Friday, December 2, 2016

Living In Alignment (Part 1)

*This is the first of several pieces I plan to write here on my blog which may also appear on the 320 Coach blog.* 

Living in Alignment - An Introduction

A couple months ago I was in a fairly serious car accident.  My son, Colin, and I were at a near standstill in rush hour traffic when we were rear-ended by a Ford Fusion at about 65 MPH!  It felt like our whole car exploded.  As we were almost instantly sent flying into the car in front of us, our front airbags deployed and we did a one-eighty.  Within a half-second, we were left facing backward on the highway, car filled with the dust from the airbag and the horn blaring continuously.  It was pretty much like a scene out of a movie. Thankfully and miraculously, neither Colin nor I were seriously hurt.  I had some bruises and a weird burn all the way down my left arm and was extremely sore for a few days and Colin hurt his thumb.  I think his airbag caught it on the way out.

Although we were both alright, we wanted to get checked out.  We saw a doctor who thought we were fine, but he suggested we go see our chiropractor too.  The next week, we were at the chiropractor and Colin was asking how the chiropractor fixes your back and neck.  I explained it this way.  He doesn't actually fix your back or neck, he aligns it.  If it was truly damaged (broken bone, torn ligament, etc) you would not want him to touch it.  However, what usually happens is the vertebrae, which are pretty free to move and pivot, sometimes move and pivot in a way that gets out of alignment.  When they get misaligned, they put pressure on a nerve and this is where you get the proverbial "pain in the neck" or back or whatever,  So, as I explained to Colin, when the chiropractor realigns those vertebrae, it allows your body to achieve the natural state of health it was designed for in the first place.  Misalignment = pain.  Alignment = fully functional.

That conversation got me thinking about other types of alignment.  Shift with me now.  I'm no longer talking about physical alignment in your body.  Let's think bigger than that.  What other types of alignment are there?  What else needs to see proper alignment in order to avoid pain and be fully functional?  I can think of a few and I plan to give you some more specific and in-depth thoughts about what these particular types of alignment may look like and how you can achieve them in your life.  But those are in the future.  For today, let me just share with you the types of alignment I want to cover in the coming weeks.
  1. Personal - Do you know yourself?  Most people don't.  Until you do the work to get to know yourself, you'll be misaligned in many of the specific areas we'll hit on in the coming weeks. 
  2. Vocational - You are gifted and well-suited for certain types of work in certain fields.  If you hate your job, it's probably not because the job is so bad.  You are probably misaligned.
  3. Family - Famiy dynamics are tough to figure out.  Most often, we assume our famiy members should be just like us and we try to fit them into that mold.  That's misalignment and conflict ensues.
  4. Geographic - Do you live in a place that feeds your soul?  We don't think about this much, but I'm looking forward to exporing how geographical alignment can be a game-changer for you.
  5. Spiritual - There are many different churches and communities of faith with many different doctrines and cultures.  If you're not in one that fits, you're misaligned.  You'll want to blame the church, but it's probably just a bad fit.
I hope this has sparked some new thoughts for you.  My plan is to write five more posts specifically exploring each of the five misalignments I listed above.  Are there other areas where alignment is vital?  I'd love to hear from you.  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.  

2 comments:

Unknown said...

looking forward to your take on these.. If I may add .. Dont forget Social alignment.. I see a lot of folks that put themselves in awkward and uncomfortable places to "be part of the crowd" particularly with co-workers and so called friends.. Need to learn how to say nope not my kinda place.. We need to be able to define which encounters are for a season and which are for the long run..IMHO

Jason Fitch said...

Great idea, David. Thanks.