Episode #33: Two Tests For Maximum Alignment

In my world, alignment is everything. It’s the real test of whether you’re living an authentic life, staying true to your core values, and making progress towards your dreams.

With that said, it’s also too easy to fall OUT of alignment and get caught up in people, places, and things that aren’t great for us.

So how do you fix that?

Today I’m sharing TWO powerful alignment tests that will shine a spotlight on what isn’t working in your life–so you can get back to what IS important!

In This Episode:

Learn more about what alignment is
Find out why it’s so crucial to your happiness
Get my TWO powerful tests to check your alignment
Much more!

Listen Here:

Two Tests For Maximum Alignment | Episode #33 Transcript

Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of the Self Worth Project podcast.
It’s your girl Jenn, I’m a coach and healer, and this podcast is here to help you go through
just a little bit of emotional healing so that you can live your best life. Today we are talking
about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that is the concept of alignment.
Today specifically, I’m going to give you two different alignment checks to help you see
if you are actually in alignment. But before we get into that, I want to talk quickly about
what exactly alignment is and why it’s so important. If you have been following me for a while,
you know that my main site, the Align Life, is based on the concept of alignment, or in other words,
on the concept of being in alignment with the things that you really want in life. If you ask me,
this is where we get into trouble many times in our life, let’s face it, there’s a lot of outside
noise in modern life. We are constantly being pulled in different directions. We are constantly having
people try to get our attention, try to take our energy and time and money away from us.
And it is very easy to get off track. It’s very easy to let someone else’s needs go above your own.
It is very easy to prioritize somebody else’s needs above your own. It is very easy to let society
or the media dictate to you what’s important. And it can be really complicated to stay on a path
that is true to you. So for me, alignment means you are acting in alignment with your goals and dreams.
That ultimately means that you are having thoughts and beliefs that support those goals and dreams.
That means that your words support those dreams and that means that you are taking action steps
towards those dreams. When we get into trouble is when we want something, we want a specific target,
we want a specific goal, but we are out of alignment with it. That means we are not believing the right
things. We are not saying the right words about ourselves. We are not using that right language.
Or we are taking action that actually might be hurting us or harming our growth or taking us away
from the thing that we want. And this of course creates this incredible pressure inside of you,
which you have probably felt. It’s a really uncomfortable feeling because you know you’re out of
alignment. It just does not feel authentic. It does not feel right. You feel like something is missing
even if the other things that you are working towards look good from the outside or
look good on paper or a society thinks you should have them or your parents think you should have them.
If you are acting out of alignment, it doesn’t matter what those things are. They are never going to
fulfill you the way the things that are in alignment can fulfill you. Right? So this is a really
important subject is why I’m so passionate about it. Being in alignment is an essential step
for you to live an authentic life. And that means living a life that actually feels good to you
that actually supports you that actually brings you closer to your unique life path.
And it doesn’t just push you on the path that we are all put on. So let’s talk about that for a
moment. We are all pushed into a very limited way of living our life. When you are growing up,
you are kind of shown this map for your future. And it’s supposed to go something like this.
Graduate high school, go to college, graduate, get a job, find a partner, get married, have kids
by house. Right? We are all shown that this is the way to live life. That this is the socially
acceptable standard for life. That this is how you are supposed to behave. And that if you do this,
you will be successful and you will be happy. The only problem with that is it doesn’t work out for
everybody. It definitely does not reflect modern life. Maybe it never reflected life accurately at
all. I’m not sure. But I know very few people these days that have followed this life path.
Most of us have to break out of that prescribed pattern in one way or another and find a path
that’s authentic to us. And doing that requires us to learn about ourselves, to understand our values
and to live in alignment with those things. Because again, there’s no point if you know what those
things are, but you are falling out of alignment, you’re falling off the path, you are getting distracted,
you are letting other people’s morals and values lead you instead of letting your own.
Then that is where we ultimately create a little bit of misery for ourselves. Like either a
little bit of misery now or a lot of misery later on. But sooner or later, if you fall off of your
alignment path, you will feel it at some point in time in some way, shape or form.
Okay, so I don’t want to scare you too much with that, but I just want you to see how important it is
for you to follow your path, to follow your dreams, to remain true to your authentic self, right? Because
anything that leads you away from that is distilling your power and really chipping away your happiness
and your potential. So it is my job here to help keep you in alignment. And today I want to do that
by offering you a few different alignment checks to help you walk through this. One of these tests I
just spoke about on my TikTok. And I really love TikTok. Like I really like sitting down and sharing
something super short and powerful. But the downside to that is that sometimes these concepts need a
little bit more nuance, sometimes distilling them down, sometimes people get the message twisted
a little bit. So I wanted to bring this concept onto the pod today and explain a little bit more in
depth of what I really meant with this test. So what I’m calling this test is the publicity test.
And this is a test you can conduct on yourself anytime that you are taking an action and you might
be feeling in conflict about it. You might be feeling a little bit of shame about it. You might be
