What if you had an internal compass that could provide direction at every turning point in your life? The Saint and the Drunk - A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life shows people how to build a practice of intentional decision making. This book is for anyone who wants to discover or reconnect to their authentic calling. But for many of us that access has been obscured by cultural or familial narratives, trauma or grief. This is a practical book that considers the very real responsibilities most of us have. Exercises and writing prompts help identify cultural and familial narratives that can support or limit, clarify values and dreams, demonstrate how to honor resistance and deal with the impact of grief and trauma on decision making. The author shares her deeply moving, and at times, tragic personal journey that successfully affirms that the discernment process outlined in this book can help anyone, no matter their circumstance, to make even the most difficult decisions in their lives. The Saint and the Drunk - A Guide to Making the Big Decisions In Your Life shows you how to use ancient spiritual tools with a modern, spiritual-but-not-religious approach to make major life decisions with intention and clarity. In the Middle Ages, a saint named Ignatius of Loyola came up with a compass he called "discernment" using a process called the Spiritual Exercises. It was primarily used by Catholics to make decisions about how to serve God. A few centuries later, a group of drunks started Alcoholics Anonymous, and they wanted spiritual tools to overcome alcoholism. But some of the members were atheists and agnostics. So they came up with the idea of a Higher Power, an invitation for each person to decide what was to be their guiding principle. God? Nature? Their Ancestors? It didn't matter, the point was to find something higher. In AA, atheists can have vital spiritual experiences that get and keep them clean and sober. This book combines the two traditions, to use the concept of a Higher Power to make the Spiritual Exercises available to the large group of people who are spiritual but not religious, or religious but not Christian.