E161: The Misalignment List: Your Path to Radical Self-Trust

Clarity doesn’t always show up neat — sometimes it arrives through the mess. In this episode of Unchartered & Unfiltered: A Journey Back to You, Cynthia shares the raw and magical breakthrough that came from a simple but powerful question:

“Where are you in misalignment?”

Together, we explore:
 ✨ How to spot the difference between alignment and misalignment in your life and leadership.
 ✨ A simple exercise (the “misalignment/action list”) that can shift you back into integrity.
 ✨ The difference between fear and intuition — and why self-trust feels so dangerous in systems built on compliance and overgiving.
 ✨ Why radical self-trust isn’t just personal growth, but a rebellious act of leadership.
 ✨ How to create the conditions for your own breakthrough, instead of waiting for one to arrive.

With stories from Cynthia’s own journey, insights from Debra Landwehr Engle’s Be the Light That You Are, and the embodiment practices she draws from Be the Light toolkits (Power of No Workbook, Balance & Self-Care Toolkit, Career Values Toolkit and Renew You), this conversation is both teaching and coaching in one.

And with an open heart, she invites you community, and within both the FREE or PAID spaces, you’ll walk away with language, practices, and inspiration to stop fixing yourself (you're not broken, you're just disconnected) and start remembering who you are — because your light was never meant to fit into someone else’s dimmer switch.

Listen now and discover why self-trust might just be the most radical act of leadership you’ll ever choose.

With love & light,

Cynthia 

P.S. Want a soundtrack for your own alignment? I’ve put together a Be the Light playlist featuring the Toni Jones tracks and other songs I lean on when I need to tune in and turn up. You’ll find the link in the show notes — consider it your personal soundtrack for self-trust.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Unchartered and Unfiltered
• 2:28 The Misalignment Exercise
• 6:02 Understanding True Alignment
• 9:40 Fear vs. Intuition
• 14:45 The Danger of Self-Trust
• 18:20 Creating Conditions for Breakthrough
• 22:00 Invitation and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Cynthia : 0:06

Welcome to Unchartered and Unfiltered the journey back to you. I am Cynthia Jameson, your host, and this is where we break free from the noise and dive deep into what truly matters you. If you're tired of the shoulds, the expectations and the pressures to fit into a mold that doesn't serve you, you're in the right place. This isn't a podcast about easy answers or sugar-coated advice. This is your invitation to reclaim your path, embrace the unknown and become the bold, unapologetic version of yourself that's been waiting to show up. It's time to get unfiltered. Let's get started. Hello, hello, friends, and welcome back to Unchartered and Unfiltered a journey back to you. I'm your host, cynthia Jamieson, and today I want to invite you into a conversation that is equal parts messy and magical, because I don't know if you've noticed, but clarity doesn't always show up. Neat For me, it often drops through the swirl of noticing my thoughts, of journaling my reactions, of paying attention to the questions that I'm asking my own brain, and I want to share some of that process with you, because inside the mess of all of it, I found a breakthrough for myself. Now let me do a little bit of like setting the scene for you. So last Wednesday at 6am, I attended a masterclass and, yes, I know, I know that some of you are thinking 6am, that is nuts, cynthia. And here's my truth when I find mentors or teachers who stretch my thinking, I show up, no matter the time. I have attended classes from this teacher at 3am, at 4am, at 5am, at 6am, at 3pm, all kinds of days of the week, and this particular morning last Wednesday, this teacher asked one question that changed everything, and it was such a simple question when are you in misalignment? So it was an exercise take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, on the left hand side, write down where you are out of alignment. What she didn't say, but I will add for you is on the right side, turn each one of those areas that you are in misalignment into an action step for yourself. So that became my action list and it's one of the reasons that I'm talking to you today, because it was raw, it was confronting and it was also freeing at once, because I could see the places that I was doubting, the places where I was holding back, the places I was limiting myself, and then I knew exactly what to do, even though my brain, my beautiful brain, loves to tell me all of the time that I don't know what to do. One of the ways that I help myself get out of that is I say okay, then, thank you, brain. I know you're telling me that you don't know what you want to do, or that I could do it, or how I could do it, but also, what is it? I do know how can I go about this. What would be one small step? And so I just want to pause here for a moment, because if you were to grab a piece of paper and I invite you to, unless you're driving what would go in your misalignment column?

