You're Not Out of Alignment—You're Dysregulated

Ep 156.  True Alignment Begins Before Action

"Alignment" has become one of the most popular words in personal development, leadership, entrepreneurship, and self-improvement. It appears everywhere—from motivational videos to business coaching, productivity systems, and social media.

Yet the more the word is used, the more its original meaning is often lost.

True alignment is not simply positive thinking.

It is not wishful manifestation.

It is not repeating affirmations.

Alignment begins with the condition of the nervous system.

We live in an age of unlimited information. Never before has humanity had such immediate access to knowledge. Every day we consume books, podcasts, videos, articles, courses, and social media designed to help us improve our lives.

Yet information alone rarely creates transformation.

Modern culture has become remarkably efficient at acquiring information, while becoming less practiced at converting knowledge into lived experience.

Ancient traditions understood this distinction long before neuroscience began describing it.

Classical Chinese philosophy and martial traditions recognized the profound relationship between Xin (Heart-Mind) and Yi (Intent).

Intent was never viewed as merely thinking positively.

Intent emerged from an integrated internal state.

When the body, mind, emotion, and attention were aligned, action became efficient, purposeful, and skillful.

Modern neuroscience is beginning to describe the same principle.

When stress overwhelms the nervous system, perception narrows.

Attention fragments.

Decision-making becomes reactive.

Visualization weakens.

Predictions become less accurate.

The future becomes difficult to imagine with clarity because survival takes priority over creativity.

In other words...

When physiology becomes dysregulated, intention becomes clouded.

Clear intention requires a regulated nervous system.

This is why the Running Man Human Stress Model begins with physiology before psychology.

A regulated body creates the conditions for clear thinking.

Clear thinking strengthens intention.

Purposeful intention guides effective action.

Repeated skillful action becomes embodied wisdom.

Information becomes experience.

Experience becomes transformation.

Transformation becomes identity.

True alignment is therefore not something we discover.

It is something we cultivate.

It is the progressive integration of physiology, perception, intention, action, and character.

The goal is not simply to know more.

The goal is to become more.

Train your nervous system.

Clarify your intention.

Align your actions.

Become the person your highest intentions have always been pointing toward.

Take care.

