Today it felt like a challenge to stay tuned into and aligned with my true self. However, upon reflection, I think as far as external circumstances go, my day was very ordinary.

My insight to share? For me at least, it’s the daily parade of small interruptions, distractions, and unexpected events that has more potential for throwing me off balance of my true self than it is the big stuff.

As I’ve described in Reinvention Principle #3, it’s both necessary and desirable for reinventers to stay in alignment with their true selves. Certainly not all the time (we’re all human), but definitely most of the time.

This state of alignment (emphasis on ’state’ vs. ‘destination’) is characterized by a feeling of flow, clarity, inspiration and focus.

Lack of alignment feels like frustration, irritation, possibly chaos or confusion, i.e., feeling off balance or off your game.

Several things happened today that challenged my balance or alignment:
• my printer went out
• my phone system had some problems
• one of my dogs rolled in some disgusting stuff of unknown origin, and covered half her torso with it
• my car mechanic went out of business
• and a few others (I’ll spare you the details, but I’m sure you have plenty of your own examples)

I’m sure that all of us reinventers are hoping that someday we will be so facile with staying aligned with our true selves that it feels like an effortless dance. Stuff happens, and we quickly choose a perspective that helps us continue to move through our day with ease, clarity, and a joyful spirit.

More than taking it all in stride, this is remembering who we really are through all of it, and being our best selves: creative, resourceful, plugged into and aware of well-being.

I am blessed with many days like that now, because I’ve made a priority of staying tuned into my true self.

This wasn’t one of them.

One of the abdominal exercises I do in my workouts is a balancing exercise called the Plank. If I try to do the exercise without my body being in alignment, all the pushing-through in the world doesn’t help me do the exercise. It just doesn’t work. If I’m not in alignment, I literally have to stop and start over.

This is what I had to do today with my thinking, stop and start over again, over and over, as each of these relatively small outer events interrupted the harmony and flow of my balanced mind, my creative self.

Sometimes I stopped to breathe and center myself. Sometimes I chose a different perspective that moved me from feeling frustrated and victimized to empowered and resourceful. Once I took a break and meditated for 10 minutes.

It really is that easy to get back into alignment, especially after you have had some practice doing it.

That’s the work. It isn’t a big deal, unless I make it one.

It’s just that it takes commitment, determination, persistence, and sometimes I am just tempted to try to push myself through my days.

I try not to judge it when I get out of alignment, because that only makes things worse. I’d encourage you to be compassionate with yourself as well.

Nothing’s gone wrong, it’s just that life showed up and tempted us to be less than we know we really are.

Sometimes it feels like we are a long ways off our ‘true center.’ The truth is that we are always literally a breath away from our true selves.

But that small distance can be the difference between living authentically,creatively, powerfully, and feeling like life is a struggle.

Filed under: Adventures of a Reinventer on November 20th, 2007