Cynthia : 3:45

Maybe, if it's your job, where you say yes when your gut is screaming at you no, or your body is telling you no, it could be your body. Maybe you're ignoring some exhaustion that coffee can't fix. Listen, hand on heart, been there, done that, I get it. Maybe it's your calendar, right, stacked so high that you look at your calendar and you think who made all these commitments? And then, oh yeah, it was me, it was me, I did that. Whatever the case, when you create this list, notice what bubbles up, because that's the wisdom. That's where alignment is waiting for you Now.

Cynthia : 4:31

I think it might be important for those of you who don't know maybe this is new to you, but here's how I define alignment for myself is the integrity between your inner world and your outer actions. So for me, it is when my values, my energy and my choices are in harmony with how I live, how I lead, how I create, how I put my work out in the world. And it's also when my sacral response, aka my gut instinct now, by human design I've shared this before I'm a manifesting generator and what that means is that when my gut instinct matches my inner compass of truth, of freedom, of ethics, of contribution and authenticity, my outer expression reflects that. So when I'm a, when I am aligned, I feel calm, a calm confidence. I don't strive. I feel freedom instead of obligation, my energy flows instead of leaks. I feel whole. I don't feel like I'm split between the private me and the public me. I feel like I am the same congruent, aligned human being. And for me, when I am out of alignment, I overgive, I bend myself into compliance, I say yes when I mean no, and I trade authenticity for approval. And I always know it by how I feel. I always know it by how I feel.

Cynthia : 6:10

So as I sat with this, I came back to a line in a book that I have been reading that is called Be the Light that you Are, that you are, and it's by Deborah, if I can say her name correctly Landwehr L-A-N-D-W-E-H-R Engel, deborah Landwehr Engel. She writes I think it's in chapter one or chapter two resistance the argument for evidence of brokenness can't alter the truth, and here's what I love about that so much, because the truth of the matter is we are each a holographic image of the divine, a mirror of source, and alignment is simply when our inner truth and outer expression line up. When we show up as a mirror, not a mask, we're showing up in the truth and the fullness of who we are. We're not hiding, we're not shrinking, we're not fitting in. We are showing up in our fullest expression, our fullest frequency, and what I want to offer is let's have a little bit of a conversation about like fear versus intuition here, because let's try this together.

Cynthia : 7:32

I want to invite you to think of a recent decision that you have made, where and again we're going to invite blame and shame and all of those different pieces of you to sit in the peanut gallery for a moment and think about this recent decision where fear was running the show. Now fear might have sounded like what if I fail? What if they don't like me, what if I'm not ready? And I want you to contrast that with your intuition, because your intuition usually whispers something quieter to you Like this way, you know what to do, it's all going to work out, you're going to be okay. And so you might ask yourself where, right now, can I experiment with listening to the whisper instead of the shout, listening to what is within you instead of the noise of what is outside of you.

Cynthia : 8:37

So, for me, one of the clearest misalignments shows up in my own leadership Times when I didn't challenge a client because I was afraid to rock their boat. Times when I spiraled into doubt, convincing myself that I didn't know enough. But here's what I noticed I always know when I'm out of integrity. It's not subtle, it feels so heavy and it feels like anxiety and it feels draining. And integrity really matters because, at the end of the day, meaning and integrity really matters because, at the end of the day, I go to bed with me and what I think of me matters more than anyone else's approval. And I just want to take a moment and acknowledge how much, how much work that I have done to get to that place where I can actually say that what I think about me means so much more than what someone else thinks about me. And this may feel like a bit of a caveat, but I think it's super important because I'm just being reminded of.

