Alignment: The Quiet Cost of Choosing Yourself
- The Broken & Beautiful
- Nov 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 17
I once heard someone say, “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ponder.”
That idea lingered. It felt like truth — the kind that sits quietly at the edge of awareness until you’re ready to meet it.
For years, I asked questions that skimmed the surface of my life: What should I do? How can I fix this? Why isn’t this working? But recently, I was asked something different — a series of questions about the cost of pursuing wellbeing.
And oh, the places they took me.
It carried me through decades of my own story — a souljourn of choices, losses, becoming, unbecoming and recreating. The kind of questions that don’t seek a neat answer, but rather opens a door you didn’t know was there.
Soon, deeper questions began to rise:
What is the cost of pursuing my wellbeing?
What part do I have to play in it? And if I don’t — what does that mean for me?
The Quiet After Letting Go
There was a time when I lived according to expectations — roles I’d outgrown, responsibilities that once fit but had become too heavy. Letting them go wasn’t graceful. It was slow, messy, and sometimes painful.
But somewhere in that unraveling, a quietness appeared.
Not the kind that means silence or absence of chaos, but the kind that means settling.
A deep, cellular knowing that I could no longer abandon myself.
That realization was both terrifying and freeing. There were moments when my mind screamed for the familiar, when my heart ached for the comfort of what once was. Yet underneath the noise, something softer began to stir — peace, clarity, trust.
I started to believe that what was true and aligned would stay, and what wasn’t, would fall away.
The Hidden Cost
No one told me when I was growing up that choosing yourself can hurt. Choosing myself felt selfish and selfishness felt shameful. Based on this understanding, I avoided pain like the plague and wasn't prepared to choose my “selfish” self.
Pursuing wellbeing doesn’t arrive with serenity and sunlight — not at first. It shows up wearing the faces of discomfort, doubt, grief, anger, fear, worry, and anxiety.
Each one whispered, Go back. It was easier before.
But I came to believe the cost of staying as I was, was too high. I learned and continue to learn to sit with discomfort. To breathe through the ache. To trust that my nervous system — trembling though it was — was learning what safety in truth actually feels like.
The In-Between
There’s a strange and sacred space between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming. It’s both exhilarating and disorienting.
You might crave solitude when you once sought company. You might speak up after years of silence. You might feel wild bursts of creativity followed by exhaustion that feels ancient. You might grieve the familiar, even as you know it no longer fits.
As Julia Cameron wrote, “At first flush, going sane feels just like going crazy.”
And that’s the paradox of transformation — it often looks like chaos before it feels like calm.
Alignment
Alignment, I’ve learned, is living from the inside out.
It’s knowing what you value, what you believe, what feels true in your soul — and then letting your choices flow from that knowing.
When I’m aligned, I trust myself. I move with integrity. My energy feels steady, and I can meet fear with curiosity instead of judgment.
When I’m not, I say “yes” when I mean “no.” I collect resentment. I lose my way back to center.
Alignment isn’t a destination — it’s a daily returning, a remembering of who I am when I am most at peace & steadfast.
Expect Resistance
Change doesn’t come quietly.
The body remembers old ways of being — and calls them safety. The nervous system prefers the known, even when the known keeps us immobilized. When I began choosing differently, my body fought back. It said, This feels dangerous.
But that wasn’t danger. It was unfamiliarity.
Resistance, I learned, isn’t failure — it’s an affirming sign of growth.
And the same is true in relationships. When we change, others feel it too. Some will cheer us on. Others may long for who we were. And some, gently or abruptly, will fall away.
That loss, too, is part of what pursuing wellbeing can cost.
Remember to Celebrate
The smallest moments matter.
The pause before a reaction.The boundary that holds.The day you rest instead of push.
Each small act is a revolution. A neural rewiring. A declaration of belonging to yourself.
Over time, these small celebrations become our new normal — the rhythm of a nervous system learning that joy and safety can coexist.
Trusted, Safe Community
So, what helps us sustain this path of wellbeing, without slipping back into self-abandonment?
Trusted, safe community.
Community made of others who have walked similar roads and continue forward with consistency, kindness and integrity. Sometimes that looks like one-on-one support; sometimes it’s the shared container of a group that listens without judgment.
I like to imagine community as the bumpers in bowling — not to restrict us, but to keep us out of the ditch. For every mile of our journey, there are two miles of ditch — one on either side. Trusted people help keep us in our lane.
They guide us when we drift, celebrate the smallest victories, and remind us that we’re not alone — especially in the moments we’re most tempted to abandon ourselves.
Participating in Hope
I’ve come to believe there are two kinds of hope.
Anticipatory hope: it waits — anxious and uncertain — for things to change.
Participatory hope: it acts — steady and alive — creating the change from within.
Wellbeing is participatory hope in motion.
It’s showing up. Choosing again. Asking better questions. Asking for help. Listening to the quiet wisdom that rises inside.
The cost can feel steep, yes — but the cost of not pursuing wellbeing for me, is far greater.
Returning to the Questions
And so, I return, once again, to the questions.
Maybe that’s what they’re meant for — not to give us answers, but to bring us closer to ourselves.
To invite curiosity where certainty once lived, and compassion where judgment once ruled.
The quality of our life truly does mirror the quality of our questions — especially the ones that bring us home.
So I keep asking and being asked:What does it look like to live aligned?
How might I stay true without abandoning myself?
What does it mean, today, to participate in hope?
And I listen — not for perfection, but for the quiet knowing that rises when I do.
This reflection comes from my journey of remembering and ongoing pursuit of what it means to live aligned — in body, heart, spirit and purpose. As a transformational coach, I support women navigating change through somatic awareness, compassionate presence, and creative expression. Together, we explore what it means to belong to ourselves again, and to participate in our own becoming with kindness and courage.
If this reflection spoke to something within you, consider it an invitation — to pause, breathe, listen deeper, to ponder better questions, and to choose yourself again and again. Supporting you in that process through coaching and somatic exploration, would be my heartfelt honor.
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