A Mason's Work

And a behavioral level when it comes to the compasses, we often think about

containing and constraining our behavior. And that containing and constraining for a lot of us

may feel a little bit awkward. So let's get into it a little bit as we talk about the behavioral stuff

and see what we can discover. To use the compasses well is to begin to understand the impulses

that you have in your everyday life, right? There's tons of those, you're going to find them

multiple times throughout the day, multiple times throughout even a five minute period.

The first thing you're going to want to do as you try and get control of your behavioral stuff,

particularly from as far as the compasses is concerned, is sort of count and name your impulses.

If you know what they are, you can begin to constrain them in a way that does not

does not suppress or repress them. So we'll talk about that too in a moment. But first things first,

counting and naming your impulses is extremely valuable. Being able to know what you're feeling when

you're feeling it, which for some of us sounds very, very elementary, but for a good number of folks,

myself included, it takes a long time to figure out more often than not what's what I'm actually

experiencing, what's happening, what's the impulse that's driving me to do X or Y or Z before we

even are consciously aware of it, oftentimes our hands in the cookie jar or our mind has sort of

drifted off into some doom scrolling or what have you. That impulse control, being able to name

and clarify what those impulses are, is sort of step one. Containment and the next sort of constraint

is step two. And that is not about repressing desire to be quite clear. When you repress or suppress those

impulses, you're denying their sort of right to exist. And that turns into a bunch of ugly stuff

way later. So naming them first and then working towards a productive application of those impulses

and kind of redirecting is much, much more productive. If you imagine internally you're a lot

like a child, right? And as a child, it really doesn't make sense to get into a philosophical

or a philosophical war about whether or not you should clean up your room, what really makes sense

is you should be redirected to turn the process of cleaning up your room into something that is

more fun or more productive. If you talk to anybody or work with anybody who's regularly

interfacing with children, the power of a redirect is just profound. Good news, it works for you too.

So taking some of these impulses as they arise and using the compasses on them to redirect and

constrain that behavior into something that's going to be useful is really important.

Another thing to bear in mind when it comes to this stuff is that that sort of

being aware of the impulse as a step one is really really great. Step two is being aware that when

your impulses are no longer serving you. So it's not a problem, for example, to have an impulse to

go maybe eat something super sweet or go have a drink or what have you. It's a problem when those

impulses turn into compulsive behaviors or they turn into situations that result in negative

outcomes for you as a person. So maybe it's the stress on your heart from X or Y or Z. Maybe it's

the stress on your family members when you, you know, over consume alcohol or any of the

intoxicants out there. When that happens, you need to sort of break out your compass. And the

first thing you must do when it comes to understanding this is not immediately beat yourself to death

with your compasses. That turns into a nightmare scenario. Again, that repression and suppression and

all of the kinds of negative soft talk that come from getting control over your impulses and

desires. Shame is not productive here, right? You want to name these things, you want to name

these impulses, you want to name these behaviors, and then you want to build a rational plan for

moving forward. In this way, the compasses are going to be a very, very useful tool for you as

they are for many Freemasons trying to solve problems in their everyday life. Be mindful. Again,

that the compass is helps you become aware of and may help you structure some solutions for.

It is not a tool by which you kind of beat yourself up or attempt to turn into some sort of aesthetic,

right? So it's just as bad to over constrain your desires to try and say, listen, I'm going to go

live this monk kind of lifestyle with no surplus food, no surplus, any of the things, and try and

deny all impulses. That doesn't work either. It's not sustainable long term. It may feel good for

the moment as a kind of black and white scenario, but you want to live a full and productive life with

people around you and sometimes that means enjoying nice things. So, you know, like food. So as you

go through this process with your compasses, again, be mindful of those impulses and where they

become excesses and where they become something that you can kind of work with to reshape into more

productive behavior.