What an American automotive company taught me about Alignment and Balance

What an American automotive company taught me about Alignment and Balance.

Over the last moon cycle, I’ve been exploring alignment and balance as it relates to my intuition.

Can you believe that as I was researching these words last week in relation to how I approach life and business, the most informative article I found came from an American automotive company, hereby called CBA? I’ve included the link at the bottom of this article if you want to read it, but I should say here, I am not promoting the company, I’ve had no dealings with them at all - but they do write a very good blog!

Alignment and Balance. As Soulpreneurs we use the words so often. I use the words so often! And as is the way with frequently used words, they fall into use without exploration and these two have piqued my interest. What do they actually mean? How do I know I am in balance or alignment? What is the difference between them? How do I know I am out of balance or out of alignment?

One thing is for sure, they are two separate words, with two separate meanings, however interchangeably I use them.

So, let’s start with alignment. The dictionary defines it as “… arrangement in a straight line or in correct relative positions”

I prefer the CBA definition – It’s about what direction and angle your wheels roll along at. Taking account of your suspension rather than the tyres. Don’t you just love that! Our lives roll along whether we engage with it consciously or not. Conscious alignment allows us to impact the direction and angle that our lives unfold.

Perhaps it’s easier to know what alignment is by being aware of what it isn’t. CBA mentions 3 ways a car can be ‘out of alignment’, Angle, Camber, Caster. Let’s explore these in relation to ourselves.

• CBA defines angle as how tires relate to one another. Translated for me into how the parts of our being relate to one another.

What do I mean by parts of our being? There are so many opportunities here - Physical, emotional, intellectual, energetic, the interplay of all of these … Well, lets take energy. We have 2 extremes of energy Yin and Yang.

• Yin – feminine, soft, gentle, allowance and ‘within’ type energy and
• Yang, masculine, action, purposeful, push and ‘without’ type energy.

Too much Yin we don’t make decisions, we don’t take action we begin to stagnate, we are passive. Too much Yang we put our nervous system into overdrive, we drive so hard we forget to reflect and check our direction potentially arriving somewhere we didn’t mean to go!

• Moving onto Camber now, which is defined by CBA as the lean. How we lean into the direction of the road, swaying left and right. Lean too far in any direction and the car will leave the road, and so it is with us.

Leaning into momentum is an incredible way to propel ourselves forward, but, our journey is rarely a straight line and it’s actually part of our journey to ebb and flow, to speed up and slow down. To respond to the road and the journey.

Nature shows us this in so many ways. Day-time and Night-time. The seasons. The growing cycles. Pregnancy and creating life. Breath in and Breath out.

Leaning too far into one direction to the detriment of another, for example, spending too much time in shadow or too much time in light suppresses this natural ebb and flow

• And then Caster. How the rubber meets the road or how the natural adjustment mechanism works. More specifically what happens when you hit a bump or a pothole.

From a place of alignment, no wheel is too far forward, no wheel too far back, so when the inevitable bumps and potholes of life surprise us, we are able to adjust and respond appropriately. To self-correct, to self-heal or to at least find a place in our tribe or community where we can get the required support. I recently saw it as a call and response mechanism. A two-way call and response of noticing and adjusting.

So that’s alignment covered, our inner suspension. I’m seeing this as my operating system. The framework that joins together our complex interconnecting parts - our head, our heart, our gut instinct, our drive. If any one of these elements dominates or withdraws, we don’t relate to ourselves and our environment from a place of alignment. Perhaps our it’s our whole chakra system, with the meridians working as a feedback loop? Perhaps you see it as something else, how is this translating for you?

Not forgetting that we also need to turn our attention to balance. This is about the tyres themselves, as individuals and as a collective.

The dictionary takes a full page to define balance and all the different uses in the English language. It’s worth looking up. I’ve chosen to share the root words. Middle English (in balance (sense 3 of the noun)): from Old French balance (noun), balancer (verb), based on late Latin (libra) bilanx ‘(balance) having two scale pans’, from bi- ‘twice, having two’ + lanx ‘scale pan’.

When our tyres are out of balance, life doesn’t run smoothly. Too big or too small and the journey will be ‘off kilter’. As with tyres it’s impossible to be perfectly equal in all aspects, we are after all a unique mix of personality, DNA, strengths and weaknesses. However, we do need to ensure we maintain all aspects of our being, supporting our weaknesses as well as indulging in our strengths.

• As an example, lets look at the elemental part of our being. Our Mind (Air), our Body (Earth), our Spirit (Fire) and our Emotions (Water). They are each equal aspects of ourselves, joined by Love. I’m very comfortable in the elements of air and fire, becoming comfortable in the area of water, but actually, not that bothered about my physical body. I mentioned last week that I’m being called as part of my reflection during this second new moon in Cancer which focuses in part on the home, to consider my body as the home of my spirit. To pay more attention to it. To take time for physical self-care. It’s so far out of my comfort zone.
• Or maybe it’s our individual chakras, when we concentrate on one chakra to the exclusion of others, we create an obvious shift in balance. I’m thinking …
  
  > Too much voice vs not enough voice.
  > Too grounded vs too spiritual
  > Overpower(ed) vs overpower(ing)
  > Head vs Heart
  etc
  
  
• Back to the Yin and Yang, too masculine or too feminine. Back to the seasons, too much summer, too much winter. Too much light, not enough light etc
  
  

This concept is close to my heart! I get very frustrated when people promote one way of being to the exclusion of others. Nothing in our being is accidental. Everything has a time and place. There is no hierarchy or domination and no emotion or element of our being that is wrong or needs to be squashed.

Look at what CBA say about bringing a car back into balance.  “The technique uses precision machinery to spin each tire and wheel combo to test to see what spots on a wheel are heavier than others.” I love how balancing not only looks at the elements (or tyre) in isolation but also at the combinations - how they interact with each other, presumably one to one, but also each one to the whole.

And there you have it. Alignment and Balancing. Finally! A way of making this concept real and tangible in my life. They are no longer just words. They now have context and impact for me. I hope you’ve found it helpful too.

Thank you CBA for being so eloquent. Thank you inner wisdom, guides and teachers for showing me the parallels and relating them to Life|Business.