The Compass Points for the Long Middle

The Compass Points

These are not chapters.
They are places people tend to stand when life changes.

Choose the one that feels closest to where you are now.

Compass Point 1 → What Happened?

A way to name the moment something in your life stopped making sense.

Compass Point 2 → Who Am I Now?

A way to notice when the person you were no longer fits the life you’re living.

Compass Point 3 → Who Stands With Me Now?

A way to recognize how connection changes — who stays, who drifts, and who shows up quietly.

Compass Point 4 → What Has Meaning Now?

A way to listen for what still matters when survival is no longer the only task.

Compass Point 5 → What Is Essential Now?

A way to feel what you can no longer live without as the noise falls away.

Compass Point 6 → What Can I Trust Now?

A way to sense what feels steady and true when certainty is no longer a given.

Compass Point 7 → What Still Matters in My Soul?

A way to hear the quiet truths that endure after everything else has shifted.

Compass Point 8 → Where Do I Go From Here?

A way to hold the first stirrings of motion when possibility begins to whisper again.

Compass Point 9 → What Brings Me Back to Life?

A way to recognize the small sparks that remind you you’re still made of living.

Compass Point 10 → How Do I Hold It All Together?

A way to live inside a life you didn’t plan with steadiness, honesty, and grace.

Ten questions for finding your way when the ground has shifted

This isn’t a program or a set of steps.

The Compass Points are ten questions that tend to appear after life changes in ways we didn’t choose. They aren’t meant to be answered once and left behind. They’re meant to be returned to — as the ground shifts, as you do.

You don’t have to start at the beginning.
Most people don’t.

If one of these questions already feels like it’s following you, that’s usually the place to begin.

If one of these questions stays with you, that’s usually the right place to pause.
— Mary

I’ve learned that these questions don’t arrive on a schedule.
They tend to show up when the house is quiet, the tea has gone cold, and you finally notice how tired you are.
That’s usually where the next one begins.

— Mary