Alignment, Authenticity & Bicycles?

Last week’s blog was about words and how they’re not JUST words. This week I chose authenticity and alignment because they're weighty words and when I was reading a post recently those words jumped off the screen at me. It happens sometimes and when it does I pay attention. They sparked such a reaction that I felt prompted to write a comment to that post:

"Authenticity means being aligned and true to yourself, yes. It also means connection within ourselves. When we truly know and love ourselves and are able to access the wisdom of our body, spirit and soul, then we bring a whole lot more to life, service and success. I learned that in life school.” Carlssen

What do alignment and authenticity have to do with bicycles? Read on.

Ah yes, life school, and down I went into a rabbit hole. In that school I learned that getting to know yourself at a deeper level is vital to becoming congruent with who you are inside and out and that deep dives, or rabbit holes as I like to call them, are a part of my process. So down I went into a bombardment of rapid fire questions. What about defining authentic and alignment? Who's consistently authentic. Do we have the awareness to be authentic and aligned? This rabbit hole is really deep! I spent some time listening to all the questions before narrowing them to these three:

1. Must we be somewhat conscious or awake to be authentic and aligned?

2. How well do we need to know who we are at our core to be authentic and aligned?

3. Are we capable of sifting through our life's data to make adjustments and do those adjustments inform our core? In other words, is our core changeable?

Alignment, I silently protested, is only possible when we're aware of, listening to, and functioning with all the parts of us. How many people can say they're aware, listening, or functioning with all their parts, physically, spiritually, and ethereally (the life force that maintains our bodies)?

That's the question I found myself thinking about the most. Maybe that's why I felt prompted to comment on that post the way I did, and why I dove deeply into the rabbit hole. Also, I have a long history of being the opposite of authentic by my own definition. I chose to hide the core of myself and became a chameleon, morphing to match what I picked up as authentic from anyone I was engaged with. This is a common trait of empaths and one used to keep our younger selves safe. We like to be liked and are sensitive to rejection or dislike from others because we feel every emotion so deeply. We morph into a version of ourselves that we think will give us the best chance at fitting in with another person. This morphing usually starts as a safety mechanism, but as the empath becomes an adult, it can come across like trying to manipulate, or like we’re flaky. My point here is that no matter what we say about ourselves, authentic and aligned or not, there are always multi-layers we uncover during our lifetime that inform our core if we're conscious beings.

There's another weighty word, 'conscious'. In Life School, some of us become aware, and as we do, we slowly move into a deeper consciousness or we become more awake. What this has to do with authenticity and alignment may be obvious, but for clarity's sake, the more awake or conscious we become, the more we're able to assess whether we're actually being authentic and aligned. OK, we're aware and able to assess ourselves, but do we really know ourselves and our life’s purpose enough to be authentic, let alone aligned?

Life school isn’t linear so becoming aware, assessing ourselves, knowing who we are, and getting rid of the stuff that's not authentic and aligned happens as we live our lives, make our mistakes and have experiences that teach us about ourselves, our purpose, and our life. Think of a funnel. As we experience, learn and grow, we make choices to become more aware or not. The circles of consciousness in that funnel get larger if we make choices for awareness and we become more authentic and aligned. If we’re not ready for awareness or choose not to become more aware, the funnel stays the same size and we get to live around that circle for a while. It’s always our choice and there’s always a reason for choosing the way we do. Circle of life!

That answers the first question, but my second question asks how well do we need to know ourselves to determine what's authentic to us at our core or basic level to even be able to align with ourselves? I believe we all need to know ourselves at least on a basic level at our core to be both authentic and aligned. As we travel around our circles of life, we add the traits that we deem true to ourselves. I discovered who I was at my core: author, healer and visionary. I also became aware through research and courses that I had 99% of the known traits of an empath. Adding that to my core, I'm an author, healer, and visionary experiencing human life on earth as an empath, a word nerd, and a creative. Knowledge informs our core in a way that's clarifying and definitely helpful to life.