Walk well.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Welcome back, folks, to episode 156 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in health psychology, licensed professional counselor, and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today has to do with what the Chinese call some ye, a heart mind. And this really comes down to two things, and that is alignment. And uh the what type of alignment am I talking about generally in principle how I live my life, but also how I do things. So it has to do with the alignment of mind, body, and speech, or thought, word, and deed, and we'll start the discussion there. So the principle of some ye or heart mind uh generally is mystified in the martial arts sometimes, but uh in a very practical sense what it is, um it's not something that's just about martial art but also philosophy, practice, uh things that we do practically with our our bodies, whether it be our labors or whenever we intend to do things or uh even exchange with people, whatever it is that our intentions are uh tend to shape what it is that we do. So uh the term jing uh or shape can also be called element. Um and I'm of course going phonetically and maybe not accurately, but the point is that uh whatever it is that precedes our action is our intention. And much of what I do in this podcast when I'm teaching self-regulatory skills and make a very distinct point of uh the fact that whenever we see visually the recollection of the lemon, once again, that infernal lemon, that's my example that every time I remember a lemon I I salivate uh that trips is across my mind screen in such a flash that uh it is not only quick, but maybe even pre-conscious in the sense that I don't actually see a discrete lemon unless I'm really trying to slow the image down intentionally with the desire of seeing a lemon. But whenever I do a recollection of lemon, it's at a lower part of our brain that's pre-verbal. And the occipital region that deals with incoming visual signal in the back of our brain, so to speak, uh, that is where the signal gets interpreted after it crosses the optic chiasm coming in through the eyes uh near the base of the brain. So why is this important? Because that signal is incredibly fast, and much of some ye or what we call heart mind has to do with how we see things and then our body responding. Now we think about it, uh, whenever we see something, and there are people that are very quick to respond based on what they think, and sometimes we call these impulses, and people that struggle with impulsivity tend to not have that social filter, and it's kind of unrealistic to expect them to have one because the social filter kind of exists after the visual mind and the body signal. Now, if we slow it down, yes, we can intend, we can stop before we do. That's whenever we're doing prefrontal cortical, my assumption of safety in the environment is met moment to moment. And yes, I can control my eye blink, for instance, even my breathing that are autonomic. But most of the things that we are talking about right now have to do with whenever I intend to do things, and I still have that cognitive process top-down, basically slow thinking to control the fast reacting part of our body by virtue of intention, what I want to do, so to speak. So why is this important? Well, in self-regulatory skills, it is incredibly important because we're trying to impose a top-down methodology to control a bottom-up system that is in its best of minds trying to protect us at all times, and that creates hesitation whenever we want to approach things that may be new or novel or something that falls within the in quotes of the unknown that may be potentially scary to us. And now the running band model is not top-down. It is one wherever we embrace the fact that yes, we do have that reactivity, but by virtue of time, and that is a cognitive process, meaning I know I need to prepare myself and practice, I condition myself to respond in a better way. So that way, whenever the bottom-up reactivity comes up, I have a better chance of controlling that because I've been in this space before, wherever I can manage the beginnings of the symptomology of stress. Maybe not the event per se, but the commonality here, not unlike PTSD. Whenever there is pain and all pain memories come together and they tend to unload on us at the same time simply because they're painful, not because they were alike in whatever event occurred on the outside of my body, but rather the fact that they were uncomfortable. The discomfort is the evidence, that's the hypervigilant heart rate, breathing, tension, and the glucocorticoids that start coursing through our blood and including cortisol, that is actually quite inflammatory to us. All of that stuff happens at a moment without our intention. We can't really say, okay, I want a little less cortisol and cut back on the glucocorticoids and the glucose dropping right now and chill out on the adrenaline. It'd be nice if we could, just like little switches or dials, just turn them down or turn them off. That'd be really nice, but but we don't. But we do understand that systemically our body responds as a whole. And once we rev the engine, the engine will continue to rev because once the adrenaline's in the system, we're talking about 48 to 72 hours once the cortisone, cortisol, and all of that stuff, those are hormones that need to get cooked off, neurotransmitters as well. Um, that takes time. Just like a meal, we have to digest it. Unfortunately, adrenaline stays in the system, shuts off our oxytocin, meaning our bonding capacity goes away. And it is very relative to what we're talking about right now because that affects the quality of not only what I'm doing, but the relationships that I'm having. But