Discipline: Gateway to Freedom and Joy

Discipline is often misunderstood, or rather, it’s only partially understood.  It is normally associated with orderliness, efficiency, organization, and completion of a specific task.  While of course it can be all of those things, very often we lose the sense of the journey aspect, and solely focus on the end-goal, on what we’re trying to achieve. 

 This unfortunately leads to short-term thinking, and often times the end-goal is short-lived, whether we’re talking about loss of weight or achieving fitness or calming our mind.  The problem comes in when we engage mindlessly, like running on a treadmill while reading a book, or trying to achieve the perfect yoga pose without enough attention to how we feel. In genuine discipline, we employ mindfulness and a sense of joy and freedom to the particular activity in which we are engaged.  We focus more on the journey, the feeling, and less on obtaining a specific result.  Of course, the result we are striving for is an important aspect of motivation, but if it becomes our sole raison d’etre, we sell ourselves short.

 In this episode, based on a talk I gave at a Healing Circle meeting, I discuss how to use discipline as a journey inward, and not just focused on achieving external objective goals alone.  This is very much the way of meditation, of mindfulness practice, where the goal is to slow down, to be still, with a vivid sense of curiosity and self-discovery. But this approach can be also be applied to any disciplined activity that we take on as a regular practice, be it dieting, training for a marathon, or a Pilates regimen. However, we have to be willing to let go of expectations about what we might discover. We might encounter discursiveness, or fickleness, or boredom because we’re so addicted to entertainment, and discipline is “anti-entertainment”.  

 I also discuss the importance of not being too gung-ho at the beginning of a new disciplined activity. This can lead to an all-or-nothing approach whereby missing a day or two becomes an opportunity to berate ourselves, rather than as part and parcel of the discipline journey itself. Genuine discipline is a journey with a longer-term vision at its core. When entered into with an attitude of curiosity and exploration, we just might find that personal growth and inward transformation enhance and deepen our original goal many times over.

 And after you listen, check out our next Healing Circle here.  It’s free and you’ll find like-minded folks with whom to practice meditation, listen to teachings, and share the journey together toward unconditional health and well-being. 

 Also, you can join our Unconditional Healing Facebook group here.