The Inner Compass by Lawrence Yeo

A new series arrives

I'm really excited to start my first series on this blog, in which I will not only share my highlights of my reading, because it would be pointless also because I think it would be a copyright violation. Instead, I want to use this space to have the chance to do something that I said to do but never did, that is, come back to what I read, with the overall picture of what the author's message is, and try to reflect on it. 

The book is (as you already read from the title) The Inner Compass by Lawrence Yeo. I discovered LY and his blog, More to That, by following Mr. Rip. If it's the first time you've ever heard of this blog, I strongly suggest clicking the link I provided and spending some quality time reading those posts.

This is my first attempt to do something like this (as everything in this blog, and the blog itself). Still, I think it would be helpful, primarily with non-fiction books, to start a new habit of reflection; otherwise, it's only another way of consuming things, and reading for me it's "more to that" (Do you get the joke?).
You will not find here a scheme of the book or a summary, but only the passages that resonated with me most. If you want to know for sure what the book is about, the safest way to do that is for sure to get a copy, support a great work, and have some "you" moment while reading it.

I think it is clear, but to be fully ready to go through, the lines in italic are my highlights directly from the book; the others are supposed to be my comments or attempts to reflect on the author's words.

Let's begin.

A shared starting point: depression, fear, uncertainty and your inner compass

The most difficult thing about depression is the belief in its specificity; that the kind you have is wholly unique to you. This makes you believe that no one can comprehend what you’re experiencing, which further deepens the depths of your despair [and loneliness].

This leads to a retreat into one’s own thoughts, much of which has been corrupted by self-loathing.

The mind creates narratives that serve whatever condition it’s in, and the darker its state, the darker its stories.

A truth in which I think the majority of people have had some kind of experience, for sure, I have. Any moment in which I suffer or I have dealt with a depressive moment (of course, not self-diagnosed like people online, I went to therapy), I spiralled into a tunnel where I thought I was alone in this situation.

We know that our internal representation of the world (or the way we think reality is) is not THE reality.
In fact, in the absence of data, our minds are trying to make sense of what’s happening around us by filling in the blanks and coming up with a story. This gives us the chance to self-protect. And the "fun" part it that they don’t have to be accurate, they just have to feel complete.

Any doubts or fears we have about ourselves are not created from within, but rather by an external force that has convinced us of its truth. This force is called conditioning.

Anytime you have an expectation of becoming something you are not, that is conditioning.

[on the other hand] contentment [is] in an embrace of what you currently are.

To try to understand this passage I would like to quote another blog post from LY in which he said: 

"Krishnamurti calls this “freedom from conditioning”, where we are able to let go of all the societal influences that have shaped and categorised us into certain roles. That you’re not defined by the relationships you have with other preexisting cultural ideas and norms. That underneath all the layers of identities and responsibilities is simply a being that lives and creates" (you could go further and read this blog post).

Anytime we are in an unfamiliar environment, there are two opposing forces that emerge: The push for certainty and the pull toward curiosity.

The push for certainty is driven by fear, whereas the pull toward curiosity is driven by play.

This is because our sense of agency grows as our fear of the unknown fades, and this is where curiosity begins to take the helm.

Choosing certainty is only desirable when we fear the unknown. But as that fear fades, choosing curiosity is the next logical step.

At its core, fear is the tension of uncertainty.

Intuition is the inner wisdom that welcomes uncertainty. It understands that you can’t know everything, but what you know about yourself will make up for that gap.

And by trusting your resolve, you’re able to frame the unknown in a way that serves you.

Intuition is what takes you from the limits of logic to the decision you ultimately make. [And] Intuition needs to be stress tested by reality to earn its reliability.

Every inner compass starts at true north, which is the state of trusting ourselves.

I'd like to add a comment here, but on the one hand, it seems like pure gold to me, and on the other, I haven't yet had the experience of trusting myself or my intuition, or reframing uncertainty in a positive way for me. Let's just say I'm still in the stress-test phase of my intuition.

When your compass is at true north, you have conviction in who you are. You’re aware that uncertainty is inevitable, but it’s a source of empowerment rather than fear.

What disturbs this alignment are the winds of conditioning. This is when the external voices promising security, safety, and status direct us to a path that is not our own, which ultimately leads to suffering.

When you are conditioned, every action feels tense. But when you have conviction, every action feels fluid.

There is an alignment between who you are and what you offer, so you develop the confidence to lean into what makes you unique.

Every endeavor comes down to two options. You can either choose conviction, or choose conditioning.

That it’s learned all the lessons required for it to be right. 

This constant dance between setback and growth is what fuels confidence in your own judgments, which is what gives rise to your resolve.

Because the more you know yourself, the less you look to others to show you what the world is like.

By being aware of both your capabilities and limitations, you’ll know exactly how to navigate the world in a way that feels fluid and aligned with your values.

And that is the end goal!

Without self-understanding, you will always use external validation as a proxy for what you want and how you’ll get it.

