What is Discipline?
... my left leg is speaking
I’ve made my charts my whole life: gorgeous, velvet veneers covering a deeper self-punishment agenda. Familiar? Let me control myself because control is the solution to chaos (is it?) and there is so much chaos in my environment and within me so let me CONTROL. In response to feeling controlled, I spent my 20’s and 30’s trying to get very loosey-goosey “free” say-it-all let-it-all-go while frequent, desperate side swipes from my own heavy hand of control attempted to knock me straight.
It’s easy to say no to the word discipline because, from a distance, it can smell as rotten as control or power over. In these middling days, though, I’m increasingly more interested and invested in containment and the wisdom of boundaries. Maybe that is maturation. Maybe it’s life stage. Maybe it’s foolish. I don’t care!
I’m drawn to true discipline.
I’m training my left leg, for example.
Sounds like, “Hey brain, let’s go on a walk and please focus on the parts of my body you aren’t as connected to, invite them back in, engage them.”
A few times, I have felt an actual click.
Left leg. Left abdomen. Right foot arch. Right side of pelvic bowl. Left hip. Backs of hamstrings. Bottom of glutes. Left eyebrow. Right eye. Left hand. Front of foot (I’ve spent much of my adult life walking on my heels, who knew?)
Have you tried this?
Training yourself.
It’s so gratifying. Small changes. Slow. Diligence. They accumulate and then one day my left leg takes the lead up the hill, or my body breathes itself a full 360 degrees, or my core stays engaged instead of leaning into the sink when I do dishes.
The Why matters.
The Why really matters.
I have to remember these 5% micro-shifts because many days I get swamped by the fact that I have to retrain anything at all. I have to uncouple discipline from power/over.
I do feel a spring coming back into my step.
Makes me think more broadly. Imagine a group of people who have walked with a particular posture out of necessity and survival. What if enough external safety becomes present and then they start to move differently, incrementally? What does that shift indicate then to their body and mind heart about who they are, their own story of self?
Awakening new parts,
Makes me think of Rolfing ❤️💫
Your suggestions to make 10% or 5% shifts in our bodies are helpful to me. (From a practical, physical perspective it helps me to protect my lower back, which has been asked to do TOO much of the work.)
As my wise friend Jo Ann says, "I'll be learning until the day I die."
Or maybe evolving?
Continue to take good care:)