Hello everyone, I know Christmas is upon us, but I encourage you to start thinking now as the new year. Alignment of our actions to goals results in successful outcomes. Let’s talk about that word ALIGNMENT.

Alignment can have so many different meanings. When we think of alignment, you might think of when something just “happens” to fall into place “the stars must have aligned perfectly.” Or you might think of a car is out of alignment. When you continue to move forward, let go of the steering wheel, and watch the car steadily veer to the right or left. Then something is OUT of alignment. Our bodies and our minds can do this too. Where we can mentally start to “veer” off into negativity, self-doubt, even to the point of self-sabotage. that’s when we can start to veer off road too. When we develop a consistent practice, we can strengthen our physical and mental alignment.

Our physical alignment can be impacted by our daily habits and our mentality. Seems odd BUT let me explain.

I’ve chosen these photos. What do you see here? (A question asked during a dance intensive workshop. I didn’t realize it’s significance until I gained more maturity in this world instead of just seeing what is in existence.)

The physical aspect of posture goes through these check points.

• Eye gaze– where you are looking with direct your body. I often tell my personal training clients and yoga students “if you look down, you’ll fall down.” This makes you remember the phrase “keep your eye on the prize.” keeping your eye gaze within your awareness of your yoga practice or just daily activity will help assist you to a positive posture alignment.
• Neck/ chin placement– This goes into Throat chakra. When this is blocked you feel like you have trouble with words, not feeling comfortable or confident within yourself. The neck/ chin “block” in your alignment will be based off your eye gaze.
• Shoulders – rounded forward, protracted back, or elevated can send signals to our mind (without even realizing this) We tend to carry stress in our shoulders. Subconsciously … creates this roundedness that we don’t realize we do through daily habits.

Back to that mention of “what do you see here?” This question was asked when watching the more advanced dancers dance their choreographed piece. When they were done, in the simplest way, each individual ended at different times. I spoke up to say just that. And in that moment, I felt like an idiot into what was to follow. The lead instructor then said, “THEY WERE DANCING!” They FELT the music run through their movements. Each extension of an arm flowed through with their BREATH, not just expressing emotions on their faces. Their whole posture followed and flowed through. They didn’t just dance with their feet and arms. THEY PERFORMED.

At this very moment was a moment that I realized; we get stuck in the motions. We go to point A to point B, we drive home, sometimes with so much on our minds that we are blank within the space we occupy and don’t physically remember how we drove ourselves home (have you done that before?) We might not have dancing in our life. But life is a dance. You have to keep moving. If you mess up something on one day, you have to say to yourself “okay, what is the next step I can take moving forward?” And go from there.

Now coming back to the physical alignment. Although it seems ODD, our posture can reflect and result from our daily expressions, or habits. It’s not just the way we walk or sit, but the way we carry ourselves. Hopefully this is something you can recognize to carry forward into the new year of 2024. Where I invite you to check out the Alignment of Self and Intellect workshop I will be hosting on January 14th, 2024.