on top of that, it makes me less apt to feel what it is I need to feel, the payoff, so to speak, that tells me I'm doing the right thing sometimes. So it can make things look not only a little gray, but make this feel really disconnect disconnected and distant. So this is where the next part of the conversation goes. Whenever we're thinking about our intention and the heart has to do with how our body feels, okay, based on what I'm intending and whether or not I feel that projected sense of I'm gonna get payoff from this, and that's our hedonic drive. That's our basic survival self saying, okay, this is worth it. I might feel good after the fact. And the feel good may be very simple. I didn't get eaten, I didn't drown, I didn't get hurt, and sometimes it's not about pleasure wherever we're having this hypergasmic peak of enjoyment, but rather wherever we're experiencing just no pain, just survival compared to experiencing pain and death. And uh those things may seem incredibly extreme, but they're really incredibly practical, useful, and help to become better survivors in the moment. So these are some important ideas that we're working with today. So I'm going to give some examples of what the heart-mind intention looks like whenever we're shaping our actions, our behaviors out in this world, whether it be interpersonal or business or martial in the sense that you're protecting yourself and running or hiding this sort of thing. What is it that's occurring first? And that is at my intentions. I'm taking in information from my environment, and my intentions are to navigate it well. If I'm in the street at night and my car broke down and I don't see anybody out there but it's dark and I only see streetlights, yeah, the hackles on my neck will go up and I will be scanning left to right and looking, and chances are my shoulders are going to be rounding forward, and it's gonna be kind of hard to walk confidently if you're not familiar, especially if you're not technically a fighter, this sort of thing. And most of us are not, and that's okay. But um inherently we do have one that is a fighter within us, and uh we can be that, but that doesn't mean bravado and acting as if, but walking confidently and comfortably requires some self-regulation as well, because what if the fear is kicking in and that unknown is scary? And what if we maybe have our children with us or a child and we have to walk through this neighborhood to get to the nearest convenience store that may be a quarter mile up that I see, but I'm not there, and my car is being left behind, and that's some huge vulnerability. Now, why would I use this paradigm? Because sometimes it drives the point home versus just our day-to-day moment to moment. But how does our thought shape our behavior? I just kind of gave you an example of the fact that we can walk with confidence and not be doing bravado and beating our chests and trying to look as if we're stronger than what we are. That's salesmanship. That is actually a convincer strategy that I want people to believe that I am more dangerous than I am so they can stay away. That's what nature does. Nature does what? Just like a skunk. It has a white stripe that gets the attention of those creatures that many have black and white vision, but they note that I'm not supposed to mess with that because it's dark colored, just like really bright colored bugs and little frogs in the jungle. You're not supposed to touch them. Because if they're bright and they're not camouflaged, that means you better pay attention and don't eat them because chances are you're gonna get sick and die. And very much we do very similar things. We're not so far from that. But on top of that, it's also a dual convincer strategy in that I'm also probably trying to convince myself that I can do this. Not only am I trying to demonstrate I'm more than you can handle, I'm also trying to tell myself that I am more than they can handle as well, which often is how things come off in a social paradigm, especially whenever people are showing off. And we're understanding that the social scheme, once again, we're walking above that level, knowing that, you know, the deep dark underbelly of survivability can happen suddenly, violently, and in a scary sense, uh, occur within a fraction of a moment. And especially whenever I'm getting along to get along, people may oversell it a bit, especially if they're insecure. And insecurities can manifest as not only as insecurities about myself, but my ability to perform or protect myself and do things that I need to do to be a better survivor of this sort of thing, or even then to be able to overcome or maybe avert a potential circumstance, not being a victim. And uh those are important things. Now, whenever we're looking at the idea of alignment of body-mind speech, the body-mind are gonna precede our speech way before. And we've talked about the percentage of body language. The influence of any message is 50% body language, 43% total, and 7% words, and the alignments that we have pretty much follow that same percentage in that our body and our our mind, the heart mind, are the intention part of uh what it is that we do uh are going to be the largest influences. The one that influences the most from the outside is how we act, how we show up, and tonal secondarily, but uh our mind that exists within that space, within the tonals and how we show up in shape, and also the words that we speak is never spoken of because we haven't separated that. But that in the Chinese martial arts, a principle of heart mind of some of intention is incredibly important because if we understand that our mind and how we intend, and our mind isn't what I'm thinking academically, what my IQ is, but rather what is it that I'm seeing as goal. Can