How do I know if I'm living in alignment?

Do you ever have a really crappy day, week, or month? Where it feels like everything is falling apart at once- "when it rains it pours" type feeling? This is a big red flag that something is out of alignment in your life. I've seen this play out multiple times in my life, but the outcome has differed with the way I've handle each situation. "It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it" are the words I can hear my dad saying when I'm 10 years old, sitting on my bunk bed rambling about my bad day at school. This motto is what I live by when I see that my life is shifting out of alignment.

When I went on a 10 week backpacking trip through Peru and Colombia I returned to my home base of Samara, Costa Rica with gratitude for an amazing, safe, nothing went wrong, I wasn't kidnapped by the drug cartel type of trip. I went to South America with no type of plan other than meeting up with my cousin for the 5 day Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu. When that ended, I spent the next 9 weeks alone, making decisions each day based on how I felt. I would feel out the vibes in each hostel/environment/town. If I didn't vibe with the people I met, I would move to a new place. If I wanted to rest I would stay a few days in an AirBnB and hang low without feeling guilty about it. The point is, that I let go of control and starting living in my flow. My life was aligned because I was LISTENING to my heart, body, and spirit- not ignoring my intuition. It truly was a unique feeling to travel this way, not like my usual way of planning every second of where I'm going to eat, sleep, and what I'm going to see on my trip.

When I returned to Samara I felt pretty lost. I jumped too quickly into a relationship I wasn't ready for. I said yes to a lot of things that I actually wanted to say no to. Within that first week back I was super sick with a parasite I caught in Colombia, I found a massive scorpion in my house, I dropped and shattered a plate, I got stung by a wasp, and I had one or two students show up to my first week of yoga classes. It felt like the week from hell. My body was telling me to rest. My spirit was telling me not to give up my freedom and power that I'd finally stepped into by being single. My mind was telling me to settle into my house before jumping right into my yoga business. I didn't listen to any of this. I literally ignored my gut feeling over and over again, and guess what- my life fell out of alignment very quickly.

I called home and told my parents, "I'm done with Costa Rica, everything sucks!" On the other end I heard, "It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it." It took a humble cry, some meditation, lots of electrolytes, and many pages in my journal to recover and get back in alignment. I knew I had to slow down before I could speed up. I ended the relationship, spent the time to market my business appropriately throughout town, and did a deep clean of every cobweb in my house (literally and figuratively). I sat and watched sunsets on the beach alone. I woke up early and rolled out my yoga mat. I walked through nature and let my sensations take over as I listened to the birds, monkeys, and iguanas rustling in the jungle. I found grounding in activities that made me feel the same liberation and freedom I felt while backpacking alone for 10 weeks. I realigned my life and new friendships formed, my yoga business blossomed, and I felt that inner smile reappear. So Listen. Reflect. Realign. Flow

It's not what happens to you...it's what you do about it.

#alignment #alignyourlife #listen #reflect #realign #flow #yoga