Part 5: Alignment - Closing the Gap Between Vision and Reality
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
Thank you for all the feedback re: my Transformation Model and this series: Turning Tricky Transitions into Transformation!
Over the past 4 posts, (Go here to read Parts 1-4.) I explored how difficult transitions can become opportunities for transformation. We examined the disruption that often initiates change, the uncertainty of the in-between space, and the growth that becomes possible when we cooperate with the process rather than resist it.
Along the way, one conclusion became increasingly clear:
Awareness alone does not create change. We can recognize unhealthy patterns, limiting beliefs, protective strategies, and old identities, yet continue living much as we always have.
In my experience - both personally and as a life coach - the single greatest predictor of whether transformation will take root is the Letting Go (which can also be known as surrender). Lasting change requires us to face, release, and remain aware of the beliefs, fears, wounds, and self-protective patterns that would otherwise keep pulling us back toward an older version of ourselves.
In fact, as a LifePlan facilitator, I establish this in the initial framework with clients entering into the process of creating a forward, strategic plan for their lives:
The size of your future is often limited less by your ability to dream and more by your (un)willingness to let go.
The beliefs, fears, wounds, and protective strategies we refuse to release can quietly constrain the very life we say we want. As we become more receptive to recognizing and surrendering what no longer serves us, our capacity to envision and embody a larger future expands.
But once transformation begins, and the new-truer-you is emerging in this awkward liminal space, a second challenge begins to come into view:
We must bring our lives into agreement with what we now know to be true. Our choices, relationships, habits, commitments, calendars, finances, and use of energy must become aligned with the person we are becoming.
I believe alignment is the second most important factor in living from your transformed, true self. In fact, I would go so far as to say:
Without alignment, transformation remains an insight.
Looking at the transformation model:
Letting Go and Alignment are both pivotal stages for arriving at the new model, the integration of the transformation outcomes: the Emerging New You (ENY)!
Emerging New Geri
It’s been a decade since I took on the new name, or rather, acronym: ENG, that marked a huge shift in my inner world. In my journals, I referred to this time period as my dismantling. And that title still rings true as I reflect back on what was a bottom point that became my new starting point. No assumption, belief, or value was left unshaken or unchallenged. I was living through every stage of that transformation arrow in real time! Talk about having to drink your own Kool-Aid!
But what I lived to report: Yes, transformation is possible. Yes, you will emerge a new-truer-you. But also personally proven: You will have to let go of all you painstakingly uncover about the parts of you that are really coming from false self - not who you were created to be, but the you who early in life had to adapt to your imperfect environment - perhaps to survive it.
You will, at some point, abide in an excruciating period of unknown length that is liminal space - the space between what was that is-no-more, and the what-will-be that has not revealed itself yet. And after all of this hard, painful, solitary inner work, you will be compelled to reorient all of your choices, to align them with the ENY so that each domain of your life can embody the fruit from your journey.
And, of course, on this side of heaven, this work is never fully finished; but you will experience the ecstasy of embodiment - when alignment births integration of the ENY - if you stay the course - and are diligent to stay aware and receptive to further molding, which will manifest as more trips down the arrow of transformation.
It was the worst of times; it was the best of times.
Yes, I flipped Dickens' famous quote. It feels more accurate that way as I apply it to my dismantling. At the time, it felt only like loss, uprooting, and disorientation. It took years beyond the pain before I could see what had actually been taking place. Only in hindsight did the scale begin to tip more heavily toward gratitude than grief, toward fruitfulness rather than just upheaval.
What once felt like an ending became a beginning. What felt like destruction became reconstruction. And what I would never have chosen for myself became one of the most transformative gifts of my life.
Looking back now, I can see that the dismantling was only part of the journey. Transformation changed me internally, but alignment required me to reorganize my life around that change.
ENG needed a new pattern of choices. New priorities. New commitments. New ways of spending my time, energy, attention, and resources.
Because transformation that never reaches behavior remains largely theoretical. Alignment is where the inner work becomes visible.
So let's move from the conceptual to the practical. What exactly does alignment look like? It will show up (or not) in all of these visual expressions of your resource allocation:
Calendar = mirror of time & energy choices
Portfolio & checkbook = mirror of money priorities
Presence/peace = mirror of attention/focus choices
Social calendar = mirror of relational investment
Environment = mirror of what you've chosen to build around yourself
These indicators don’t lie.
Let’s call it the Alignment Gap: I say this matters, I want this change; but my life choices are saying something else.
After you experience the clarity that comes from the awareness, unraveling and transforming of this process, you can see your desired future more clearly, but then you must begin viewing your current life through that new lens. That means:
Unless you are willing to honestly assess how—and how much—your calendar, finances, energy, relationships, and environment will need to be reordered, the gap between vision and reality will remain.
This is why alignment occupies such a critical place in the transformation process.
Awareness reveals what is true.
Letting go creates space for change.
Transformation reshapes us internally.
But alignment is where we begin organizing our lives around that new reality. And when that alignment is sustained over time, embodiment follows: the experience of living with increasing congruence between who you are, what you value, and how you actually live.
I invite you to consider these questions:
If someone examined my calendar, finances, energy, relationships, and commitments over the past 90 days, what future would they conclude I am actually pursuing?
Where is the greatest gap between the life I say I want and the way I am currently allocating my resources?
What is one meaningful change I could make this week that would bring my daily life into greater alignment with the person I am becoming?
**My offer: If you have been stirred to further explore where you are in your story arc, and would like a professional partner to come alongside you, I invite you to contact me.
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Blessed to play a part ~
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