Aligning With Your Intrinsic Self
At the centre of our universe we stand looking out, trying to figure out which way to go next. It can be frightening and intimidating, given the vast, infinite scale of that which surrounds us, and the relatively tiny and fragile life that lies ahead of us. We only get one shot at it so it is vital, we tell ourselves, that we don’t mess it up.
We have made our modern world complicated. We are constantly being barraged by information about what life should look like. It should have a beach body, a fast car and a big house, it should look like our friends on social media, it should be rolling in cash, and it should be anything but what our life is right now.
And so, we look to the world around us for guidance. Our peers, our bosses, our parents, the people on Facebook, the characters in books, movies and soap operas. We are pattern recognition machines, desperately seeking some sort of guidance, some signposts or treasure maps, to get this whole life thing right.
But there’s a problem with that. None of this guidance is about us. It’s all about others. We are living our lives according to the value systems of people who are not us and probably don’t even know who we are. Worse than that, some of them are entirely fictional.
At best these frameworks for living have been created by people whose universes look very different to us. Different upbringings, different cultural frames of reference, different ways of thinking, and different outlooks.
At worst, these frameworks have been intentionally created to manipulate us into behaving a certain way. Sometimes we are encouraged to buy a product, or join a gym, or sign up to something that promises us a life that is much more perfect than the one we are living now. Sometimes we are encouraged to think a certain way, believe a certain lie, vote a certain way, in order to be good and decent people.
In all of these cases, these frameworks are neither for us nor about us.
How can they be? They have been created by people who aren’t living our lives. It is only us at the centre of our universe. So only we can live our lives. And in order to do so we must look within for our guidance, and have faith that whatever decisions we make will be authentically ours, and we must be brave enough to deal with the results of those choices.
That responsibility can be both liberating and frightening in various degrees, depending on your temperament. But with practice it can become fortifying and empowering. It can help us figure out who we are.
We know when the life we are living is not aligned with our authentic selves, because we notice the friction and the resistance. Like riding a bicycle that has become trapped in tramlines, it becomes difficult to steer and the reality and the journey we experience is not the one that is meant for us.
It is these pain points, this friction, that signal to us that we are misaligned with who we are and the life that is ours. We suffer – days become arduous, and our results reflect our discontent, and we find ourselves lost and confused. We don’t know where to go next. And if we can separate ourselves from this discomfort we can recognise it as a call to action, a call to seek out ways to realign with our true selves.
And when we free ourselves from those tramlines and freewheel along the course that is meant for us, we feel and become immersed in the flow, and everything falls into place. That’s not to say it’s easy or quick, but the ride becomes satisfying and we begin to resonate with our genuine purpose and place.
We’re not fighting life anymore. The friction disappears and we operate from a place of calm joy.
Sometimes this means letting go of the things that we are holding on to – those things that sometimes feel as if they have us in a chokehold, the dreams that have become nightmares and we haven’t even noticed. Other times it means we must stop thrashing about against a life that doesn’t suit us, and adopt a philosophy of acceptance toward our situation so that we can find the clarity and the quiet to discover a solution and move on. Thrash about too much and you sink. Stop fighting and you float.
When we can look within and quieten ourselves, there is a chance that we can hear the whisper of our own natural wisdom. And this can guide us to the decisions and the ways of being that are intrinsically correct for us in this time and place at the centre of our universe. And this will set us towards living authentically, knowing who we are and the path we’re on.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.
This is the practice of living.