second guessing yourself or looking backwards and thinking, oh my gosh, was that a mistake?
This is the kind of test you can use for those moments. So when I put this on TikTok, people
took it to the extreme and I’ll explain that in a minute. But this is a test that you can do to either
check your actions and reverse, like looking backwards. Or sometimes you can use it ahead of time.
Like if you are being asked to do something in the moment, you can put yourself into the perspective
of having done that thing and think about this test from that perspective.
Okay, so the publicity test is basically a test where you shine a light on your actions or shine
a light on your decisions or your behaviors. Again, part of our unhappiness and part of the root of why
we don’t feel good about ourselves is that sometimes we let ourselves be swayed by other people.
We say yes to things. We know we shouldn’t be saying yes to. We go over our own boundaries.
Or we make decisions that just are not in alignment with our unique core values and the things
that we prize in life, right? So I came up with the idea of the publicity test to make sure
that you are staying in alignment. And the idea behind the publicity test is simply thinking
about this action that you either took or might be taking and asking yourself, would I be okay with
my best friend knowing this? Would I be okay with my partner knowing this? Would I be okay with my
mother knowing this? Or whatever other figure you want to fill in in your life? I know somebody is
going to come and say, I don’t have a mother. Okay, well, don’t use that one, but you can think of
another person in your life. Just think about what your actions and what the scenario is like
that’s happening for you. Think about it from the outside perspective of somebody who knows you
and loves you and wants the best for you. Another way we can take this is like, would I like the
internet to do about this? I think that’s a really good one for those angry emails that you want to
write sometimes. Things you might want to send your ex. Yeah, think about that. If you would want this
on the internet, would you still stand behind it? Because if you would not, if that would make you feel
some type of way, maybe this is not the thing that you should be communicating, right? The way that
this gets twisted is somebody on the on my TikTok said, well, I don’t want to tell my mother everything.
And no, that’s not the point. That’s not what this particular test is about. I’m not suggesting
that you need to tell your mother everything. I’m not suggesting that you need to run every decision
and everything that you do in your life passed this filter. But this filter is useful for if you
were having some inner turmoil or conflict. If you did something recently and you are wrapped in
a bit of judgment about it, but you can’t quite figure out what that’s coming from. Or maybe you are
being asked to do something and you are really on the fence. You are kind of tempted by it, but you’re
feeling very conflicted by it. Think about what this action looks like in this perspective. And again,
you can use whatever figure you want in your life. You can use the internet of large, if you like.
But what this is going to do is it’s going to give you some perspective on this action that you’re
taking, this decision that you’re making in the context of the bigger picture of your life.
That’s the perspective that we need sometimes because it’s so easy sometimes to let your guard down
or to tell yourself, oh, I really want to do this and it doesn’t really matter about my other goal
today. Or this just feels really good right now and I’m going to ignore this other important thing
that I value, right? It’s so easy to get sucked into something and especially something pleasurable
without thinking about the bigger picture. So this test is just a really good way for you to run your
own actions through filter to see if this is something that you can stand behind. To see if your
energy is actually behind it fully because many times our action isn’t behind it really fully and
that is how you know you are not an alignment. Okay? Again, we want to have our energy behind it. We
want to stay with our full tests. We want to really own that decision and the publicity test can help
to show you where you are not owning something where you are abusing your own boundaries and morals
or where you’re just letting yourself slack a little bit in a way that does not feel good. Okay?
So that is one way that you can check if you are in alignment and this is a really action-based
test. So the second alignment check that I want you to think about today is just noticing
where you are spending your time, energy and money. Your time, energy and money are all really
important barometers for what you are prioritizing in your life. Okay? I’m going to say that again.
Your time, energy and money are good barometers to show you what you are valuing in your life.
The problem here again is that sometimes we let our energy, our time, our money, whatever go into
things that actually aren’t good for us that don’t actually reflect our values. And that is going
to show you where you have an energetic mismatch or where you are not really in alignment with the
person you want to be and the life that you want to have. So let’s give you an example here. Your time
is important and I guess time and energy can be conflated as the same thing and so can energy and
money. So we’re going to leave energy kind of just as a concept. I’m not going to get into that one
but let’s think about your time right now. So for example, maybe you spend four hours every night
after work Monday through Friday watching TV and I know you get home from work, you’re tired,
you made dinner, you’ve had a long day and you’re chilling on this offer and you just want to relax
and you just want to watch some TV, right? Like that’s a very normal thing. That’s a very
natural, common thing. But I want you to think about that time that you were putting into this activity
every single week. So four hours a night, five nights a week, let’s say 20 hours a week, 20 hours a week.
You are now spending in front of that TV. And yeah, of course, maybe there’s some shows you really like,
you want to catch up on the new season of the bear, which I’ve been watching, but is this chunk of time
really worth it to you for what you’re getting out of this experience? Do you need to spend 20 hours
of your week watching TV? Like what is the benefit that you’re getting out of that? What are you
getting out of that time? So yeah, of course, we all deserve downtime, we all deserve relaxation time.
