without abandoning any part of myself, and to keep returning to that expression when I forget.
That feels less like ambition, and more like home.