Cynthia : 9:51

I listened to Tony Jones, and one of the ways that I come back into alignment is through music, and especially through Tony Jones, and her music reminds me, in rhythm, what I already know, what my intuition knows, what my soul knows, what my heart knows, and that is alignment, is a frequency. So it's a frequency that I feel that self-trust is dangerous in systems built on silence and that celebrating myself is sovereignty. And that's one of the things that I love about the work that I do with my clients is most all of them I think almost like 99.9% of them when I start working with them haven't stopped long enough to celebrate something, and celebration feels so good in my body. I celebrate in my life. I'm always thinking about my husband and I are always talking about and thinking about like what is it that we're celebrating? What is it that we're appreciating, what is it that we're being grateful for in the moment? And while those are different things, it comes back to me as the act of celebrating all of those things that we have created in the life that we're living and leading, and Tony's music also reminds me that growth can be soulful and sassy right. Like you know, there's a mix of different things that are available to us and her affirmations a lot of her songs are affirmations in song, but they're not just words, they're vibrations, and they shift me back into my body, which is where my intuition lives. And because being the light doesn't mean dimming down, it means tuning in and turning up.

Cynthia : 11:50

I have really been leaning into her songs and I will actually last week. If you're on my email list, you would have received this last week, which is a playlist of the songs that I have been leaning on as I created the Be the Light community and I hadn't shared it as part of the podcast last week, but I will share it this week. I will also share a link to the book because I think you can get a sense if you haven't heard her before. You can get a sense of what her work can help you do, and one of the songs. I was just listening to it yesterday and she says in the song, you know, there's a whole lot of who do you think, or who do I think I am, and she goes on to sing about how no one gives more thought to who do I think I am than I do, because that is the work that we do, and so that's an example of one of the songs that I have listened to as I've created be the light, and so you're welcome, I think you'll. I think you will really, really love it. And to bring you, bring us back here.

Cynthia : 13:02

This brings me back to the provocative thought, which is why is self trust so dangerous? And I think I mean I'm already hearing one of my teachers in my ear and I just want to take a moment and thank all of the teachers that have helped me to get to where I am, because without them I wouldn't be here, and I'm just so grateful for that. And also one of the things about self-trust, about your intuition that this is one of the things my teacher shares If your body is dysregulated, if you are in fight, flight, freeze or appease, it may not be your intuition that you're hearing, because you are not in the state where you can hear your intuitive whispers, nudges, thoughts, and so that ties in so beautifully with the work that I do with my clients and the work that we're doing in Be the Light which is really around, not only noticing the parts of you that sabotage you, that keep you or take you out of alignment, but also to really work that sage muscle to be able to bring you into that regulated state so that you can hear your own intuition and the reason why self-trust is so dangerous. That's the first reason, because if you lean into self-trust in a dysregulated system, because if you lean into self-trust in a dysregulated system, you will make choices that aren't in your best favor, from a place of fear versus a place of love, and this is something that isn't my concept. That's my teacher's concept. Her name is Dr Rikki Jane Adams. She is the founder of the Institute for Intuitive Intelligence. She's amazing and if you're on Instagram, she shares many, many provocative thoughts, which I really enjoy to provoke my brain into thinking into a different way.

Cynthia : 15:08

And so this is the learning that I came to the nugget of this teaching of hers last week because self-trust, when I think about what is the thing that I have been learning my entire life. It has been to trust myself, because I have been taught to trust things, people, systems outside of me, versus me, no one trusts. Nobody taught me how to trust myself, and I think that's I mean. I have so many thoughts about that, and where I want to land here is to say that the systems that we are in that rely on our overgiving, on our compliance, on our silence. Self-trust threatens that, and, at the same time, self-trust is the antidote to burnout. How do I know? I know this because I've experienced my own burnout and because my work, my lesson, my life, my soul came here to like. Learn is how to trust myself. Only by trusting myself was I able to walk myself out of the burnout into a more like a beautiful life that I love so much, and I think that's so beautiful. So, anytime, here's what I've learned about this Every time, each and every time, you override your knowing, you hand your power away.

