60 | Alignment
60 | Alignment
Step into the light of spring as we explore the essence of alignment and how it shapes a clutter-free, sustainable lifestyle. As the days grow longer and the sun's warmth begins to thaw the winter's chill, I reflect on the profound impact of seasonal shifts on our inner well-being—especially for those of us, like myself, whose spirits soar with the sun's embrace.
In this episode, we'll unpack the concept of alignment, both in its tangible, physical form and as an inner state that guides our decisions and lifestyle choices. It's about tuning into the subtle shifts within us that signal whether we're living in harmony with our true selves. I'll share personal insights and invite you to consider how the changing seasons affect your mood and energy. These are clues to your own alignment.
Also, we'll delve into the signals of misalignment—those moments when you're feeling frazzled, overcommitted, and out of sync with your inner compass. By recognizing these signs, you can better understand your needs and the lifestyle you desire.
Join me as we navigate the interplay between logic, intuition, and the internal nudges that guide us toward a life that feels organized, intentional, and true to who we are.
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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing An Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast will go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 60, “Alignment.” Hey y’all. The world is showing tiny signs of Spring, and I’m taking note. Weather-wise, this past winter hasn’t been terribly long or brutal, however I’m breathing a bit deeper and feeling a bit lighter as the days lengthen and the temperature rises. My birthday is mid-Summer, and it’s truly possible that as a Leo, sunlight and warmth are a key component of my inner being. When I was living in Florida last year, I felt fully active and alive while soaking in the sun. Perhaps that’s the truth for most humans, but I’m going to take note simply because the topic of today’s episode is alignment.
So, I’ve been teaching and guest coaching a fair amount recently, and as I’m pulling together presentations, I always like to open the conversations by defining a few key terms. Each of us interprets words and concepts differently based on our own life experiences, so I find it helpful to share the context or perspective that I’m thinking from. If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, that probably resonates with you. If you’re new, then welcome – I’m so glad you’re here. While preparing for these presentations, I’m often asked to provide a bio. One thing that’s always highlighted is how the purpose of this podcast is to discuss “why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle.”
So, in today’s episode, I thought it would be helpful to break down and share what I mean by “aligned” or being “in alignment.” I’ll provide a few examples to illustrate how I think of the concept, and I’ll invite you to consider how it shows up in your life. On the other hand, I also find my best understanding of this philosophy comes from being out of alignment or out of integrity. Misalignment can be equally as excellent of a teacher as alignment. Learning the difference between the two states of being, I believe, will help you better understand yourself and the type of lifestyle you’d like to ultimately have.
Let’s start with some tangible, physical examples. From the age of 3 through high school, I took classical ballet. I loved the weekly routine of putting on tights and a leotard and ballet shoes. We’d start the class with the same basic stretches, move into barre work, then center work, then move across the floor, and then end class with a reverence, or slowing down. The predictability was refreshing. One of the central components to ballet is posture, and for good reason. In order to balance, spin, or achieve specific poses your body had to be in alignment. This is where ballet, in particular, gets physically demanding. Unless you are one of the few people built with an ideal ballet skeleton, you’re going to be manipulating your hips, feet, ankles, ribcage, etc. find that ideal sense of physical alignment.
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class or any other type of movement practice that considers posture, you may have heard the following: imagine that there’s a string coming out of the top of your head and I’m pulling upward on it. This visual is to get you to create a straight, elongated spine from your ankles to knees to hips, through the ribcage, neck, and out the top of your head. It lengthens your body and spine, and if executed correctly keeps your lungs from collapsing (so you can breathe easier) and it allows you to balance more effectively. Another way to imagine it is to picture a skeleton hanging in a doctor’s office or at Halloween.
Physically, this is considered alignment. In our tech-obsessed world, you and I can both visualize the opposite. Just look at most teenagers with their heavy backpacks and necks curved like a tortoise to be absorbed in their phones. Over time this can cause soreness and strains in the neck, back, and shoulders. So can sitting all day in an awkward position for remote work. So can gaining 20 lbs. during pregnancy to carry a child. (I developed sciatica during my pregnancies because – you know – babies don’t care about alignment.) So, these are contrasting examples that help you visualize what I mean by alignment. The ballerina can do what she does on pointe shoes because she’s in alignment. When we move in a less naturally aligned way, our knees, back, and necks ache. It is what is, and knowing the difference helps us be more cognizant about what feels best and promotes ease of movement and overall lifestyle.
For me, alignment goes beyond the physical and is rooted in both feeling and inner knowing. It’s something that I regularly practice, and I do so by… you guessed it… pausing to develop awareness. It’s self-reflective, and it’s about collecting data. For example, at the top of the episode I was sharing a few thoughts about the transition from winter into spring. In most cases, the weather is often small talk we use to build connection with other folks. Yet, it’s an easy way to shift this topic of alignment from the physical inward. So let me ask, how do you feel when the first signs of spring appear? What happens inside of you? Is there a shift when the time changes and the days get longer? Perhaps you find yourself smiling a bit more. Perhaps you find yourself itching to get outside for a walk. Perhaps you can stay up a bit later or wake up a bit earlier simply because the sunlight makes you feel good.
I’d offer that this is an example of a shift into feeling more aligned. Your mental, emotional, and physical state is responding to the weather, and these changes give subtle nudges that “all is going to be okay,” or “things are looking up.” It’s the same as the release that occurs when you stretch your body in a way that feels good. It’s the same as when you look around the table at your family or friends and feel your heart smile because this moment is special. It feels right.