I envision that? This is the part that we're talking about, mind, um, in a sense that I can see what I want and then I can decide and act and organize in the direction that would acquire what I want, for instance, if it's an acquisition, or to do what I need to do, if it's a movement I must do, like maybe duck while somebody's trying to hit me, or even for that matter, picking something up off of the ground. Oh, there's a dollar. And when we shape our action, our intention is preceded by our capacity, and I don't want to say visualization, but in a visual sense wherever there is a visual quality that allows us to perceive what's going on outside and also decide whether or not, hedonically speaking, it's gonna benefit me, or I have to avert it by getting away, because I that's not a dollar, that's a skunk. And I better not get next to that because it's not gonna fatten my wallet, but it's gonna make me smell really bad if it doesn't like me. So that kind of thing where we're going to weigh consequences. But the heart-mind concept, very important because when it comes to self-regulatory skill, we are perpetually self-regulating throughout our environment moment to moment. It's not just a self-help concept, that it's not just let's deal with the stress and anxiety and whatever PTSD symptoms I may be experiencing. And I'm not saying that flippantly, it's just that often we run through a life not knowing the tools that we're actuating in our life moment to moment, and actually some of that we don't have to be taught. We see children, infants that are just barely getting to the point where they can crawl and walk, where they see and they reach out and start touching things. There is no social filter there, what's right, what's not. Often many a bug have fallen to to the hands and mouths of babes when they're still crawling, and uh they're basically in a feeding cycle, say, hey, that looks like food, let's taste that. And they can't tell whether or not it's good or bad for them. And uh I've seen a couple of crickets go down the pipes that way, and uh, well, at the time when I was seeing it, it was oh not cool. I kind of laughed because I had a uh the biologist hark within me sometimes, and kiddos were crawling around with a little cricket leg sticking out of their mouth, and that's not abusing children, that's children doing what they do. I say children, babies doing what they do, and that's hunt. We're wired to survive somehow, and yet, you know, whenever they do their first kill, so to speak, and I'm saying this jokingly, um mom's freaking out like, oh my god, oh my god, don't let them eat bugs. Well, it's not like we're letting them do that. They they kind of caught it before we could catch them, and not that we're gonna feed that to them, but you understand uh we are wired and we have these tools that we deal with that often we don't differentiate enough. And in the in the traditional Chinese medical model, and actually the Chinese martial arts in particular, the idea of ye or I is how it's spelled in the books, um, is pronounced ye is intention. But the intention is the heart mind, the the the connection of what we intend and also the feelings that arise as a result of the compelling nature, that lemon I was talking about, so much that our body physically changes by dropping pituitary home. And in this case, and I'm salivating, or I have gastric juices flowing, I start getting the grumbly stomach, even though maybe I've eaten, but yet the image is compelling enough to tell my body, okay, you need to respond, there's food, time to digest. And it's not thinking it discreetly, I'm just adding narrative and words to that, but it happens in the sense that our body believes it and it starts to ramp up. How often does this happen when we have stress or fear? If I've gone through an event that's not only scary but painful, traumatic, or one that caused me anxiety and worry and loss, how real is that? Well, it may not be happening again. So, in the sense of it being objectively real existing in my environment outside of me and me going through that event again? No, not happening. But it's real in the sense that the reactivity that occurs in your body, that is real. That is happening. It doesn't have to be objectively occurring where I can physically shape it, touch it, or maybe even stop it if I need to, because if I had wisdom, I wouldn't allow that to happen again. And that often has a lot to do with why we tend to not only generalize how we react to stress, but also how we may hyper-react and over-respond to things. And then people don't understand why I'm sensitive, in quotes, to that, when in actuality my body's just saying, uh-uh, I'm not gonna hurt like that again. And if anything, your body has grown wise by that experience, by the conditioning, by the practice of even if it's just when one time, not gonna do that again. And if it's a chronic perpetual stress, our body starts to feel very overwhelmed, sometimes angry, irritable. And this is where we start seeing the beginnings of what is called learned helplessness. Learned helplessness in animals, they don't get away from the shock and cage, they just lay there because they know it's gonna be over at some point, they just endure it. And their bodies start to show signs of that kind of stress and giving up in hopelessness, they won't even leave, even though the door may be open to the cage. They just they they've been shown that they can't get away from it and they've conditioned to the point that they don't try to get away from it anymore. So the survival capacity has gone down. Now, this is something that happens to us whenever we are in an environment and we're overwhelmed by things that we have to do, our connections to job, family, and what I want to do and