Two Kinds of Self-Alignment
In my work, self-alignment plays a central role and means something specific. When I talk about self-alignment, I am speaking primarily of two things:
1. Aligning Desire with Positive Emotion
The first kind of self-alignment that I teach is the alignment between your desire and how you feel about your desire.
Desire simply means “what I want”, and the clarity that matters most throughout all of life is always clarity about what you want. The details of this change, and so you must keep current by aligning yourself emotionally with whatever it is that you want now.
Desire is a cornerstone of human experience and is the primary evolutionary force shaping our world, so it’s worth understanding.
Here’s the simplest way to put it:
When you want something and you feel good (eager, expectant, deserving, clear, easeful, certain, optimistic, hopeful, peaceful) about wanting it, you are in self-alignment. Your emotion is aligned with your desire.
When you want something and feel bad (uncertain, doubtful, undeserving, guilty, ashamed, confused) about it, you are out of self-alignment. Your emotion is misaligned with your desire.
When you know what you want, you feel clarity. When it feels good to know what you want, you are in alignment. This describes every powerful vision of every leader who has ever lived.
You will never extinguish your desire, and you will never be finished wanting more, and so you are wise to get into a good-feeling relationship with this whole business.
2. Aligning Your Three Operating Systems
Human beings have three modes of engaging themselves and the world. I call them the three operating systems:
- your cognitive self (thinking)
- your emotional self (feeling)
- your sensational (somatic) self.
Each of these three operating systems is important, and each has its own language and function. When all three are well understood, well maintained, and well aligned, a person can operate at full capacity with maximum effectiveness and well-being.
Most people, however, are accustomed to relying primarily on just one of these three operating systems or modes, occasionally engaging a second if absolutely necessary, and ignoring the third altogether.
The nature of these three operating systems is that no single one can be used at full potential unless all three are finely tuned and harmonized.
The possibility exists to master all three, and to learn to move comfortably and nimbly between them, using each one intentionally and to maximum benefit, depending upon context and circumstance.
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