Living in Alignment

Welcome to the Yoga Inspired Life podcast. I'm your host, Sheila Quinn, and together we'll go on a journey of self-discovery as we explore all of the inner workings of what it means to live an inspired life. Join me for solo episodes and conversations with special guests for real authentic deep dives into all things yoga, wellness, self-love, mindfulness, and everything in between. If you're ready to get inspired, learn, grow, evolve, to connect, and up level your life, then you've come to the right place. I am beyond excited that you're here. So let's dive in. Hi babe, welcome back to the podcast or welcome to the show, if this is your first episode that you're tuning in for. Welcome, welcome. I'm super happy to have you. I have been loving seeing you guys screenshot the podcast and posted on your Instagram story or post a video or photo of what you're doing while you're listening to the podcast. It just makes me so happy and really makes me feel like I'm a part of your week or your wellness routine and it just brings me so much joy. So thank you so much for doing that. It also helps so much when you share the podcast like that on your Instagram story because it is like paying it forward. You know, if you're feeling inspired by the podcast and you are loving the episodes that I'm putting out, it's just such a nice way to, I don't know, like return the energy back to me by sharing it, but then also like sharing it with your friends because you want them to feel better and feel good and benefit from what I'm sharing. So yeah, I've just been loving that. It means so much to me and thank you so much for doing that. I actually had a different episode topic in mind for today, but decided last minute to change things up and go with my intuition because I posted a real on my Instagram couple of days ago, sharing some signs of what it looks and feels like when you're out of alignment. And like casually said in the caption, like if you'd be interested in a podcast episode on this, let me know and the feedback was mind blowing. So many of you wanted me to expand on this and I'm more than happy to do that because I personally have experienced living out of alignment at various different levels in my life and in many different eras of my life. There's not one way to be in alignment because what alignment looks and feels like is going to be different for everyone. So there's a lot of room for interpretation here as far as what being in alignment looks and feels like. However, I've noticed through conversations I've had with other people and doing my own research and through my own experience, I've noticed that the signs of being out of alignment are often the same, which I think is really interesting. Of course, there's going to be variation there, but typically it's a lot the same. If for some reason you're not on Instagram or you didn't see this post, I'm going to link it in the show notes. And either way, I figured I would kind of go through the list that I wrote down of signs that you are out of alignment. Just to give you at least a little refresher or again, if you didn't see it, then we can kind of go over it now. Number one, feeling anxious and restless about anything and everything. Number two, constantly feeling tired, exhausted and drained by your life. Right? So I got a couple of comments from people like, yeah, this is how I feel being a mom. Yeah, I can imagine being a parent or a new mom or just a parent or mom in general would be exhausting and draining. So, you know, while I completely agree with that, that's not necessarily relevant to this conversation that we're having just because that's a valid symptom from a really hard job that you're doing, right? There's a difference between feeling tired, exhausted and drained because you're doing something that's really tiring, exhausting and draining versus your daily life is just making you feel drained. I hope that makes sense. The third is feeling overwhelmed on edge and like you're grinding your gears. Of course, we're all going to have days where we feel on edge. I myself feel a little more on edge when I'm around my period, you know, or if I'm not getting enough sleep, or if I'm not taking care of myself properly, but I also notice that when I'm doing things that are out of alignment, I am frustrated energetically. So, again, there's a difference between having one off day and feeling consistently overwhelmed on edge and like things are just hard. There's a different level of resistance there, you know. In life, there will be resistance, there will be challenges. But this, you know, I think we each know the difference. The next one is you find that you're leaning into things that numb you from your current reality in an unhealthy way. Instead of doing them from a place of intention and integrity. And that might look like drinking excessively, drinking alcohol, or binging on various types of food, or binging on TV, or binging on pretty much anything, right? And leaning into anything as a coping mechanism to numb you out from your life. I can think back on times of my life when I was partying a lot, or watching a lot at TV, or drinking a lot, whatever it might be. And I can see clearly now that I wasn't doing any of those things in an intentional way. There's nothing wrong with going out and drinking with your friends, I think, you know, that's just my opinion. But you know, you know the difference between the times that you're doing that because you want to celebrate and have fun with your friends, and you're enjoying yourself, and the times that you're doing that because you don't want to think or feel or be present in your life. The next one is basing everything you do on the approval and acceptance from everyone, but yourself. This can