The Compasses — Integration: Noticing Boundaries and Bringing Other Tools to the Work

This episode steps back to look across the entire Compasses series and clarifies the true function of the Compasses: noticing boundaries and boundary violations. While powerful for awareness, the Compasses are not generative tools and cannot, on their own, create solutions. The episode emphasizes the necessity of bringing other working tools into play and offers a concrete personal example of using impulse tracking as a diagnostic practice.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• The Compasses help identify boundaries but do not generate solutions
• Boundary violations require other tools to resolve
• Awareness precedes action, not replaces it
• Impulse tracking can reveal root causes behind behavior
• Over-constraint and over-indulgence are both failure modes

💬 Featured Quotes

• 0:00:52–0:01:04
  “You’ll notice that you cross the line, but you’ll very likely need other tools to determine how to negotiate those lines moving forward.”
• 0:02:02–0:02:12
  “I started counting impulses on a regular basis.”
• 0:02:23–0:02:31
  “That helped me create essentially what my boundaries look like.”
• 0:02:45–0:02:52
  “Maybe I am over-constraining myself and setting myself up for essentially a… period where I just refute all systems and structures.”
• 0:03:46–0:03:59
  “That noticing process helped essentially point the finger at some other things going on that I was better able to kind of go after as root cause.”
• 0:04:26–0:04:32
  “It is one of the first lines of defense when it comes to really understanding how to become a better version of yourself.”
• 0:04:42–0:04:47
  “Understand that it can't solve the problems. It helps you notice.”

Creators & Guests

• Brian Mattocks - Host

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