Inner Alignment: The Path to Reclaiming Yourself

Alignment, for me, means knowing myself—the fullness of me. Not just the socially acceptable, nice version of me that the world finds easy to love, but the complex, contradictory, fiery, tender, and even repressed parts of me.

It’s about standing in integrity with my truth rather than abandoning myself to please others. It’s about being whole, even when that wholeness feels messy and unruly.

But learning to align with myself didn’t happen overnight.

Redefining What Matters

My parenting journey is where alignment took shape for me. It started with a simple but profound realization: being a good parent wasn’t about fulfilling society’s expectations. It was about seeing, loving, and respecting my children exactly as they were—not as I thought they should be.

When I embraced this definition of good parenthood, everything else—the advice, the rules, the relentless “shoulds”—became noise. I began to see how much of our parenting experience is wrapped up in a parent’s unacknowledged desire for power and control, and how deeply those desires are shaped by our own childhood wounds.

Breaking Free from Power and Control

In redefining what mattered most to me as a parent, one truth became glaringly obvious: much of what the world calls “good parenthood” is deeply entangled with a parent’s use of power and their need for control.

And where does that need for control come from?

For so many of us, it comes from our own unacknowledged childhood wounds. When we were little, we lived in a world where adults wielded power over us—absolute, unyielding power. Our choices were often overridden, our boundaries dismissed, and our emotions suppressed in service of adult expectations.

As powerless children, we absorbed the unspoken message that the only way to survive was to comply. To be “good.”

But that wound doesn’t simply disappear when we grow up. Instead, for many parents, it transforms into a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior. The inner child, still carrying that pain of feeling powerless, flips the narrative:

Finally, I get to be the one on top.

This is how the cycle perpetuates itself. Rather than stepping outside the narrative entirely and recognizing it as a fundamentally broken, trauma-driven story, we repeat it. The wounded inner child within us becomes the parent who demands compliance, control, and “good behavior” from their own children.

And this cycle is reinforced by a culture that equates obedience with success and power with safety. It’s a story that’s comfortable and familiar because it’s the story we’ve always known.

Autistic Burnout: The Breaking Point

The moment this cycle broke for me came during my youngest child’s autistic burnout in the fall of 2020.

For those unfamiliar, autistic burnout isn’t the same as being tired or overwhelmed. It’s a complete collapse—of coping mechanisms, skills, and the ability to engage with the world. It happens when an autistic person is pushed far beyond their limits for far too long, often due to unrelenting demands and a lack of accommodations.

For my child, this looked like a sudden and profound withdrawal from life. He spent almost every hour of every day in his room, lying on his bed or glued to a tablet, watching the same YouTube videos on repeat. He refused to eat most foods, surviving on a diet of a few highly processed and sugary snacks. He couldn’t tolerate being around other people, even his siblings.

He lost skills he’d once had and could no longer participate in any collective activities. He didn’t leave the house for weeks at a time. His trust in me was fragile, and when I tried to push or coax him into doing anything—even leaving his room—it broke completely. He scratched my face, broke objects, and screamed until he collapsed in tears.

To the outside world, this looked like failure. I had failed as a mom.

But to me, this wasn’t a reflection of my failure or his. It was a cry for help—a plea to stop the cycle of power and control that had pushed him to this point.

Choosing a Different Story

For me, stepping out of this narrative wasn’t easy. It required facing the hard truth that I had, in my own way, participated in this cycle. I had pushed my child to stay on the path—society’s path—because I thought that was what a good parent did.

And when that pushing led to my child’s autistic burnout, I had to reckon with the damage I had done. I had to face the fact that my need for control, my insistence on “good behavior,” had broken his trust in me.

That was the moment I chose a different story.

I chose to relinquish power, to step out of the role of “authority” and into the role of ally. I chose to stop using control as a parenting tool and to begin building trust instead.

I made a promise to my child:

I will not force you anymore. If your body says no, I say no. I trust you.

This wasn’t just a promise to my child—it was a promise to myself.

I realized that my definition of good parenthood—seeing, loving, and respecting my children exactly as they are—demanded something bold and wild. It demanded that I step far off the path, not just dipping a pinky toe into unfamiliar territory, but carving a new trail entirely.

The Power of Alignment

This was alignment in its rawest, most terrifying form. It wasn’t neat or polished. It didn’t come with a map or a guidebook. It was messy, vulnerable, and countercultural.

But it was also transformative.

By standing tall in my truth, by choosing to align with what mattered most—my child’s trust and well-being—I found a strength I didn’t know I had. Alignment isn’t just about knowing what matters; it’s about choosing it, fiercely and unapologetically, even when the world pushes back.

When I aligned with myself, I discovered that I could let go of the need for external validation. I no longer needed the world’s approval to feel like a good parent. Instead, I found a deeper, more powerful connection: to myself, to my children, and to the truth of our lives.