look like polling people, asking for people's opinions. If somebody disagrees with you, you start to go back on whatever the decision is that you made, you're unsure, you're doubting yourself. It's really a lack of self-assuredness. The next is something just feels off. It's just that feeling of like, you know what, this just doesn't feel right. And that, again, is not something that I can totally expand on because that's going to feel different for everyone, but I feel like everybody's felt this at some point or another. I remember times when I was younger about getting invited to certain things and having this feeling like, I can't explain why, but I just have this feeling that this isn't right. You know, and at the time, I did not know that that meant that's not an alignment with me, and some of the times I would go, and then the reason would present itself why I shouldn't have gone, and I'm like, I had a feeling I shouldn't go. Why did I go? You know, something would happen or some dramatic, crazy, chaotic thing would happen, and I'd be like, oh yeah, I had a feeling that this was off. So that's that feeling that I'm talking about. The last sign that I shared in that reel is that you find yourself comparing yourself and your journey to others. I've talked about this before on the podcast, but that is that energy of looking outside of yourself. It's coming from a place of lack and insecurity, and almost like this desperation and approval, and again, a lack of self-confidence, and it's a sign of a lack of alignment, because if you are clear about what alignment looks and feels like for you, and you know what to do to get into alignment, then you're too busy being in flow and in alignment to be judging and comparing and worrying about what anybody else is doing. A question that I saw a lot was what is alignment? An alignment is when your choices, thoughts, actions, and direction all honor your core values. And I go into more detail about what core values are in the Yoga Inspired Life program, but your core values are essentially the things that are important to you. The things that help you show up as your highest self. The things that support you in being your best self and living your best life. Alignment is when you listen to your intuition with conviction, and you move through the world, embodying your true self. Living in alignment is consistently showing up as your highest self to your best ability, right, with intention. It's not about getting it right. It's not about being perfect. That is not possible. Let's not try to do that. But I think the goal should be to get clear about what feels good to you, what serves you best, what fills you up, what helps you be your best self, get clear about your core values, and then aim to always be moving towards what alignment is for you, right? It's not about getting it right every time. Alignment is action and function with ease. You're never going to eliminate resistance or challenges completely. But again, like I said earlier, there's a big difference between hard work or working hard at something, and straight up resistance because this thing is not an alignment. I am living in alignment. I would consider my life now pretty much completely in alignment with my core values. But I still work hard. I still face moments of resistance. I still on a daily basis face moments where I feel like I'm out of alignment, even though my life overall is in alignment. And that happens when I'm not honoring my core values, right? One of my core values is to take care of myself and take care of my body. And sometimes I get a little too inspired and a little too motivated if I'm going to be honest with you. And I go balls to the wall on whatever project I'm working on or whatever I'm doing. It's typically showing up for you guys online, which I love, love, love, love. It literally gets me up out of bed at four o'clock in the morning every day with ease and excitement. But I fall out of alignment when I don't honor my core values and don't take care of myself. So then what happens is I habitually ignore the core value of taking care of myself because I'm too excited and too focused on something else. And then suddenly I start to notice the signs that I am out of alignment. It doesn't mean my whole life is out of alignment, but it means that something that I'm doing in some certain way that I'm showing up, I'm not showing up in alignment. And that is the red flag or the moment where you need to take a step back and reflect on how you're showing up, how am I spending my time? What am I doing that is pulling me out of alignment? I just did this a couple days ago. And this is kind of based in a lot of the work that I do in module one with people who go through the yoga inspired life program, the reset to reconnect method, but it's really a matter of taking a moment to self reflect and tap into radical honesty. Like even for myself, I've been on an absolute role with creating. I've been fired up. I've been motivated. I've been in grind mode. It's felt easy. It's felt flowy. It's felt super aligned. Great. Last couple, let's say week, week and a half. I'm seeing the signs that something is not an alignment. You know, I'm feeling like I'm grinding my gears a little bit suddenly. I had to hit the pause button and get honest with myself. The large part of me doesn't want to slow down. I'm on a roll. I'm like, no, I don't want to slow down. I don't want to slow down. But by not taking care of myself and not showing up for myself, I'm pulling myself out of alignment. My more recent days have felt like I'm not functioning and acting with ease. It's felt a little sticky. Not full resistance, right? I'm not like all the way gone, but I've felt some resistance. And so alignment really, it's a