This leads to an outsourcing of your intuition to other minds, which means that you’ll never learn how to trust your own judgment.

Self-understanding, it can be cultivated through the consistent application of just three principles.

Knowing yourself is the antidote to suffering, and the mere awareness of this truth is half the journey.

They [the principle] are: Reflect, Relate and Create

First principle: To reflect is to study the self and to question what you find.

Reflection is the origin point because it’s only through questioning yourself where you observe your unconditioned core. By observing this core, you then gain clarity into the kinds of relationships that will brighten both yours and others. And by knowing what brightens yourself and others, you then create the very things that contribute to that shared brilliance.

Reflection breaks the pattern of being helplessly shepherded by your thoughts. Given that an unchecked mind bends toward rumination, reflection is the checking mechanism that redirects it toward insight.

Reflection is about asking questions, recognizing patterns, and studying your mind to calibrate your inner compass.

The more diligent you are about questioning what you feel, the closer you get to the assumptions that are driving those emotions.

And by removing the assumptions that were planted by others, the clearer you become about who you are.

Again, it seems reasonable, even though he talks about only the unconditioned core, I think it is implied that, at the beginning, you have to start with what you have. Even a conditioned response could be helpful to recognise it and overcome it, and then utilise the unconditioned part of you that was down there.

Any source of tension can be alleviated by (1) identifying the tale that’s been planted, and by (2) reframing it to serve you. [So] you strip away your conditioning, and replace it with your conviction.

Basic reframing technique, although here we need to understand who decides which is the way that suits me or which one can help me overcome my conditioning.

When you write, you cannot do anything else but put words on a page, and it’s this very act of sitting with your mind that makes the practice so powerful.

Knowing this, the objective of writing here is to learn about who you are and how you operate.

As you explore your mind in great detail, you’ll begin to see what contentment looks like as you peel away the incentives and motives that have been layered on it from the outside. What remains is the essence of the inner world, which you can learn to accept without condition.

The second principle: Relate, the ability to see beyond games.

You see how society is organized into a giant game. And just like any game, you understand the importance of building fruitful alliances, breaking bad ones, and applying consistent effort to forge ahead.

And the more you desire to win this game, the more you’ll judge others by the coldness of utility rather than the warmth of character.

You will value people according to what they can do for you, as opposed to who they truly are.

The inner critic is a reflection of the lens you use to view others.

What distinguishes a friend from an acquaintance is not the time in which the bond has lasted, but rather the lack of conditions that accompany that relationship.

True friends, however, make an effort to sustain that bond regardless of what’s going on.

This means that friendships created in this stage are built without the forces of social incentives that erode the purity of that bond. And because these friendships were formed outside the rules of the game, they have the chance to continue flourishing without their influence.

All that matters is mutual presence, and we already know what this feels like in the context of our closest bonds.

The force that drives this charade is status, and it’s our thirst for it that drives every game we play.

Compassion is the ability to extend full presence to people, regardless of who they are or what they’ve achieved.

When I first read this part of the book, I immediately recalled To Have or to Be? by Erich Fromm (which, of course, I strongly recommend). In that book, the author suggest that if we are living in a society in which having things is the primary motivation, and we all know that resources are scarce, the consequence would be that we are in a competition, and we will be forced to attack preemptively to defend what we have. And a byproduct would be relationships which do not threaten what we have (even status), but instead help us to gain more.

Anytime you use an external barometer to make an internal conclusion, you deny your intuition and restrict yourself.

Agency is when your actions are fully aligned with your interests, which makes those actions feel meaningful.

Reflection reveals who you are and relationship reveals the world you want to see, then creation is what merges those two domains together.

The Third Principle: Create

By expressing the core of who you are through the medium of your choice, you act as a beacon for those that share a similar core as well.

Mastery is the quest to improve yourself as an end in itself. Comparisons are not made with other people, but only with prior versions of yourself.

Those who pursue mastery may disregard the need for external validation, but they still accept the power of external inspiration to help guide their work.

Instead of spending all your free time consuming things (like the majority of people do), you’ll spend some of it creating and improving your craft. When you do this, you’ll viscerally understand what it feels like to be working toward something that matters, which makes you believe in your potential.

This belief in yourself is what strengthens your conviction, which increases your capacity to trust your intuition.

If reflection reveals your unconditioned path and relationship reveals the people that will accompany you, then creativity compels you to move forward on.

Since creativity is an act of expression, it’s a kinetic force that propels you toward the person you’re capable of becoming.

Reflect to calibrate. Relate to connect. Create to express.

For me, the creative part would probably be accomplished by this blog.

Conclusion

Obviously, I will suggest this reading to everyone, and from the thinning of my comment, you know that not only will I re-read this book in the future, but I also have to spend more time with those concepts, try to reflect more on the message that LY wants to share. Hopefully you'll do the same.

In the end, what this reading left me with is that even though I agree with everything he said, I still think that I miss something, for sure, I miss the "practice" part, and that is something that has to come from me.