self-image, and all those things that we think are really important, they start to overwhelm us. When we get that sense of overwhelm, then we have a sense of problematic survival and that I'm still here, I'm existing, but it becomes meaningless and pointless because there's no payoff. And this is where our body has become depressive, and therefore, while we're depressing, not by intention, but rather by conditioning, feeling like there's no way out, feeling overwhelmed, like I can't get away from this, this is where we start getting depressive thoughts. This is where we start having that giving up quality, or that sense of there's no point, I can't do anything to overcome it. That's where our intention has shaped our action in the sense that we no longer even try. We can't even entertain the idea without it becoming painful because I've become so familiar with the discomfort and the uncomfortableness of being in that depressive I I've given up and and that state of helplessness that there is no hope that is provided that can shape a different opportunity within my own mind. This is where we can help each other out. And and this is where sometimes we go to a therapist, a counselor, or a friend, or a confidant or somebody, where we start seeking the possibility in other people because we don't see it in ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay for us to know that we've gotten to the end of our rope, so to speak, that I don't know I no longer know anything. It's okay. But that's also the most powerful place to be. And uh sometimes whenever in the martial arts we talk about, you know, white belt is the most powerful position to be in, it is because you learn and you're teachable and you come into things with not knowing what to do. And sometimes we've got to be able to put down what we know to be able to embrace what it is we don't. And sometimes new knowledge we will realize once we learn it, actually attaches to the stuff that we already know already, and it becomes connected and and empowered, and this is how we can actually do things in our own unique way once we can do that. But sometimes we have to realize that the depressive quality is a very real physical thing when we feel like we can't get away. Now, what does the heart mind and alignment and mind-body and speech and thought, word, and deed have to do with anything involved in self-regulation? Well, it has a lot to do with self-regulation in that while we're doing it, we are regulating ourselves. As we're doing it, it is a self-regulation methodology, how we intend and and can imagine what it is that we're doing so that we can shape what it is that we want to do or become in the future or the direction we want to go, or even an accomplishment is affected by what it is that I am regulating, and that is my stress, that is my fear, that is my belief, the belief that arises from the evidence of my discomfort, not the evidence in the event that's going on in front of me, because it could be a recollection that is holding me back, but the heart mind, that intention and the feelings that come together that we tend to lump together as one thing. And this is where the words I can't get really powerful. I don't like speaking those words out loud because at the same time I know that the inverse is I can, and I can means oh, that means work. And sometimes whenever I'm feeling like I don't have energy, yeah, it is work and it feels like extra effort. I will give you a very distinct example. I was going to podcast to this episode yesterday. I got home yesterday, I was so exhausted. It was nine o'clock. It's like, man, I'm going to bed. And I never go to bed at nine o'clock. I'm usually up like one, two, three in the morning doing stuff like this. And uh I'm up at four in the morning today, but I slept and I'm rested and I'm sh sharp and I'm clear and I'm feeling good. And uh that's the biggest difference. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves a little space, a little rest, so that way we can recapture what it is that we need, and sometimes we're just physically exhausted. And if we're exhausted, we don't have the energy to make the best of thoughts. We can think about and envision what it is we'd like to do, but it seems distant, it seems occluded, it seems cloudy, it seems Almost unclear. And those are the descriptions often that we hear, but it has to do with a lot of the stress that we're feeling that says it's time to wind down and lay down. And being able to put things down doesn't mean forever. It's not an absolute. But whenever we feel it, it's almost like we're letting go of this concept or principle that we're carrying almost like a baby and we're putting it down and not caring for it. And so that means those things are close to us in how we feel about them, how the affectation is within us. And it's almost feeling like we're betraying ourselves when in actuality we're being truest to ourselves by allowance to do what? To take care of our vehicle. Because our mind doesn't like to pay attention to what the body is telling it. And the body is usually the one that's going to win. Because from the bottom up, if you get tired enough, you're not going to be thinking enough to be able to do what you need to do. And if you try to force it, what's going to come out? It's going to be kind of ugly, kind of weird, kind of disjointed, disconnected. It's not going to make sense. So, so in principle, the idea of intention, it precedes all that we do based on what it is that we see hedonically in our environment that could either benefit us or could cause us harm that we want to avert or stay away from. And those are important things. It's still very basic, basic. But some of that is not anything that occurs cognitively first. It's perceptual. And it fires