practice that is similar to cultivating balance. It's a regular check-in with yourself. When you start to notice the signs, okay, what do I need to do to bring myself back into alignment? There is no such thing as being perfectly balanced all the time, just like there is no such thing as being in perfect alignment all the time. Think about in yoga when you're in a balancing pose, when you're on one foot, balancing on one leg. You're not completely still. You're in a constant state of motion, but there's small micro movements to bring you into balance. Oh, leaning a little to the right. Okay, we got to lean a little to the left to come back center. Oh, leaning a little back. I got to lean myself a little forward. Oh, okay, we're here. Oh, we're going right again. We got to lean a little to, do you know what I'm saying? It's an awareness of where you're at and comparison with what your goal is or what alignment is and knowing what you need to do to get back into alignment. Because you're going to shift and flow and add a little out. So for me, for example, noticing that I'm things are feeling a little bit sticky. I sat down with myself. Okay, where am I going wrong? Because everything I'm doing is feeling good. Everything I'm doing is an alignment with my core values, overall core values. What's going on here? I need to be radically honest with myself. I'm not creating enough time to just be. And if you've been around here for a while hanging out with me virtually, then you know that this is a common issue for me. Leaning too far into my masculine doing energy and not enough into my feminine being energy. It's not necessarily in my nature personally to rest. I've never been a good napper. I've always been on the go since I'm little, you know, I'm like, let's do this thing. I'm fired up. And that's amazing. But with that comes the reality that I have to reign it in. I got to be radically honest with myself and reign myself in. So when I had to have a little sit-down chat with myself last week or was it last week? Yeah. I realized that actually even though what I'm doing overall is an alignment, there are some small daily actions that I'm doing that are not an alignment, you know, and getting clear about what those are. And then the awareness, yeah, the awareness is great and important, right? The awareness is the beginning. Awareness around what you're doing that's out of alignment. But then you have to take action for me that look like going down to one YouTube video this month and starting there and seeing how that felt. Doing what I can to create space to take care of myself a little bit more on a daily basis. And now we're on the path back to finding alignment. The definition of alignment is the proper positioning or state of adjustment of parts in relation to each other. When your core values are not reflected in your work or how you're showing up, that takes us out of alignment. Being out of alignment is when your day-to-day actions don't support your higher self. Alignment to me is this flow state where your choices, thoughts, energy, and direction all honor your core values and support you in fulfilling your purpose and manifesting your deepest desires. The path to alignment begins with gaining clarity about what your core values are. And then again, like I said, it's kind of like an experiment after that. What actions, what behaviors, what thoughts bring me closer to alignment and what of those brings me further away from alignment. You know, and making a mental note as you move forward of like, for instance, mine for this week is, okay, when I don't make time for myself on a regular basis and take care of myself, that takes me out of alignment. That's something that we should move away from. As I said, your core values is an important piece of this puzzle in alignment, and it's something that I go over in depth in the yoga inspired life program. So I'm not going to get too much into it here because obviously I go into it in the program, but what I will say is your core values are essentially a set of beliefs and energy that support the embodiment of your higher self. And when I say your highest self, I mean the highest, best, most fulfilled purpose-filled version of you that you already are. We already all are our highest selves. The reason why you might not be feeling like your highest self right now is because you're engaging in things that are pulling you away from that, embodying your highest self and really stepping into that version of you to me is what being an alignment is. Your core values are your fundamental beliefs and highest priorities that drive your behavior. Think of your core values as an internal compass. They're what guide you, what drive you, what inspire you, what help bring you into alignment. I figured out my core values over time. I don't think it's something that you need to decide overnight. I think you can compile a list and try them out and see what works and see what doesn't. Think of it like a list of fundamental values or beliefs that you can come back to and adjust as needed. Alignment for me, finding out what alignment was for myself took time and dedication and trying different things. I did a lot of things. I still do things and I'm like, yep, that's not an alignment. That does not make me feel good. The easiest way to start to figure out what's an alignment and what's not is how you feel. Feelings. This is so important. I think some of us, at least in my generation, were taught to not feel your feelings. Ignore your feelings. No feelings. It's crazy because the work that I've done and the research that I've done and everything I've learned through experience and otherwise is how important how you feel is and what a great barometer how you feel can be for creating a life that you love living and for creating a life that is in alignment with your highest self. If something makes you feel like shit or something makes you feel drained or tired or upset or angry or uncomfortable or unsafe, that is not an alignment. If you continuously do that thing or those things or any number of things that are not an alignment, that's how you get stuck living out of alignment. To start to bring yourself back into alignment again, get clear about your core values. Think about the times that you are the happiest where you feel the best. What are you doing? Who are you with? