Alignment: Living your truth out loud

Hi, welcome to MatchAligned, a space for unfolded conversations on human connection. My name is Mary and I'm simply human questioning everything, every single day, including my own self. On today's episode, this will be the last episode of the five-step framework of self-alignment, which we'll look at alignment itself. So this is not just a concept, of course. Alignment is not a destination. It's not something that you actually reach and stay there forever. Alignment is, it's a way of moving through life. It's a way of being more objective when you have certain reactions. It's a way of looking at your triggers, your surroundings, with more objective, with an objective lens, rather than a judgmental one. And it's a movement of being more curious, going through life with a curious lens, not as I said, judging people, but also judging your own reactions. When you have reactions, be curious, why do I have these certain reactions? Why do I react like this? Why do I attract people like this into my life, into my space, into my bubble, and alignment is not just, as I said, a concept. It's when your words, when your actions, when your thoughts, when your values speak the same language. This is alignment. Alignment is when everything you do, everything you think, and everything you are is in coherence. Just again, like Gandhi said, what happiness is for him. Happiness is when what you say, what you do, and what you think are in harmony. So again, this idea of coherence is coming through again. And you know, all my life, I have put so much weight on the opinion of others about me, about my human value, and this is why I was totally misaligned with who I really was, all my life. And you know, for me, for me the moment, when, again, cancer and death were, for me, the biggest triggers, for me to come out of this unconscious state of, in which I was, in survival, just to not be stigmatized, just not to be judged. I was playing something in society which did not correspond to my true self. And you know, I put a guy in prison, and then I had to go back into this narrow societal box that was way too narrow for my true self, that is me now, this, this, this, that, the one that could be labeled to me. Labelled too much for certain people who are not, you know, in that frequency, but that's okay. I don't need to be liked by everyone, and I don't need to like everyone either. And that's okay. So, you know, and this is where I, I am all my life, I had put so much effort in constructing this perfect mosque to, for me, not to be judged, stigmatized by my, by my past, which was so unfair to be honest, because I had to, you know, it wasn't my fault, I couldn't, you know, I didn't choose my parents, I didn't choose my family, I didn't choose my circumstances, I didn't choose the violence and the abuse, I didn't choose my circumstances, I didn't choose those. But, you know, and then I had to still, you know, put effort into constructing this persona that was not me at all, just to, you know, to, to be liked, absolutely be liked, because my human value was totally outsourced at a 100% because I had no foundations at all of self-esteem, there was no self-confidence, there was nothing. So, my human value was at mercy of other people's opinions, you know, other people's approval, other people's rejections, other people's acceptance. I was the biggest people pleaser and this is where you kind of, you know, when you get to this, you know, baby steps again, it's processes, you can't, you know. And when I face, when I was facing death, this is where I realize, actually, I only have my back, this is what I have, this is what I can count on. And when you come back to this society where so much emphasis is put on people's opinion about oneself, you know, what will people say? This is kind of, I wanted to write a book with that title, what will people say in Luxembourg, she will say, that's who I'm employed. So, I want to go to religion in French. And this is where, you know, when I was facing death, the feeling of injustice was so profound in me, that I, when I, if I come back to this society, no way I can ever put any weight on people's opinion of me because I found myself on my own in the end. And all my life I thought I had this huge network of people who would support me. But then, you know, when you're on your own at that point, when you're really in your darkest times, you are on your own. And when you come back to this society, opinions of you don't matter anymore, as long as you're ethically aligned, as long as you're ethically moving in the right direction. I keep saying that, I know. But this is where I feel it's very important to say because as we said before Trump is aligned too with his true self, but he's not ethically aligned with moral values at all. So, this is where you have to kind of an alignment. This is alignment is something that happens every single day, every single hour. It's not, you know, and as we said in another episode, you can come back to, to, to old patterns. You can fall back into people pleasing. You can fall back into realizing, wow, okay, I have not been fair to my true self in that situation. But you always have another chance. Nothing is lost in this life. You can only win or learn. There's nothing to lose in this life when you go through life, understanding that you always have a choice. You always can go from autopilot to pilot of your life. This changes everything because it also makes you understand that you have never been trapped. You've never been trapped because every single second can, you can choose another reaction. You can choose another thought. You can choose another action. There is nothing. You are not the victim of your circumstances. As I said, you may not have been able to choose your past. You don't know the future. It's abstract. But what is in your hand is the present. And this is where you always have the choice to react or pause. You know, and this is again, I will come back to this traffic jam situation. You