My argument with this would be that actually chilling in front of the TV is not as relaxing as we
have all been conditioned to think it is. It is to a certain degree relaxing, but at a certain point
it kind of loses that power and there would be better, more beneficial ways for you to actually relax
that would probably give you some energy back. Like what would happen if instead of four hours
of watching TV every night, what would happen if you did a 20 minute yoga knee-jaw every night. So basically,
I call it like a meditation nap, but it’s super energizing and it gives you so much energy back.
Like what would happen if you did that instead? And you could reclaim some of those hours in your evening,
right? So this example is not to demonize TV watching and I’m not telling you to throw out your TV or
never watch anything ever again. This is an example, but it is kind of shocking sometimes how we spend
our money and time and energy on things without even realizing what we’re doing.
So another example is the money, right? Money is a very clear example of what you are valuing because
you, I’m assuming, only have so much of it. And therefore, the things that you are choosing to buy,
choosing to spend your money on are very much a reflection of you. So I’m going to take another
example of a super common example here, but I’m not telling you not to do this. But so many of us
have the habit of going to get that morning coffee at a cafe. I know when I was still working a
corporate job in Vancouver before I moved to Europe, I had my little morning Starbucks run and I would
go there every single day and get my coffee and then go to work. And it made my mornings seem happier.
It made me definitely more energized and it was just a nice thing to do a nice way to kick off the day.
But if I had looked back at that money that I was spending at that time and added that all up,
like it definitely would have been like maybe over $200 a month, I’m not sure. I think coffee was like
five bucks back then. But anyways, there’s more than that now at Starbucks for sure for what I was getting.
But I’m not sure that I would have that same experience now. Of course, I’m saying that now with a
European perspective where we don’t get coffee to go, we go and sit in the cafe and you drink coffee
at the cafe and you sit there and you enjoy it and you look around. It’s a completely different
thing. So my relationship to coffee in general has changed. So I am bringing up this example with
that in mind. I also don’t want to be one of those people who is blaming the millennials for not
being able to buy their hoses because they’re buying too much coffee and I’m not telling you you need to
cut everything amazing out of your life. But sometimes, just sometimes, we build these things into
our budget and into our daily habits and into our routines and we’re spending money on them. And then
also not having money for other things. Like for example, maybe you really want to go on vacation
and you haven’t gotten vacation in a couple of years and you’re thinking I don’t have any money. But
there’s still a new package for you from Amazon on your doorstep every week or there’s a new
from Shien or whatever. Like you were spending your money on something and again, it’s not like you
don’t ever need new clothing. It’s not like you should never sometimes Amazon is the only way to buy
things, especially here in Europe. It drives me crazy. Sometimes I can only get things on Amazon.
But I digress. It’s not like that you should never be making those purchases. Of course, sometimes you
have to. We all need clothing. We all need to buy random whatever’s sometimes, right? But these shopping
habits can very easily seem like the norm. Like you’re just buying this stuff all the time and you don’t
even really realize what’s happening. And at the same time, you are not able to go and fulfill this
other thing that you really want to do. You really want to go to Europe for two weeks in the summer.
But you are struggling to find the money for that. So not to turn this into a budgeting episode or
an economic podcast at all, but your money really does reflect what you are putting your time and
energy on. And I just want you to make sure that it is in line with what you really want.
And yeah, sometimes those little purchases that we don’t think anything about and they seem fun
and they see okay in the moment. Sometimes those are the things that are preventing you from
making those big moves that you actually want to have. I made this episode today because we all need
to take stock. We all need to get on us with ourselves. And we definitely all need that loving
kick in the butt sometimes. We are so good at making excuses for ourselves and telling us, oh,
this action doesn’t really matter or spending all this money at Starbucks doesn’t really matter or
this doesn’t really matter. Yet we are also feeling this great pull towards something else. And we’re not
really sure how to make the other thing happen. Change begins with change. And making the big changes
in your life, it doesn’t seem like it at the time, but that really happens from all these tiny little
micro shifts. And so what these two alignment checks that I’m teaching you today, what these checks
are here to do is to help you micro shift back into more of who you really are. They’re bringing
you back to more of your authentic self because it is so important to keep some of that authentic
energy and power for yourself. It is so easy to fritter it all away and to let our attention get
divided and let our vision get cloudy and to let our energy and money go into things that don’t
really reflect us. And while we’re never going to be perfect and by no means asking anyone to try
to be perfect, it is important to sometimes take a step back and to be really critical about what we’re
doing, who we are, how our life is turning out, not so that we can berate ourselves and color
ourselves names and let our inner mean girl out, but just so that we can start to take these little
micro actions that turn us back into our highest self. Okay, so that is it for today’s episode.
Thank you for listening, my beautiful friend. If you want to learn more about me, I invite you to
come and join me inside my Healed Monthly Membership Program. That is where I’m giving you so many
tools journaling hypnosis and so much more to help you clear through so many of your minds that
blocks and ultimately help you to become your best, highest, most authentic, badass, powerful self.
So if you want to learn more about that, I will leave a link in the show notes and I’ll catch you
back here in next week’s episode.