where is goodness?
aligned motive #1
Hey Team,
Last week I told you about things I see at the gym (missed it? Read here) and promised to reveal the Yoga Tradition’s method of aligning energy and action. This teaching is called the Aligned Motives for Practice.
While we apply these in practice and to our inner world, they are useful everywhere. In relationships and at work. While chasing dreams or doing the dishes. Because practice is where we practice. And life is where we live out what we're practicing.
Ultimately aligned motives sync your energy and action to the fundamental truth of your being. To do this, you must be able to recognize when you're NOT in alignment. Another way to say this is operating from mis-aligned motives. Awareness here can elicit ooooohhhhh and ouch. But then you apply aligned motives like an antidote. They become a healing salve.
Important to note that we all fall into misaligned motives. It's part and parcel of the human condition (a story for another day). They're only problematic when you don't see them or fail to use them for course correction. Because when you're operating from misaligned motives you end up stuck, stumped, spinning your wheels. Your actions are drained of power because they're not aligned with the fundamental truth of your being.
So.
Let's dive in and use these for consistently powerful action.
Misaligned Motive #1:
Operating from the belief that there is “something wrong with me as I am”. Action becomes an attempt to fix, solve, or repair.
Why is this problematic? It begins with the premise that something is wrong, bad, broken, or not-enough with you as you are. There is a hint of self-hatred. And it’s a slippery slope towards self-punishing behavior. With this motive, actions have flavors like striving, hustling, grinding, grasping. Things are hard. You have to get it right.
(by the way... every time I teach this, I am confronted with the myriad ways this misaligned motive shows up in my life. It’s humbling and motivating at the same time.)
Humbled? Ready for motivation? Here's your antidote.
Aligned Motive #1:
Practicing to connect with what’s good, whole, and complete inside of me already. This subtle shift sends you searching for connection, satisfaction, and the perfection of enough.
Can you see the difference?
Ask yourself:
What is the energy when you're focused on fixing? Approaching from an assumption of broken?
What is the energy when you're focused on connecting? Approaching from an assumption of goodness?
Here is an example from my movement practice: The SI joint on my right side tends to be unstable. In the past when it got cranky, I would respond aggressively. Trying to fix it. Now.Because I didn’t want to be “set back” or hindered by what was happening in my body. There was an energy of frustration, irritation, even desperation. That energy permeated the action and how my body was receiving what I was doing.
Consider this: How do you respond with someone trying to "fix" you when you're vulnerable and a bit scared? I was doing that to my own body. Ouch.
Now, when the SI provides me with compassionate signs and signals, I listen and respond more gently. I search for where the SI feels stable, at ease, and supported. I keep asking where is wholeness, completeness and connection? What is enough?
It took great faith to orient my practice this way. But it’s been miraculous. It has trained me to look for wholeness, completeness and goodness. Inside of myself and all around me. And the only thing more astounding and exhilarating than what it's done for my physical body is how it continues to encourage my relationships and empower my work.
And yes, I still have to watch the tendency to “fix”. Knowing my nervous system is a big part of this. Because fixing, striving, hustling is a sympathetic response. Care, gentleness, and connection requires ventral vagal activation.
Want to put this into practice?
If you have a 20 Minute Miracles Toolkit Subscription, the Enough practice is designed around Aligned Motive #1. Practice ENOUGH.
Aligned Motives are part of the Make Practice Miraculous curriculum. If your practice needs new life and fresh energy... if you find yourself in a fruitless struggle to get somewhere or something... if you want to recalibrate for wholeness, goodness, and connection...
Join us. Enrollment is open. We begin in August.
May your practice be enough,
Alison
