A healthy body-mind is like a safe, clean, quiet, cozy room. It is presided over by you, not by anyone or anything else. In this room, there are no screams of terror or horror, no unforgivable guilt or shame banging on the door. Nor are there graffiti on the walls: “You should or should have, you won’t, you can’t.” Your room often has visitors but it is not haunted by archaic ghosts, obsessions, or compulsions. Nor is it cluttered by grudges.

All that happens to you passes through like hikers that take nothing and leave nothing behind. Yet, this is usually a joyous and welcoming room from which you do not seek to flee but in which you find sanctuary and out of which you gather much to give.

This spacious room has a picture window on each wall facing the four directions of a compass:

East: The rising sun: what is starting to happen or coming your way with or without your knowing it yet. New beginnings and challenges for you to face enter through this window.

West: The setting sun: what is ending and you need to let go of. Grief happens here, since losses and changes are givens of life.

North: The north star: the stabilizing spiritual force that you live by, the resource you turn to, e.g., spirituality, God, higher power, personal standards, support system, nature, silence, prayer, Dharma. This is what you rely on especially in hard times. In the heroic journey story, this is the assisting force.

South: A full sunny exposure: your lively energy, creativity, imagination, free-spirited spontaneity, humor, inner resources of renewal.

To the rising sun, say: “Welcome.”

To the setting sun, say: “I am letting go.”

To the north star, say: “I trust.”

To the full sun, say: “I open.”

You are in the center of the room affirming an unconditional Yes to all four experiences, without complaint or a need for escape—and with no attempt to close the blinds. There may be clouds in the way as you look out each window, uncertainty, blur, vagueness, ambiguity. Simply notice this and be open to the time when things become clearer to you.

Your quiet room becomes noisy in the east when you fear or resist the dawn of present challenges. It is noisy in the west when you fear or resist the dusk of necessary endings. It is noisy in the north when you have not found a spiritual foundation in yourself. It is noisy in the south when you block your potential, fear spontaneity, hold back your lively energy, or run from anything that might stretch you.

One way of knowing a relationship or situation is healthy is that you do not have to shut any windows to be in it.

Draw this room, a four-sided mandala, and place yourself, a smiley face saying Yes, in the center. Then write in the events and choices that fit for what is happening to you in each of the four directions of your life right now. Notice that beginnings and endings often happen together. How does your north star help you with these? How can they be given a southern exposure? To which of the four directions are you saying Yes?

This post is adapted from When Love Meets Fear (Paulist Press).

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