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? Like what makes you feel proud? What makes you feel excited? What makes you feel alive and happy and content? Those are the things that are in alignment with you. And if you're like Shayla, I have no idea that it's time for you to get out there and start experimenting. Go try new things. Get out of your comfort zone. If you've been going out every night, try staying home every night. If you've been staying home every night and you feel like you're out of alignment, try getting out there. If you haven't been working out, try working out. If you've been doing a certain workout and it's not making you feel great, try a different workout. You get what I'm saying. You have to start to kind of put on your scientist hat and try things out. Because I can share everything that I know and I will share everything I know and I will try to guide you towards discovering what alignment looks like for you. But ultimately, you're the only one that can A, discover that and B, get yourself there. Because it's a matter of your daily habits and actions. When you are in the zone or when I am in the zone and I'm fully in alignment and I'm honoring all of my core values and I'm in this flow state, life feels amazing. It's not without bumps and twists and turns and hardships, but it just feels so good. And it's not about life being perfect because life will never be perfect. But it's this unexplainable feeling that you get once you're clear about what your core values are and you start to really act in a way that honors those. Trust me, you will feel it. It just feels right. Again, being in alignment is when your choices, thoughts, energy, and direction that you're moving in all honor your core values and support you in fulfilling your purpose. The only way for you to gain clarity about what living and alignment looks and feels like for you is to get clear about your core values and then put your scientist hat on to scientists, even where hats. I don't know. But we're scientists, okay, and we were hats. You're going to put your scientist hat on and experiment with your choices and actions while simultaneously checking in with how you feel, making note of what drains you versus what lights you up. I have been rambling. This is so funny, but I did a Q&A on my Instagram story the other day and one of the questions was like, do you script out your podcast episodes? And no, I don't. I probably should. I hope that these make sense. I again, like I had this idea I want to talk about being on alignment, but I prefer to just kind of speak from the heart and chat to you like we're on the phone and we're talking about alignment, you know, but I never know if I've actually covered everything that I wanted to say because I'm literally just looking out the window talking into a microphone. I feel like I covered everything. If you have more questions, feel free to comment on my latest Instagram post. I used to say send me a DM, but honestly, my DMs are I've just neglected them for so long at this point, not intentionally just because there's only one of me and there's so many different things I have to manage and they just unfortunately took the back seat. So I am now at a point where and I never thought I would be here, but I quite literally am anxious to look at them because I'm like, gosh, there's so many of them. So leaving a comment is honestly the best way to ask a question. Obviously, if it's something that you want to remain anonymous, you can definitely send me a DM, but just know it might take me a minute to get back to you because I'm trying to work out a good routine with getting on top of my DMs. If you have more questions, feel free to leave me a comment as preferable DM is great too. And I can expand on this again in a future episode and, you know, just before I let you go, like I said, each person's version of being in and living in alignment is going to look and feel differently, but the best barometer for that is how you feel. Do you feel filled up or drained? Good or bad? Flowing with ease or sticky, sticky, bumpy, bumpy resistance. Checking in with yourself, being present and being intentional, I think is the path to living more in alignment. All right, I'm going to love you and leave you. I hope you have the best rest of your day or night whenever you're listening. I love you so much. And I will catch you in next week's episode. And that's a wrap on another episode of the Yoga Inspired Life podcast. I hope you got something valuable from it and feel empowered to take inspired action. Thank you so much for tuning in and spending time with me today. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as I loved creating it, then please subscribe and leave a review. And if you know of anyone that would benefit from the podcast, I would love it if you would share it with them. I always say that we rise by lifting others. And this is a totally independent podcast. So every little bit of support truly means so much to me. If you're looking for more, let's connect on Instagram. You can find me at Shayla Quinn. I hope you have an amazing week. Thank you again for listening. And I'll catch you next week.