Alignment is not a balance beam but rather, a wide welcoming path.

Today’s Wisdom Bite about alignment promises a way of being that not only transcends your weight loss struggle but also takes you to joy. Control-based approaches can manage your weight issues but not evolve them. They amount to a set of rules for the rest of your life with little consideration for joy. Abstinence-based approaches are even more extreme, demanding a level of adherence with no room for error, much like walking a 4-inch balance beam where you live in fear of a single misstep. Only alignment offers welcoming, natural relationships with food, movement and your exquisite self.

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What would surface if you ceased all weighing, measuring and tracking of your efforts?…

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What would surface if you ceased all weighing, measuring and tracking of your efforts? I’m not referring to all those times you’ve avoided this info. I’m talking about reaching the point with your inner work where you can let all this info go…for good. For starters, any remaining Ego attachment you have to these tactics would surface! But since we would have addressed much of this in the previous Awareness, Truth and Deep Truth stages, what would surface is your ‘exquisite self’ – the full colour version of you that embraces the full spectrum of your humanness. And you would realize your essence is too irresistible & irrepressible to simply distill to a number on the scale.

Alignment is not a destination you arrive at; it’s an ongoing, Soulful directing of your energy. It’s a way of being where you relax into your wisdom and power within to make your choices from. You have a deep sense of knowing and a high degree of trust in your natural style and rhythm to guide you. You might wander in or out of alignment at times but you have practices in place to gently tap you back towards the path. The practices themselves are enjoyable and satisfying; they’re not unthinking or automated habits. Most notably, the energy it takes to live from here feels effortless because you’re no longer mired in your own resistance.

I’m married to a natural eater/exerciser. I’ve had my own frustrations and fortunes in witnessing his choice-making for over 20 years. Natural eaters/exercisers don’t weigh, measure or track what they do – they just do it. There’s no chatter in their mind or fight in their body around doing these things – these things just ‘are’. And they don’t do these things just to get a result – they do them to have an experience they value. None of this came naturally to me. I had to consciously learn all of it. But I’m happy to say, now that I’m a conscious eater/mover, my choices occasionally even surpass my husband’s (Jelly Bellies. That’s all I’m sayin’). Here are three guidelines for practicing living from alignment:

It’s an ethical decision regarding what you value. Alignment is not dependent on or defined by your circumstances. OK, so you woke up tired, the weather sucks and you’re still in debt but you honour your self-care rituals. Not because you ‘should’ but because you own where your choices take you. You use your language and framing to decide how you want to experience things. You’re able to invite truth and decide if the indulgence you’re considering is worth the price of admission. Discomfort has become your friend as you decide to face a deep truth that might be holding you back. You intentionally transcend the struggle.
It’s personal leadership with no sense of urgency. There’s self-integrity and balance to your efforts. It’s the kind of self-integrity that stems from autonomy not external accountability. It’s a flexible type of balance in all things you engage with. There’s no self-imposed urgency to get ‘on track’ or ‘back on track’ when you find yourself out of alignment. You have enough momentum behind you that you can coast occasionally without negativity or guilt (eg. over holidays, busy with a project, nursing an injury). You recognize when that coasting energy starts to dissipate and you trust yourself to re-engage.
It’s ‘X’ years to mastery. Your new skills will give you early, delicious tastes of alignment you’ll be excited to build upon. But you’ll think you’re living from alignment far sooner than you are. Suffice to say it’s years, not months, to evolve into this way of being. If you find yourself prematurely saying “I’ve got this, I’ve evolved”, you will be humbled many times. Yet this helps you appreciate all your experiences as necessary and valuable in shaping your way of being, your greatness and your bigger life. Imagine the budding rose. It will bloom and be stunning the way nature intended, provided you don’t impatiently peel it open before its time.

Here’s what you can expect in Module 4: the Alignment stage

“I’m realizing it’s OK to have resistance and Coach Kath is showing me exactly how to navigate it.” – S.P., Massage Therapist

Core Value: Joy; Primary Skill: Inner Peace
Coming into this stage you’re in tune with your natural gifts and talents and you know you need to share them with the world in a bigger way. Alignment is the inner peace you feel when you do this and you can’t imagine your life without this form of expression now. The focus of this stage has you navigating your emotions, triggers and resistance in a way that informs you but no longer limits you. Your competencies are pointing squarely to your greatness and how you can use this to be of service to others. You’ve been on the journey you so needed but didn’t know you were looking for.

You now see yourself as a powerful creator, destined to realize your full potential through your consciousness and Soul’s resources. You have practices in place to help you master flow and experience joy regularly. You have learned to love and be loved unconditionally. You have shifted from “I challenge my body and I’m harnessing my power to change it.” to “I am in awe of my body for its role in my personal evolution and my bigger life.”

Here’s what you can practice

There are visualizations I walk through with my clients that enable them to meet their future self. Their future self is always calmer and more composed. Every. Single. Time. I believe this speaks to the inner peace we all sense is available to us but we don’t always know how to access. Alignment opens this door to us. With that in mind, here’s a day in the life of alignment. Let this inspire your own top 10 alignment statements:

Alignment is…amusement when you catch your first morning glimpse of your body in the mirror
Alignment is…letting your body cast the first vote regarding what to eat
Alignment is…using your mind to rehearse beneficial outcomes
Alignment is…voicing what you want and going at your own pace
Alignment is…responding to other’s requests with a simple Yes or No based on what’s true to you
Alignment is…having a misstep and gently stepping back into alignment right away – radical!
Alignment is…nurturing higher quality energy and experiences
Alignment is…the occasional non-agenda, spontaneous experience
Alignment is…continuous, enlightened questioning
Alignment is…having a bold idea, scaring yourself, sleeping on it and the next day wondering what all the fuss was about

The ethics and personal leadership of this stage are not just a moral compass for you; they’re the way you choose to conduct yourself for the greater good. You see your fellow human beings as your equals and you care about them as you do yourself. At this stage, success is…easing the struggle for others as you’ve done for yourself. One thing I love about the human condition is our fundamental desire to give back or pay forward what we learn in resolving our own struggle. It’s a profound source of joy for us because it helps us understand our life lessons are humanity’s life lessons. Our personal odyssey has meaning and matters not just to us but to countless others. Some we may know about but many we won’t even know our positive ripple has touched.

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How did it go for you?

Admittedly, I used to want to smack people who were joyful! Perhaps it was because that state seemed so elusive to me. Now that I’m one of those people, I have immense appreciation and respect for the inner work it takes to get here and live from here. I always consider it an honour and a privilege to be invited into a person’s life to be their guide, as they make their own journey from struggle to joy.