Using Your Compass

One of the pitfalls of writing about something like philosophy and spirituality is that your topics may become increasingly abstracted and insular, and gradually they’ll become more and more detached from the world around you. In the end, you may end up saying something eloquent, perhaps even beautiful, but which is useful to only a few people, if any. I do my best to avoid that here on the blog—not always successfully, I’m sure. But it is in that spirit which I would like to approach today’s discussion.

We’ve talked a lot recently about peace as the “light on your dashboard,” a sort of warning light to show whether things in your life are going well, but what if you could get more than just a general sense of good or bad?

When I was studying energy psychology with Dr. Roger Callahan, he turned me onto a book called The Pulse Test, but Arthur Coca, MD. I think you can still find it on Amazon. The idea was simple. We know that your pulse rate is tied to many aspects of personal health, and to your mental state as well. The idea was that you take your pulse right after waking up in the morning, when you’re winding down in the afternoon, after you work out, at night just before bed. Do this over several days, and you’ll have a baseline for your normal pulse rate.

That’s the foundation, now the real idea is that when you’re trying to make a choice, you measure your pulse against that baseline, think about that decision or issue for a few minutes, and then measure your pulse again. Of course, this doesn’t directly tell you whether a decision is right or wrong, but it can show whether it is causing you physiological stress—and 95 percent of the time, it shouldn’t be!

This is a pretty simple, easy trick to try for yourself. It really works on the same basic principle as the non-local testing that I use every day, both for work and for my own life. Many of you may have even done something like this without realizing it. I mean, even without measuring pulses, there are times when it’s obvious that an issue or a choice is causing you anxiety, and I bet most of you have made decisions or changed your minds because of that realization at least once.

When you learn how to read it, I guess you can use this as more than a light on the dashboard. In the past, I’ve referred to a person’s conscience as a “love compass,” pointing the way to what is right. But really, I’ve come to believe in a distinction between these concepts. I think everyone has a conscience which helps them to understand fundamental right and wrong: things we can all agree on like selfishness, theft, murder, etc.

But I think there’s another, less obvious facet of this mechanism. One which guides us toward our individual good. For example, some feel called to service, some to leadership, some to creative pursuits. These are not a matter of right or wrong, but of what’s best for us as individuals. That’s what I mean when I talk about a “love compass,” and it’s a tool that anyone can learn to use every day.

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd