Inner Alignment: The Four Pillars
Inner alignment.
You may be wondering, what is inner alignment anyway?
The definition of alignment is a straight line - a correct position.
Inner alignment, in regards to your mind and body wellness, is being in unison with four pillars. One usually refers to the state of being out of alignment as being imbalanced ( I don't love to use the word balance as we don't ever have 100% balance in life). Being “in unison” is more attainable and easier to strive for, sounds softer and more forgiving.
So what are the four pillars? The four pillars of inner alignment are nourishment, movement, self care, and authenticity.
I myself can remember a time when I didn't know anything about being in alignment or misaligned.
I was in the throes of being a young mom, I was burning the wick at both ends trying to run my own interior design business and retail store, as well as having three small children.
My husband traveled a lot for work and I was completely out of alignment (which is why I work diligently with my clients on inner alignment today - I had no idea back then).
I felt completely drained and exhausted - like I just want to go back to bed.
Waking up in the morning looked like a stressed and irritable mom who wasn’t doing the things that were best for herself. She put herself at the end of the to-do lists and couldn’t imagine otherwise.
Fast forward to the point in my life when I actually learned about myself, about the concept of inner alignment, and supporting my mental, physical, and emotional health, and the mind body connection.
I quickly dove into personal development and became the best version of myself.
What I know today, which is imperative to you living as the best, healthiest, and happiest version of yourself is:
You cannot be aligned within yourselves when you are out of unison with one of the four inner alignment pillars.
I dove all in and did the work, then everything changed for me … which is is why I get so excited about it, because I know how transformational it is … and will be FOR YOU.
So let’s talk about you.
I want to teach you what these four pillars are, and how you can support yourself in getting more in unison with this alignment.
First you have nourishment.
So nourishment is obviously feeding your body - It is the vitamins and minerals your body needs to thrive. It's the vitamin rich foods that you give yourself during the day. It's your hydration.
Pillar two is movement.
Now I know that we all have very hectic lives…going back to myself as a young mom of three small children and working, working working, I found it really challenging to fit in movement. Once I began understanding the magnitude of each pillar in my life, I made sure to fit in at least twenty minutes a day.
If you can't find time, you can just stretch - stretch your muscles when you get out of bed, stretch your muscles before you go to bed because you’ll need to move the tension and the stress from the day out of the tissues that store it all.
The third pillar is self-care.
When you think of self care you probably think of eating bonbons, taking bubble baths, or getting a manicure, but self care is actually much more than that.
Self-care can be as simple as breathing.
Self-care can be nourishing your body with your breath, something free to us, something you can do anywhere. Now remember, we hold our breath during the day when we don't even realize we're doing it, when we're stressed, and this takes us into that fight flight, fight or freeze response - so be aware of this (I speak more about the breathing in the video).
Self-care can look like breathing, right? It also looks like the way you talk to yourself.
Yes, it’s as simple as the way you breathe and the way you think about yourself!
You talk to yourself all day long, with up to 70,000 thoughts in a day, most of those thoughts are repetitive, negative thoughts from the day before.
Your mind believes what you think - it deems it to be fact.
So get super cognizant of the thoughts you're thinking about yourself (I speak more about this in the video).
The fourth pillar is authenticity.
Authenticity is basically you being true to yourself. This can be really challenging at times, and is tactually the most important aspect of your inner alignment - so dive into this pillar!
In a perfect world you’ll want to have all four pillars nurtured and supported so that you're in living unison, but authenticity is my number one for my clients and for you.
So in closing, you have nourishment, movement, self-care and authenticity as the four pillars of your inner alignment.
Each aspect of your alignment supports the other, each feeds the next, and collectively they allow you to be the healthiest, happiest, and best version of yourself.