Cynthia : 16:46

Time, each and every time you override your knowing, you hand your power away, and when you anchor into your knowing, you reclaim your power. And so I really been thinking about this and I'm realizing like this, like I said, this is messy, messy and magical. Self trust is a rebellion, it is a strategy and it is radical leadership. When you trust yourself, you will say no to things that do not serve you or do not serve the greater good. When you trust yourself, you don't keep going with the laptop forever. You will go out and you will get the rest. Your body will remind you what it is you need to give it to yourself, and so I invite you now to think about, like ask yourself, where in your life would trusting yourself feel rebellious in like the best possible way? Maybe it's saying no to a project that you would normally take on just to prove yourself. Maybe it's speaking up in a meeting when you would usually stay silent. Maybe it's letting yourself rest without guilt, and I can already hear some of you thinking but, cynthia, if I do that, people will think that I'm selfish, people will think that I'm lazy, or people will think that I'm too much. And here's my response Let them and maybe that's exactly the conditioning that you came here to break for yourself. And so here's the shift for me this week.

Cynthia : 18:25

Breakthroughs aren't accidents. They happen when you create the conditions for them, and my conditions look like devotion practices, and what I mean by that specifically is my running schedule, my breath, work, my meditation, my regulation, my spending a half an hour in silence, solitude. Each day, my conditions look like meeting fear and naming it instead of numbing it, and I meet my fear every day. My teacher talks about this in the in in this way. You have to be willing to sweat for God. That's what it is. You just have to be willing to sweat for God. That's what it is. You just have to be willing to sweat for God and do the work. Get over yourself and just do the work. Conditions for me look like getting coached instead of pushing harder alone. Conditions look like choosing consciously between what drains me and what lights me up, and the real shift is that I have stopped trying to fix myself as if something was broken. There was nothing broken. The thing that was happening is I was disconnected from myself and I've started remembering who I am underneath all of that noise, and that's when the clarity came in.

Cynthia : 19:49

So here's what I want to say about that Inside of Be the Light. This is exactly what our lanterns, our toolkits, our self-directed resources are four, and I'm not going to talk about them all, but the balance and self-care toolkit like that will help you see where your energy is leaking so that you can redistribute it toward what truly matters. And it's a practical lens on alignment. It guides you back to practices that regulate your body, your mind, so that you can respond from clarity instead of depletion. The Renew you program is like a reset button, helping you pause, reflect and reset patterns that keep pulling you out of alignment. And it's not about becoming someone new. It is about remembering yourself, your power, your light, your sovereignty. And these aren't random worksheets. I've mentioned them before as lanterns. That's what they are, and I love this analogy so much because they really allow you to shine a light on where your breakthrough is already waiting for you. And so with that, here's the invitation Grab a piece of paper, make your misalignment list and turn it into an action list.

Cynthia : 21:15

Let yourself see in black and white where your inner world and your outer world are out of sync. And then don't do it alone. Come into the Be the Light inside of the free and paid spaces, doesn't matter which space. You will find connection, you will find tools, you will find reflection practices that will help you build radical self-trust. I can promise you it will change your life, Even if you only choose the free community. If you allow it, it will change your life, because your light was never meant to fit into someone else's dimmer switch. It was always meant to shine.

Cynthia : 22:00

And with that, I want to say thank you for being here, for walking this messy and magical journey with me, and until next time, friends, keep leading from within, take care and make it a magical week. I hope that you're walking away feeling more aligned with your true self, more confident in the choices ahead and ready to leave the safe path behind, knowing you've got everything you need within. Remember, the journey to you isn't about finding one perfect direction. It's about trusting yourself enough to explore all of it. If you're ready to dive deeper, join me for the next episode and don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss the next step on your path. I invite you to join my mailing list at wwwcynthiajamesoncoachca, where we'll deepen our relationship and you can claim your copy of your Inner Compass, a guide to charting your course to authenticity. Until next time, stay unfiltered, stay true and, most importantly, stay you.