If you have ever driven a car that has alignment issues, you know how uncomfortable, stressful, and dangerous it can be. The same is true when our lives get knocked out of alignment. Life becomes uncomfortable, stressful, dangerous, and riddled with anxiety.
When things are aligned, they are in the correct arrangement in relation to everything else. It’s interesting how much time we spend putting our material possessions in the right place. It’s easier than tidying up our souls, and easier than aligning our actions with our values.
The challenge of living consciously, ethically, morally, is to align our thoughts, words, and actions, with our purpose and values. When our actions fall out of alignment with our values, the wheels begin to wobble.
If your words, thoughts, and actions don’t align with what’s in your heart you will never have peace. So much of our stress, unhappiness, and anxiety, is caused when our lives fall out of alignment with our highest values.
Stress, unhappiness, anxiety, and depression are not bad things. They are not human malfunctions. Quite the opposite, they are proof that everything is working as it should. They come to us as messengers, to tap us on the shoulder and point out that our lives have slipped out of alignment.
We are most fully human, and most fully alive, when we are living an integrated life. This is integrity: aligning our actions with what we know to be good, true, just, and right.
When we turn our backs on what is good, true, just, and right, when we abandon our highest values, our integrity gets eroded. This always results in a loss of self, great or small. When our integrity is being eroded, you can be sure a number of other things are happening too. We are losing sight of who we are and what we value. We are losing our sense of self, which leads to an identity crisis. But all along the way, we are hurting people, often the people we claim to love the most, and always ourselves.
Misalignment always leads to pain and suffering for you and for others. What area of your life is misaligned? It takes boldness to admit it. How do you realign your life and live with more integrity than ever before? One decision at a time. Move your heart and mind into agreement, and act out of that united self.
Matthew Kelly From Life is Messy Click Here to get your copy