our psychological programs at the very deepest level. That's pre-conscious, pre-verbal, and therefore really closely attached to what our body does and um the autonomic system. It is amazing in its speed and its finality. But we do have control over it with our conscious mind from the top down. A prefrontal cortex executive function can say, okay, hold your breath. Does that stop the reflex that says you need to breathe? No, not at all. But we're just suspending the muscular quality intentionally. We can stop our blink rate once again. And if you're a yogi for 20 years, you can probably do the stopping your heart thing. I wouldn't encourage that. But we're dealing with things that are autonomic and intending and consciously shaping how my body's responding within a moment. And we can shape what happens out in our environment. We can see what it is that we want to do. And alignment is so much easier once we're rested, like I did last night. And um we can actually do what it is we intend to do with a greater degree of sense control, depth of thought, and clarity that we need to make it really come out the way we want, shaping it, so to speak. So our intention is a way of creating in our mind and visualizing in our mind and doing with our body what it is that we want to do with a greater degree of unity with our thought pattern, what we want as an outcome, our expectation, and our prediction of I'm gonna get this done within a certain time or hour, and actually executing physically. So the principle of heart-mind, really important once again, does have a lot to do with alignment. So I can get my thoughts and my words to align with my deeds, what I do. And what underlies all that is the intention, how we see it at the visual level without having to speak it in words. And that motivates us, that makes a big difference in not only what we do, but the quality of what we do and how we do it, and whether or not we enjoy it, and uh whether or not we're proud of the fact that, hey, I did this, and it comes out okay. Not a pat on the back and elevate yourself and put yourself on a pedestal, but rather it's okay to enjoy the fact that you did something well, a job well done, an action well done, and maybe just doing something that is high principle and that maybe we help somebody because that is also an action or a doing of sorts shaped by our intention, and the good feels that come from it, hey, those are all yours. And those are good things because those are resources for whenever we do get down, whenever we are exhausted, and that allows us to have an anchor that says, hey, you know what, you did good. Good's gonna happen again. Maybe we just need some rest and to be able to decide on things that'll be not only self-generative, self-protective, self-nurturing, but also enhancing in the sense that that keeps me in the game longer moving forward and know that the game doesn't end today. Even though the body can only exist in the moment and we can only ex uh experience pain or enjoyment or pleasure in the moment, it doesn't mean that we can never run the risk of experiencing enjoyment and pleasure and acceptance and kindness again. Because the future moment, we have to get there. Yesterday's moments, those are reminders and resource. In the moment, sometimes I need rest and food. Those are important things. And by being able to understand that our intention shapes what we do, we can actually do more with a greater degree of clarity, with less occlusion because of our higher stress states that may keep us from seeing with clarity because if we're skeletal muscle dominant, that means my capacity to visualize intentionally, it goes down. My ability to intend correctly and with clarity, that goes down. That requires fuel. It's still thinking, requiring fuel, but it's going to the muscles. But whenever we rest, digest, friend and befriend, relax and cool off and take a nap, wow, that is regenerative. And I become more powerful as a result, and I recover and I heal because of that. And the more recovered and healed I am, the better I am at what it is that I do. So for today, that's it. I want to tell you thank you at 4.45 in the morning. Actually, it's 5.28 now. It's been a little bit since I've been up. And I just want to say thank you once again for listening to this podcast. And also I want to invite you to go to Amazon, the Running Man Resiliency in the Face of Fight or Flight is out in print now and its final cover and all of its design and everything is finalized. It's also available on uh Kindle as an ebook reader. So please go and patronize the the Amazon for me, please. I'd love to have this book in your hands because uh it is something that'll never stop serving you. And I want these tools in your hands, in the hands of many. Share it with people. And it is a foundational work. There'll be other books coming out soon that we're working on, and we'll be working on a Spanish language version of this book as well soon. And um there will be an Audible book that will be out in the future. I'm thinking probably sometime during the fall. But uh please let me know if there are any things that you'd like me to speak on relative to self-regulation, and if you have any feedback, please send it to the Gmail at running man get skills project at Gmail. I'd love to hear from you. But above all things, regulate yourself, your sum ye, your heart mind. Ye is mind, your intention. Remember that underlies all things that we do, and it's a subtle thing that many people talk about without speaking about. It's the underlying principle of mind, body, speech, thought, word, and deed. And being in true alignment requires that our intention be in line with what it is that our feelings is in the moment that makes the difference. Take care. Walk well.