Your body has lots of clues and messages for you that often get suppressed by your logical brain. In our hyperactive world that’s full of information overload, you may feel like you’re regularly on a hamster wheel trying to keep up. When this is the case, your brain is so busy trying to keep things moving, to keep things the same, that it can’t pause long enough to question whether you want to even be on the hamster wheel in the first place. Your brain doesn’t want to notice that your legs are tired or that you’re not really getting anywhere because… frankly, that’s not its job.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other signals and other messages happening within. In ancient wisdom traditions, you may hear about your chakras or energy centers. And then scientific research is discovering more and more about our gut microbiome and gut brain. In addition to the brain in your head, your stomach and digestive system is full of chemical signals and nerves that communicate with your brain. This bi-directional communication provides information beyond the standard logic that most of us operate by. Your vagus nerve is the longest most complex nerve in your body, and it supports your nervous system and sense of safety. When all is well and humming along, you may not even notice it. However, if a car runs through a stop light towards you and you react, you’ll feel the burst of adrenaline and disruption of your safety system.
So, if you move through your days primarily dominated by logic, by thinking, by planning, or by attending to the most immediate need, you’re most likely listening to your brain more than your gut or your inner wisdom. If this is the case, tuning into when you may be out of alignment may be more informative for you. When I’m feeling out of alignment, I notice that my mind is racing more than usual. I’m feeling frazzled and overcommitted. My body tends to drag, and my mood tends to be a little lower. My internal voice questions things and whines, ‘but I don’t want to…’ When I’m out of alignment, I often have to convince myself to do things, and I lose the perspective of choice. I often feel like ‘I have to’ rather than ‘I’m choosing to.’
For a client I was coaching recently, being out of alignment meant she had a burgeoning awareness that her intense work schedule – one that was way over the standard 40 hours a week – wasn’t sustainable. She’d determined that work was her priority, yet both external and internal signals were letting her know that the pace she was on wasn’t going to last forever. Oftentimes it’s a question from a coach, a friend, or a partner that leads us to think more deeply about whether we’re living in alignment. In her case, the fact that the topic of her unpredictable work schedule kept bubbling to the surface was the inner nudge of intuition. I offered the analogy of a full glass of water. Drop by drop the water can exist with tension at the rim of the glass. However, eventually, with one added drop, the glass would spill over. Alignment, in this case, isn’t living in the space of absolute tension between full and spilling over, but instead might be with room in the glass for a little more water to be added.
So, I invite you to get curious. What does being out of alignment feel like for you? Remember, there are signals in your body as well as your brain. It may be those moments where you can’t ‘think’ your way out of a problem but instead may be forced to do that dreaded thing called ‘feeling.’ What signals show up? Mild anxiety or a sour digestive system? Perhaps your skin breaks out more than usual or you find yourself constantly on ‘high alert’ in a way that you wish you could turn off. It may be that you have a recurring thought or dream, or another subtle signal that indicates that one wheel is wobbly on your grocery cart.
Living IN alignment, on the other hand, means that your head, heart, and gut are all on the same page. Like standing or sitting with correct posture, internal alignment means that your logical brain is in agreement with your soul or inner compass. You’re more organized than you think. Alignment sounds like, “this feels good’ or “this feels right.” It not only makes logical sense but your decisions - your choices on how you’re spending your time, energy, and attention – make natural sense. There’s less inner friction. Your inner voice is a bit quieter and kinder because it’s not fighting to be heard. Now, I recognize many of us live with anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other conditions that may seem to complicate this idea of alignment. However, I’d offer that you know yourself best. Each of us has an internal state that moves a bit easier at times. That’s what I’m referencing. I’m not suggesting you seek out a state of perfection. Alignment for you may be when a smile naturally crosses your face.
I’m noticing that the sun makes me feel in alignment. I’m noticing that being who I am attracts the clients who partner best with me. Although I can help folks in a variety of areas, the clients who find the most success are the ones who are, like you, open to exploring their inner landscape, decluttering what’s not needed or valued in their life, and discovering what alignment looks and feels like to them. I’m noticing that when I have adequate blocks of blank space on my calendar, I’m in alignment. The list of what’s in alignment for me grows each day. Most importantly, I’m noticing that when I pause and check in with my gut or intuition before making a decision, I’m more in alignment.
Now that you have a sense of what being out of alignment feels like, get curious about how being “in alignment” feels. What does your body feel like when life is aligned? Again, I’m not talking about when external circumstances – those beyond your control – are always in your favor, but when your heart feels like it’s being honored. Less friction, less conflict. These internal signals and nudges are meaningful when you allow them to be.
Embracing an organized life is available to you each day you wake up. What I want you to take away from this episode is that an aligned and sustainable life means taking just a few seconds to ask your heart, your soul, your inner sense of wisdom – the part of you that is precious and untouchable – if what you’re doing and how you’re living is exactly the way you want it to be. Being honest with yourself can be a little tender, and it’s so very rewarding. Once you’re aware of whether you’re in alignment or out of alignment in the various areas of life, then you get to decide if and when you want to make a change or stay the course.
And the more you practice, the easier it will become. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know your takeaways from the episode. I’d love to know what alignment means to you. Talk to y’all soon.
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