know, you can react and go crazy behind your wheel or you can pause. You can take a step back and be like, "Okay, no. I'm grateful that I'm not 10 seconds in the accident ahead." I'm grateful that I have my life. I am able to feel frustration. I'm alive to feel all these feelings. And baby steps again, be kind to yourself. Self-compassion is the biggest key here in this whole movement, this whole concept of self-alignment because being kind to oneself is a huge one. As we said before, most people do not love themselves enough. And this is where I feel like this is where we have to nourish to put the energy in and being kind to oneself. You know, yesterday I was on a date and I spilled a whole, like a spilled water on my jeans. You know, like, as I said before, I'm very clumsy. And you know, I laughed it off. And the guy was like, laughing it off with me. Because again, you show people how to treat you. You teach people how to treat you when you get angry at yourself. They understand that this is uncomfortable for you. This is, you know, you are uncomfortable in the situation and you're not good in your own skin. So, they'll be confused too. And they will not be helpless in watching you. But this guy just said, "You know, bring it on. I'll take a water and spill it on my own jeans now to match my clumsy." And then that was cute. That was really cute. I really liked the effort of coming into my clumsiness. Bonus point for that. So, alignment is also about embracing uncertainty. Because uncertainty is a big one for. I don't plan life. I don't plan my days. I don't plan anything in life because I love surprises. Because once you try to control life, in life is something that I understood from cancer that cannot be controlled. You cannot plan life. Because I had many plans before cancer. But when I had cancer, only I only wanted to see another day. That's all I wanted. I didn't plan anything at all ever again. Because I know life is volatile. We are hanging our life. It's hanging by a thread. It can be over tonight. It can be over tomorrow in one hour. I don't know. And this is where I feel like I still live like this in urgency to devour life, to live at my fullest, which can be quicker than most people around me. And they don't always understand. But that's okay. I can be misunderstood and be fine. That's fine. And this is where embracing uncertainty, being able to embrace uncertainty, for example, like I do that. As I said in another episode, I do conferences totally unscripted. also allows me to embrace uncertainty, to embrace the unknown, to embrace the fact that just suddenly something can come, a question can come in the middle of my speech, that's fine. I don't have a speech. So, you know, it's, and this is where when you go through life with open arms, with not wanting to control anything and really put your trust in the process and put your trust in life itself, as long as you're ethically aligned and aligned with your own self, this is the only, when I said you had two jobs, you have every single day to ask yourself the questions that matter, you know, is this aligned, is this aligned, is this aligned, this is one question and the other question is to open, to signal openness to the universe, to signal openness to your surroundings, to signal availability, to signal love for life and this is where, when you want to control everything, you're going to be again in this closed energy because you, you know, you want to control, again, your day is fully controlled and you want to plan your day to the second and you want to plan your life just as you plan your meetings and this doesn't work like that, you know, and this is when you get some unexpected occurrences coming into your plans, you get totally frustrated and out of sync because you have not, you know, prepared for that and this is where when you open, when you, you know, you allow things to come, things to go and you don't cling on to, to, to this control feeling because usually control, again, as we said before with this perfectionist, perfectionist is, is coming from a deeper sense of, of having to overcompensate, maybe conditional love, maybe you had conditional love as a child and, and, and you understood that you only loved when you're perfect, you only loved when you're quiet, you only loved when you don't have an opinion, you only loved, when you do well and you're not just loved because you exist and, and, and being a perfectionist is often an overcompensation, just like being a control, a controlling person, you want to control everything because this gives you a sense of comfort, this allows you to, I was also like this before cancer because I wanted to control everything outside because all that was inside was chaotic was un, I was unable to control all of that was inside, you know, the, the huge mess that was inside that I couldn't control because I hadn't processed my, my, my heavy past yet. So all of that, I needed to control, I couldn't control. So what I could control were my grades, were everything that was outside and, and this is why even, you know, as an adult, I, I, I needed to have my, my house totally clean, tidy, this gave me a sense of control. I had to have everything kind of very strictly controlled and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and because the mess inside here was totally uncontrollable and even as children, when I give, when I give, how to say, conferences to, to teachers or, I give conferences workshops to teachers, I tell them, be careful, be careful of these children, of these students who, who are, you know, too perfect, who are too people pleasing, who are suddenly too good at sports, too good at school, too good, you know, because they're controlling, they can control their grades, they can control their behavior, they can control their, their performance because they have this huge mess inside of them. I'm not generalizing now, but, but some, you know, don't get noticed, some victims of abuse or violence, don't get noticed, because they, they have this huge