How to find alignment.

I don’t know how you feel about the Law of Attraction. Folks seem to either agree, disagree or feel somewhat ambivalent.

As for me? I wanted to believe in the Law of Attraction. The first time I heard about it from an ex-girlfriend back in 2007, I thought it sounded pretty silly. And then I heard about it again as I prepared to become a certified integrative health coach and thought it sounded plausible and I even experienced it many times in my life over the next several years. It was real!

But when I hit a major detour of despair and depression, I gave up hope on this Law. I stopped believing. I hated it as a concept, actually.

The Law of Attraction seemed to be for people of privilege. People with better situations who came from better backgrounds than me. It seemed to work for all the “thought leaders” who had more resources than me so they could write books faster than me and have partners to support them or families who believed in them…etc, etc.

I used my circumstances at that moment in time to weave a briliiant narrative that kept feeding on itself, over and over. It became so real, I believed it even when I knew it might not be serving me.

I mean, I was right! There were many people around me who had much more privilege and resources than me. I was white, sure, but now I was TRANS* and kept bumping up against relentless stigma and rejection and missed opportunities because of this identity.

It seemed like I had broken my life. Like I had missed my opportunity to soar and inspire people with my incredible story of overcoming an eating disorder at 16 and clearing up disfiguring acne at 26 and moving away to a totally new city in 2006 and then building an incredibly successful business after being let go from a job (that I didn’t even like or want anymore) in 2009.

When I transitioned in 2012, I was at the top of my game. At the highest point of my life. And now, years later, I was at what felt like a deep valley of grief and fear that I’d never get to be who I wanted to be and do what I’d dreamed of doing since I was 14.

That was the age I declared I’d be a motivational speaker. That was the year I’d found my purpose. And I had worked toward it year after year with such fearlessness that I never doubted myself for a moment. I WOULD succeed, that’s how I felt.

So to find myself questioning that future that had been so clear, I couldn’t even hope that the Law of Attraction would help me.

But I tried.

I tried wanting it. I tried asking, pleading, desperately begging for the shadow to pass over me so I could find my way back to the person I had been (?) or wanted to be so I could go on living or pick up where I had left off before everything turned to shit.

And that period lasted a few years. It was months of me constantly trying to “find alignment” with the higher self I saw myself capable of being. Months of me seeing my better self, my Buddha nature, but not feeling that way…about myself or other people. Months of me trying to be vulnerable with people and talk through this period and coming away feeling judged, shamed and even deprived of opportunities because I was being “too negative” or “not being who they thought a health coach” should be. That made me laugh, because I was never trying to be perfect but just a human work in progress.

But it was good for me because I was trying to be alignment with something I wasn’t feeling or being at that moment in time. I was doing the spiritual bypass, and the Universe knew it. And so I did get opportunities based on all I had achieved but they had a catch. They weren’t quite what I wanted or hoped for. They always seemed to miss the mark in some way, but still they gave me hope. The opportunities encouraged me to keep trying, keep striving, keep working my way out and through. I was getting “something” for my efforts. Crumbs. Clues.

And my confidence in myself started to build, once again. Newly, differently than before.

Focusing on what I had and received helped me feel more gratitude. Focusing less on competing with others or striving to “seem” like something other than I was removed the negative experiences and started bringing better ones.

And I could feel like I was getting closer to emerging from the woods (of my mind).

When I noticed myself rushing my process, I held back. I knew rushing came from ego. And the less ego, the better.

So I stepped more carefully, more slowly. I focused on feeling gratitude for all I had already achieved and gained. I felt pride in myself for my integrity and fortitude. I embraced the whole process and all I had learned, including moments when I faced betrayal and could have used those experiences to lose hope. I used those experiences to push past resentment and embrace forgiveness.

And that was exactly when my alignment started to shift.

And from that alignment and many more experiences like this, moments when I consciously chose a new and empowering mindset, more clarity came through. And from that clarity, came more confidence.

And from that confidence came the desire to share and to serve others to help them through that darkness I had just known for too long.

That was the ultimate alignment: when my intention went from seeking to serving.

It was the transformation that the Universe had been patiently waiting for. It always waits for us.

Now, my next intention was to make a video to share my new message.

My NEW story. Not my old story of typical health issues or other life choices and challenges I had overcome but the incredible NEW story of taking a huge risk and falling from Grace and wandering and wondering how to find my way out of the literal woods of discouragement, despair and a disempowered mindset.

I mean, you guys, I even lived in VERMONT! You can’t make this up.

And I wanted help capturing this story on video, to show with imagery what writing can’t always capture.

And, as it happens with the Law of Attraction, last week I received an unsolicited email giving me exactly that opportunity.

I got the very thing I asked for, the opportunity to capture and share on video the incredible truth of my transformational journey that started with an external change and led to a deep, lasting internal shift.

It happened when I was aligned with sharing it. When I was able to overcome my resistance to it and embrace my ability to articulate my own narrative about my experience.

This is alignment. This is how it feels. This is how you find it.

By struggling and suffering and working through all of that toward your breakthrough. There’s no other way. There’s no shortcut. Not if you want the big return of elation and joy I felt from receiving the gift of that email!

So of course you’re wondering about that video and how you can watch it. Well, when I have more details, I will certainly share them. For now, here’s a picture of me celebrating with my new rad friends who filmed me as we eat ice cream at my friend’s shoppe in Princeton, NJ.

You can see my smile as I celebrate an incredible full circle of transformation since Princeton is where I last lived in New Jersey (home) as my former self, and Princeton is where I had my own health coach in 2004 and Princeton is where I met that friend who owns that ice cream shoppe and we are still so close and Princeton is where I left in 2006 to “find myself” and figure out who I really was.

This is how you find alignment. By finding out who you really are and who you want to become and fighting your way through despair, discouragement, and even disillusionment to actually see what emerges.