"What is the meaning of life?” A question my husband often asks me, half jokingly- half serious. My response varies each time, either joking back with something like “to lay in bed all day” or “to eat tacos” and when I am feeling more serious, I usually respond with “to be happy.”

Over the course of the last few years, I really began exploring the concept of “happiness” and why I thought it, in my opinion, was the meaning of life. Why is happiness so important? How can we achieve it? As I dove deep into this I realized, while happiness is certainly an important piece of living a fulfilling life, we can only truly be happy when we are living in alignment. Now when my husband asks about the meaning of life, my answer is “to live in alignment.”

Living in alignment is something we hear a lot from Life Coaches, Mentors, Psychics, Mediums, and so many others in the Spiritual Community. But what does it really mean? How do we know when we are in alignment? If we’re misaligned, how to we become aligned? And what are we supposed to be in alignment with?!

Ultimately, living in alignment is to become your true and authentic self. Having a solid understanding of who you are, your values, beliefs, dreams, and desires. It’s being able to connect with your Higher Self as you discover and work towards your soul’s purpose, leading to a life of happiness and fulfillment. While the thought of becoming your true and authentic self may seem easy, I encourage you to reflect on this. Do you truly feel that you are living the life you want? Or are you living the life society thinks you should?

When you are young, you march to the beat of your own drum and live your life with confidence! However, as you get older, you are taught limiting beliefs that steer you off course. You ditch your dreams of becoming a famous rockstar or NHL pro and settle for a comfortable and steady office job. Society shows you fictitious beauty standards and you suddenly find yourself changing your hair and your own personal style to something more “trendy.” You feed into this “keeping up with the Joneses” mindset. You lose yourself in a big charade of working at the comfortable job, with the nice house, a “picture perfect” family, fancy vacations… the list goes on. Until, suddenly, you wake up one day thinking “who am I?” You realize you’ve become disconnected from your authentic self, that while your life may appear to be perfect on the outside, you feel empty, hopeless, stressed, and burnt out. You feel as though you’ve lost who you truly are.

How to know when you’re misaligned

When you are in alignment with your authentic self, you feel a sense of calm and peace; you feel at ease. Even if this means making a difficult decision, or setting a new boundary that may seem scary, when you know this action will keep you aligned with your values (who you truly are) you feel more empowered to make tough decisions and feel confident to move past anxiety knowing that the action you are taking is the right move.

Can you think of a time where you felt out of alignment? Where you didn’t feel like you were fully being yourself? That you had to hide or filter a part of who you were? Maybe this was while you were out on a date, or when you spend time with a family member or friend who makes you feel you need to keep a part of you hidden away. How do you feel in these moments? You might notice you have a rigid posture, or breathe very shallow, or maybe you talk less when you’re around this person.

How to realign to your authentic self

Identify your triggers

Once you recognize how it feels to be misaligned, and possibly even pinpoint people in your life who make you feel like you need to hide a piece of who you are, you can use this to identify your triggers. What situations make you feel uneasy, anxious, and tense? Who are you spending time with that make you feel guilty about who you are? Or who makes you feel the need to filter who you are? Having this knowledge allows you to make some changes, including setting boundaries

Set clear and firm boundaries

A huge reason people become misaligned is because they don’t set clear and firm boundaries. These boundaries help us protect ourselves, and others, by recognizing where our energy is being spent and how we can create a balance of give and take. Now that you recognize your triggers, you can use that information to set boundaries. Is there a topic that is discussed at family dinners that makes you feel as though you’re not welcomed or accepted? If it feels safe, try engaging in dialogue to express how you feel during those conversations and firmly, but politely, ask if they can refrain from discussing this topic while you’re around. Perhaps having that initial conversation alone will help others to see and understand you in a way they couldn’t before. In cases a bit more severe, boundaries may need to be set as a way to distance yourself from those who continue to make you feel disrespected. Reflect on your relationships (romantic, friends, family, co-workers, etc.) and see how they make you feel. Are you able to fully show up as yourself? Or are you hiding part of you away? Use this as a guide to set boundaries in alignment with your authentic self.

Challenge limiting beliefs

As you rediscover your authentic self, you’ll be faced with the opportunity to challenge your limiting beliefs. These might look like letting go of the belief that you’re not good enough, that you’re not worthy of abundance, that you’re not smart enough, pretty enough, etc. These false beliefs might be hard to uncover, they may be rooted so deep within your consciousness that you truly view them as a fact instead of a belief. Allow yourself to dive deep and explore what limiting beliefs you have been holding onto and exchange them for healthier, supportive beliefs that are in alignment with your authentic self, making you feel confident and empowered!

Prepare to purge

As you begin to align with your authentic self, set healthy boundaries, challenge your beliefs, and take back control of your life, you’ll soon see rapid change and experience a purge. This could look like clearing out the clutter in your home (think Marie Kondo- Does this spark joy?), allowing relationships that no longer serve you to fade as you begin to welcome in new, healthier relationships, and experience a shedding of who you were as you bloom into who you are. This can be daunting and cause some anxiety. Change is scary, but you can’t let fear get in the way of positive shifts. So long as you stay focused on you newly rediscovered belief system like following the North Star, you are well on your way to living in alignment which will bring a sense of calm during this purge stage.

Live intuitively

Living intuitively is when you let your body, mind, and soul tell you what it needs; trusting your intuition to guide you in the right direction. Do you have a paper due at the end of this week, but you’ve been staring at a blank screen all day and scheduled this time to complete it? Perhaps this is an invitation to “go with the flow” and move onto another task and come back to the paper when you have more motivation. Was today your day to rest and relax but you feel incredibly motivated to start cleaning up your house? Listen to your body! Are you being drawn to put on some good music and dance in the kitchen? Bring out some paint and create? Feeling drawn to connect with a good friend? Listen to those intuitive hits! These are coming from your Higher Self- your authentic self. The more you listen to this calm little voice in your head, or that gut feeling called intuition, you become aligned with your true self.

Living authentically, living in alignment with our true self is the key to happiness… one might say the meaning of life! Taking little steps that feel right to you, that make you excited and inspired, create major positive shifts in our energy! Everyone has the potential to live in alignment with their authentic self. If you’re looking for some guidance on your journey to alignment, Empowerment Coaches are here to help!