The third question is about sifting through our life's data to make adjustments, and whether our core is changeable. Here’s an example. What about a person who, at their core, is an introvert? This person thinks deeply and speaks well so is promoted to a public leadership position. This person would need to evaluate how being an introvert in a public leadership position will be reconciled. If this person doesn't take the time to make the adjustments necessary to respect their core introvert trait and their leadership position, there will be stressful times ahead which may even result in illness if not resolved. This person’s core remains the same, introverted, but in their role as a public leader, the person could also be diligent in carving out time to regenerate by themselves for their own emotional, mental and physical health. They may also want to evaluate whether being a public leader is in alignment with their authentic purpose and, if not, choose another position. So our introvert is not changing their core, but is taking additional steps to remain authentic and aligned while trying out new experiences.

To bring all three questions together, here's where the bicycle fits it. Let’s imagine you're a bicycle. Of course others might be trains or cars or planes but, in this analogy, we're all travel modes. We are definitely a bicycle in every way. We have bicycle parts. We look and behave like our own kind of bicycle. We do bicycle things. There are different kinds of bicycles like racing ones, electric ones, mountain ones, etc. We have a bicycle purpose and ride a certain way, but our bike looks at other kinds of bikes and likes their kinds better. Our bike tries really hard to be that other kind of bike but it isn't easy. One day, when trying to ride like the other bikes, an accident happens and our wheel gets bent but we continue on anyway. Now it needs to double its efforts just to exist. Our bike is out of alignment and has trouble just being a bicycle.

Our inauthentic and misaligned bicycle has some choices to make and chooses to discover their original bike self again. This time the bicycle decides to really look at all the different parts that make up its original bicycle and discovers its wheel is bent. Getting that fixed makes being an original bike so much easier. The bike discovers different colors for its parts they didn't see or use before and it changes how the bicycle feels about itself. Our bicycle suddenly loves being a bicycle, loves its colors, and loves how and where it rides. Then it sees a new bicycle riding system in a bicycle shop. Our bike is curious and decides to try it. The system is aligned with our bike’s authentic purpose and suddenly riding is even better. When our bicycle rides, other bicycles notice. Our bike starts sharing tips on its new riding system. Our bike even invents an addition to the riding system and it makes riding so enjoyable that others want lessons on how to use that riding system as well as our bike does. Together they start a group of bicycles to help lots of other bicycles learn and soon many discover what they can do and become thanks to our bike.

They continue in this manner, riding, adding and building up their bicycles until the other modes of travel start noticing, too. The planes, trains, cars and all the modes are soon curious and trying their own riding systems, adding and building together. Our bike asks the other modes if they'd like to get together to compare their riding systems. Some of the modes object. They're happy with the way things are, besides, studying and trying each other's riding systems takes time, patience and a lot of work. Eventually they are able to ride together in completely new and different ways. They learn a lot from each other and regularly celebrate all the travel modes in huge events where they exchange ideas and find even more new ways to ride with each other. At one event, they all get together and invent an entirely new system that takes riding to the next level and benefits all the modes of travel. When our bike suggests that what they've achieved might be possible for human modes, not just travel modes, they all get curious and want to invite them to get together and compare riding systems.

I'll stop the analogy there. Seriously, I could go on...

Authenticity starts with choosing to find or being aware of our core and aligning our values, traits and purposes with it. I believe most of us would call ourselves authentic human beings and maybe most of us are content to live within our circle. Evolving in expanding circles, however, depends how deeply we choose to delve into our life and our purpose. At some point, we’ll start to recognize the part of ourselves that encourages us to be truer to our authentic being and motivates us to continue to evolve as authentic and aligned humans. That part of ourselves is our soul. When we find and connect with our souls, our circles widen considerably, but that’s for another post.

Lest anyone start comparing or demeaning others or ourselves, kindness is always the way forward no matter what circles you find yourself in. When we’re aware of more work to do to become more authentic and aligned, that’s fantastic. Egotistic or egoistic behavior stunts our progress but we happen to have a couple of the best teachers in Life School to help us along, mistakes and experience, and the best mentor, ever, to help us make sense of it all, our souls.