THE HILARY HENINGER

A YEAR OF FINDING MY WAY BACK TO MYSELF.

If I’m being honest, I am not living in alignment.

Authentically.

Consciously.

I speak like I am but in reality (both consciously and unconsciously) I can recognize that I behave in ways that don’t reflect that at all.

Words of affirmation falling on my own deaf ears.

Preaching to my children in the hopes of planting the seeds of what I’m thinking, not what I am necessarily doing. At times, thinking one thing and doing another; pandering to the higher powers in some dynamics to preserve the status quo.

Like a duck, bobbing in the waves.

The last time I made a major life decision in authentic alignment and from a place of intention (because for me, I believe both must be present to move you in the right direction) was my divorce. And well, let’s just say it made some people uncomfortable. 

I think some people thought they might catch it, or even worse, their wives might….and then what? Like the boogeyman of home wrecking…planting seeds in vulnerable women that they too could leave if they weren’t ok.

I can laugh now. But I think at the time it was most surreal. To say it changed the landscape of some friendships would be accurate.

I remember looking around at the disappointment, confusion, and concern from some people wondering why I would implode my life like that and not even skipping a beat with certainty that I would be ok and it was the right decision for me. I miss that feeling.

Since then it has been a series of ups and downs, a slow morph, like molasses, into someone who spoke with conviction and lived a lot by insecurity.  From struggling to balance the hustle culture of work with full time solo parenting to the impact of a pandemic that skillfully manipulated the world into obedience, I am the frog in boiling water.

I don’t quite know the moment that it changed. The moment that I realized I had become the exact person I never understood. The one afraid to speak their truth and the let the chips fall where they may , and maybe it didn’t even matter when it happened….when I realized the water was boiling. One thing is clear.  It feels like shit and it’s not working. 

Two weeks ago my daughter suffered a concussion during a mostly uneventful training day with her competitive snowboarding team.  The next morning, a Monday, I texted my two bosses to let them know that I would be working from home and explain what had happened.

No response. Nothing. Not even a ‘How are you? How is she? Hope everything is ok.’

I waited for acknowledgement and having got nothing in return, sent a note to our team letting them know my schedule had changed and I was working from home for the day.

Then a response. An email. From my recently appointed boss.

In summary, a slap on the wrist, for being ‘unprofessional’ and ‘a poor communicator’ as a manager, for not sharing the details of my schedule change with my team because ‘it wasn’t personal enough not to share’ and by doing this ‘people just think they can do what they want with their work from home schedule’.

Turns out no one took my text as a pass for working from home without permission, or a reflection of my professionalism or work ethic.  At least no one but her.

However, at that moment, I knew this wasn’t going to work any longer.

I value people. She valued policy. That’s a pretty big mismatch.

To be honest, I have never worked this hard at a job in my life. I took on a lot, missed a lot of dinners with my kids, worked extremely long days, . . . All I needed was a slice of humanity for a moment. And, I also get it. People are free to run their business and operate as they see fit – they get to make a choice and I get the gift of autonomy to choose if that works for me. There are no victims here. However, it was my response that was more clearly a symptom of the problem at hand.

After contemplating all of the ways in which I couldn’t understand this response as a manager, let alone a human being, I did what I had been in the habit of doing – taking her interpretation as truth, apologizing and course correcting feeling equal parts insecure and angry.

To say that this version of me would surprise a lot of people who know me (or have known me for any length in time) is an understatement.

I have often been described as living by these two mottos:

1. What is the worst that can happen?

2. I don’t worry about what people think.

While there are certainly shadow sides to both of these perspectives, they have by and large allowed me to take risks, honor my gut, and go on countless adventures. I have very few regrets.

Turns out somewhere along the way I lost my footing, and while I still catch glimpses of myself in moments, I am not living by these mottos in a million different ways. And when I really think about it, It has been a slow creep over the last few years. Death by a thousand cuts of trying to find my footing again. I don’t imagine I am totally alone in this experience. Or maybe it’s just the part of me that seeks validation that hopes that.

After all, even if I am the only one feeling this – does it make it any less real?

So it made me think. In part about why I was behaving this way and also what it meant to do it differently.

What if you spent a year getting your life into authentic alignment? Living consciously in your beliefs, values and behaviours.

For 365 days. A daily pursuit and commitment to this.

To wake up every day and consciously choose to make decisions, on both a micro and macro level, based on wether it is actively moving me towards this goal. Because when we get real with ourselves, our decisions are either moving us towards our goals or away from them. There is no in between.

From love, relationships and parenting, to how I spend, what I wear and how I eat. 

So – here I am. Putting it out into the world. Committing to countless days of pursuing a life of authentic alignment and conscious living. To daily updates on what that looks and feels like. To being accountable with every blog post I write. To moving towards a life that truly feels and looks like me. Getting the outside to match the inside. Embarking upon the greatest investment I have, and will likely ever make,

betting on myself.