mess inside and to overcompensate, to emotionally overcompensate, what they have inside, they, they, they try to, to control what is outside, and this often does not, is not mentioned, and I'm the best case study for this, because I, you know, I've, I've, I've suffered for 16 years at the hands of this, this, this monster, and, you know, I, I, I was the, the clown of the class, I was the smiling one, I was the funny one, I was the, the, the, the overachiever at school, and later on, you know, I was, I was very good to every, people pleaser, you know, teachers didn't notice me, because I, there was nothing to notice that they knew from their training that, you know, usually a victim of abuse, a victim of violence is usually, you know, bad at school, they're regressing in their development, they are aggressive, they are, you know, but this is where you have, I, I feel like I have to, to raise awareness about these children that don't get the attention, because they don't fit the, the, the, the, the, the image that people that society has of victims, and I'm not, I'm not a rare case, many, many overachiever, as many successful people are ex-victims. I know a few that in real life, that, that, you know, have high well-paid jobs, that are very high status, but they are ex-victims, they are, ex-victims of horrible stuff, and this is the paradox that people don't often understand, you know, how can she have a doctor title and, and have, you know, been a victim? I mean, can't be that bad then, right? No, it was, you know, the guy got 15 years in prison, it wasn't from nothing, the gravity of the crime was as such as that the tribunal gave the guy 15 years, which is at that point the maximum, which was at that point kind of the maximum of, of prison sentence that you can get, so you can't imagine the gravity of the crime on basis of which they gave the guy this sentence, so, but again, again, this, this, this is something that I have to say out loud because we often big, don't realize who we are surrounded by, because we're all wearing a mask and you don't know who's suffering and who's not, so you use your voice. I'm using your, my voice here, I'm using my voice wherever I can to protect children, to raise awareness, but you all have a voice. My voice is not any more special than your voice, but I just decided to, to use it. So your voice is just sharing a button, a share button that you don't know who's suffering in your network who can use these words, who can, who can be saved by these words, you know, and feel heard, you know, because you don't see behind the mask, even if you know the person. So when you're living your truth out loud, this is alignment. This last step is about really living, living your truth out loud, being new with everything you embody, with your past, with your present, with your future, with your failures, with your clumsiness, with your imperfections, everything you are with your weaknesses and, and someone who's really, you know, you know, you're never fully aligned. Sometimes you're partly aligned. Sometimes you go back in alignment, everything is fine, everything is acceptable, as long as you kind of ask questions. And again, even if you don't ask questions, you're still as good as you are, you might not be as compatible with other aligned people. And that's fine too, we're all perfect as we are, but we're not all perfect for each other, and that's okay too. So embrace uncertainty, react or pause, you know, when you have a situation and ask yourself questions every day, this is the way of living, this last step is really about this way of living. It's not this final destination where you, that you reach, it's really about this, this, it's a way of living, of living more objectively with an objective lens rather than a judgmental one, with a more curious lens going through life with this open arms and open heart and see who comes on your path, what comes on your path, who goes from your path, and what goes from your path. And really, no judgment, just go through life with this curiosity and see who comes, who goes. And this is in the end what makes life fascinating. Every day is a different taste because when you don't plan everything you are, you can be positively surprised by things that come your way and people who come your way that you did not expect that bring you so much because you didn't close, you know, close all your time slots of the day to plan. So, you know, be life, be curious and you've all life because life is there to be, to be, to be felt and to be believed, live life and and and take it from me, you know, life is now, life is not tomorrow, don't postpone things, don't postpone meeting someone that you love because you don't know what tomorrow is and I really can tell you if, if not this life, which life, you know, you, you might be saying, you know, we will see each other in in this in a few months, do it now. We will, we'll, we'll do that in a few years. No, do it now. We might not get another chance and life is now. You, you, you might end up at 90 years old and be full of regrets saying, you know, you put so much weight on people's opinions about you, you put so much weight on your job, on your, on your, and didn't play enough with your children. You, you put so much time in doing things that were not aligned, you know, just to people please or fit expectations and and and you might be sitting at 90 years old wondering, you know, what the hell did I do? Why did I not just, you know, do this and that and that. This is where you, you kind of, I can't emphasize enough how, how life is delicious because you you know you life is now and I don't know how to to explain more than that that this is this is where I feel like we all have this thank you for listening to match-aligned if this episode resonated with you feel free to share it with someone who someone you love and someone you know someone who may need to hear these words of empowerment because you never know who's going through what thank you for listening again and have a good night