Understanding Alignment | Part 3

So if you’ve been following along this “Understanding Alignment” series, welcome back and I hope you enjoy the final segment of the series!

For those who are just catching this post, let me highlight a few things from the previous 2:

1. My late 20’s were significant to my maturation as they were the years where I’d first experienced what it meant to be misaligned professionally, romantically, financially & spiritually.

2. I had been having a hard time aligning my passion for language education with the right job choice.

3. On top of not feeling professionally settled, I’d purchased a condo that was WAY more than I could afford so I was struggling financially.

4. I was in a very toxic relationship but after 2.5 years, I was finally gaining the courage to walk away.

<< How I was able to leave >>

Looking back, one of the best things to come out that relationship was the fact that I’d taken the leap to start my own business. The process of launching World English Tutor, LLC was a strategic one that spanned about a year until September 2014, when I was finally working for myself full-time. I had established a small, yet stable client base of professionals from all over the world to whom I was providing private ESL tutoring. Shortly afterwards, I completed my grad school program in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) so professionally, things were finally starting to make sense. PRAISE BE!

Upon learning that my student loans would kick in 6 months after graduating, I made the very tough decision to sell my condo and move into an apartment in the city (Washington, D.C. to be exact). I knew that to most, it was unwise to sell the condo so soon after purchasing it but I had to do what I felt was best. I had to make that sacrifice so that I could finally, at nearly 30 years old, feel some sense of financial freedom.

I was slowly but surely establishing a real sense of confidence as a young business owner and I was finally beginning to see not only who I was but what I was capable of. Hell...there was really something to be said for the fact that I had singlehandedly launched a thriving small business where I could teach what I wanted, how I wanted all before I was even 28 years old. As I was finally beginning to acknowledge my own worth professionally, on a persona level, I was simultaneously beginning to confront the reality that my relationship was no longer serving me. I'd broken free from the professional constraints of working for other people and the financial restraints of living in that condo which meant that for the first time in my entire life

I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LIFE I WAS LIVING.

I’d taken my x-boyfriend back for the last time when I found myself, in my new apartment filled with new + positive energy, repeating old habits of looking through his phone. Of course I found something I believed to be suspicious and began to question him about the conversation I’d read. He insisted it was nothing while I insisted that it was and around and around we went avoiding the real truth which was that this relationship was coming to an end.

You know how folks say "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired"?

Well, truer words have never been spoken.

I was tired of being cheated on.

I was tired of being lied to.

I was tired of questioning everything.

I was tired of my suspicion being mistaken for jealousy.

I was just so tired of pretending as if there was a future when everything was screaming that there wasn't.

I’d had enough and I finally pulled the trigger and left him.

Having the courage to walk away released me from the most toxic relationship of my life and introduced to the most rewarding one with myself and it was then that everything changed.

<< Resisting the urge to go back >>

My weight was coming down, my locs were flourishing (I’d graduated to the teenage stage + had achieved some real growth over the years), my business was successful, I was making “good” money & I was finally reconnecting with friends.

I couldn’t go back. I’d be doing myself the biggest disservice because I’d prayed long and hard for what I was finally experiencing; the freedom, the flexibility, the independence & the JOY. Going back to him would have been the biggest slap in the face to not only myself but to the Universe and the ancestors who were guiding me towards the life that was divinely intended for me.

<< Releasing fear of being single again >>

I literally said to myself a few days after breaking up with him that I’d rather be single and happy than in a relationship and miserable. This is largely because I’d finally experienced what it meant to be truly happy on my own and I wasn’t willing to compromise that ever again for the mere satisfaction of saying I was in a relationship. I'd spent years and years of my life entertaining the energy of other men merely because I wasn't clear about what I wanted from a partner nor more importantly, what I deserved.

I actually found joy in being single because it gave me time to take inventory of my own faults and mistakes that I'd made in the relationship as well. What I discovered was:

1. Given that I had little to no real self-esteem going into the relationship, I didn't really see myself and as a result, I couldn't identify what I truly needed, wanted or deserved from a partner.

2. For years, if not decades, I was in very dependent relationships with family, friends and men. I’d depended on this particular relationship to fill all the areas of my life that I was too scared to confront. I’d depended on this relationship to bring me joy and each time that it didn’t, I became increasingly more obsessed with figuring out ways to make it joy-filled.

3. I’d been uncomfortable with the idea of being alone because for me, being alone equated being lonely. Being alone also meant confronting some dark issues within myself and holding myself accountable for repeated mistakes of my past. Being so uncomfortable alone is what made me yearn for his company despite how unhealthy our shared energies were.

By the time I’d walked away, I’d confronted and made peace with these aspects of my past. I had transformed out of that old Bree into a woman who not only wasn’t afraid to be alone but actually prioritized her alone time. This new Bree loved herself so deeply that no man, nor friend nor family member would ever jeopardize or compromise the relationship that she maintained with herself.

I’d prayed for financial freedom, professional prosperity and joyful abundance and whether there was a man to share that with or not,

I was finally free. I was finally aligned.

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