Seeking Alignment and Protecting Your Peace along Healing Journeys
Seeking Alignment means building your life around who you are rather than crafting who you are around your life.
For one brief, serene, impossible moment, all your ducks are in a row.
You protected your peace.
Your boundaries are healthy, well defined, and holding strong.
You’ve managed expectations… with yourself and others.
Your healing journey is going well.
Now what?
…
Now you can seek alignment… with more clarity.
Last week I posed a question: “When does ‘Protecting Your Peace’ become rude?”
My best answer so far:
Perhaps when you start to believe protecting your peace is all that matters?
Today we’ll address a similar question from a slightly bigger perspective. This should tie more directly into overall healing journeys and the main project here - From War to Writing.
“When should we start to focus on connecting outward? Protecting our peace is good, but when do we expand our comfort zone?
My best answer so far:
When we seek alignment…
And that begs yet another question:
“What does it mean to “seek alignment?”
The best way I can express how I see “Alignment” today is:
Seeking Alignment means building your life around who you are rather than crafting who you are around your life.
It’s not quick or easy, but it’s a rewarding pursuit.
If seeking alignment sounds like one of your goals, stay with me, dear reader. :)
Protecting Your Peace — A Foundation
Wouldn’t it be nice if “protecting your peace” were easy? … or a checklist item you could just check off as “done,” and move on to what’s next?
On healing journeys, we’re dealing with layers, not running a checklist. :)
Stop the Spiral.
Protect your Priorities.
Protect your Peace.
Seek Alignment.
If you deliberately, ‘successfully’ (even almost) protected your peace in a situation that typically caused more stress than you wanted, that was likely a hard-fought victory.
Appreciate it. Celebrate the win. Take the “W.”
… but stay vigilant.
It can be easy to take a look at our first solid glimpse of peace in a while and get comfortable. Peace and comfort are worthy goals to seek, but just as some boundaries (and battle lines) evolve, so do our healing journeys.
As we heal, and our capacities increase or return, we can enjoy more small rocks and sand, but we can also add more big rocks.
That means managing more boundaries… and more battle lines.
That’s hard.
That’s work.
That’s a golden opportunity to seek alignment.
NOTE: Healing isn’t linear - so we should be careful adding too many rocks or too much sand too fast when things feel comfortable.
Once we identify our priorities and set our battle lines to protect them, we can look at them through the lens of alignment. That’s when turning our focus outward will be most effective, because we have the foundation we need to stand on our own, and the lens to more clearly see what alignment pulls or points us toward.
Once we set our foundation, we’ve donned our oxygen mask, and we can start to focus more on helping (or simply dealing with) others.
Just as we reevaluate battle lines as our healing journeys evolve, we should reevaluate how we most effectively Protect our Peace as our capacity increases.
Along the road From War to Writing, a key thought between Protecting Your Peace and Seeking Alignment is the Stoic philosophy: “Adversity is the Way.”
Protecting Your Peace vs. “Adversity is the Way”
In Stoic philosophy, ‘Adversity is the Way’ means our most effective path forward usually involves pushing through difficulties…
… not because we have to…
… but because we choose to.
When we set priorities and establish boundaries, “protecting our peace” often brings an interesting tension with “adversity is the way.”
Just as we must be nimble, flexible, or ‘semper Gumby’ in wartime, we must remain on task when seeking peace on healing journeys, and along the road From War to Writing.
“Successfully” protecting your peace can be a clear signal that it’s time for more growth.
Yes - protect your peace… diligently…
take the ‘W’…
…but don’t get comfortable… (unless you want to!)
(But, if you did, would you still be reading?) ;^)
Seeking Growth = Choosing Adversity.
When we find pockets of peace along our healing journeys, those can be rare and valuable moments of clarity.
Those moments of clarity can be golden opportunities to seek alignment.
If you would like to go deeper on the pivot from healing to growth, I addressed Healthy Boundaries, Adversity is the Way, and Seeking Growth through Expanding Boundaries in this article from October:
Seeking Alignment
Seeking alignment is important for all of us… but life doesn’t always make that easy or obvious.
There are times in our lives, like moving to a new place, changing jobs, leaving a lengthy career, losing a close family member, or other significant life transitions, when the scaffolding we’ve built to organize our default mindset and approach to daily life no longer works… or doesn’t work as well as it once did.
That’s a sign we’re out of alignment.
Like trying to keep a car between the lines when it has a flat tire, living life out of alignment makes everything harder than it needs to be.
Seeking alignment can smooth out lots of ‘rough edges’ in our lives.
If you’re wondering: “What is ‘Alignment,’” - you’re not alone. I’ve been trying to figure that out for the better part of a year. :)
So far, I’ve figured out that alignment is active, deliberate, action.
Alignment is active. — Alignment means we’re steering, not drifting.
Alignment is deliberate — It may look like refining your taste for which ‘rocks’ to allow inside your ‘battle lines.’
Alignment is action. — As we heal, we can add (or add back) more big rocks.
Alignment is NOT:
“Finding Jesus” - Though spiritual pursuits may be a key part of seeking alignment, that is only part of the equation.
Finding the perfect course, book, lesson, or “guru” — Those are tools, not the final goal.
Finding the right job — Though this can help tremendously, it’s not always simple, or a total ‘fix.’
Doing what “feels right” — Discussions on our ‘moral compass’ aside, seeking alignment is not selfish. It’s not about ‘feeling good’ … it’s about deliberately arranging our priorities and situations so they fit who we are… as best as we can. Even small measures of success make us more available to others and expand (or patch leaks in) our Empathy Tank.
Seeking Alignment means building your life around who you are rather than crafting who you are around your life.
Alignment involves trusting yourself and listening to your nervous system.
If you would like specific tips or details on how to seek alignment, you will find I addressed them in a couple places.
When I first wrote tips about seeking alignment, I put them in my 4-Part Burnout Series as ways to reduce stress. The overlap with ways to seek alignment is substantial.
These links will take you directly to those sections if you wish to dig deeper:
A Quick Overview on Seeking Alignment
20 Tips to Lower Stress and Prevent or Reduce Burnout — A list of 8 links and 15 topics so you can dig even deeper. I include 5 additional ideas for employers, organizational leaders, managers, and supervisors.
Wrap
Seeking alignment - within ourselves, with our environment, and with those around us — helps other pieces of our lives fall into place. While not an easy endeavor, it is a worthwhile pursuit… and is a vital part of a continuing healing journey.
As we travel the road From War to Writing, remember we’re aiming for progress, not perfection.
Just getting pointed along the right path is a huge step forward.
I hope you found something useful or insightful today. :)
To you and yours, Happy Holidays.
See ya’ next week!
Yours, also seeking alignment,
— Terry 8^)
If you have comments or questions, I am happy to hear your thoughts and/or provide more clarity!
Feel free to leave a comment, send me a DM on Substack, or simply reply to this email.
BONUS
Book Project Status Update
Chapter three is coming soon… I think… just, not exactly how my first table of contents laid things out. ;p
The first two chapters focus primarily inward on initial recovery and establishing a footing to start the healing journey.
Chapter four should start turning our focus outward, toward connecting with others, or “dealing with people.”
Bridging that gap and making the transition seems to be the job of Chapter 3, which may be a combination of today’s missive and last week’s on Managing Holiday Expectations.
Today’s missive and its associated topics have been particularly difficult to unravel and weave together, hence the detour(s).
So... never fear! The book is still on track. The road From War to Writing just has a few more curves than I initially expected. :)