Discipline.
It's one of those qualities that pretty much everyone considers to be 'good' or 'valuable' - no matter what life philosophy you're living by.
In the self help world discipline is basically the ULTIMATE virtue - we're told that in order to achieve our goals, to become our best selves and to live the life we are HERE TO LIVE we MUST develop the capacity to do hard things with regularity.
In the spirituality world discipline is often framed as devotion, and we're told that it's this devotion to our practices and to whatever it is we believe in that is going to save us from ourselves and transform our lives.
Even if you're not into self help and spirituality, the idea that you 'should' live a rather disciplined life is promoted quite heavily. You 'should' work out. You 'should' eat healthy. You 'should' be climbing up the ladder at work. You 'should' be taking care of your home and keeping your life generally in order.
Yet, most of us struggle with sticking to things. Many of us find that no matter how hard we try, 'staying on track' in our lives is really, really challenging.
We try so hard to be devoted, to be our higher self - we start the diets, begin the meditation practices, cut back on our spending, make our beds - but inevitably find that we eventually lose the capacity to keep going.
Then we feel like failures. We feel like there's no point in trying if we can't do it perfectly. We feel like we simply aren't 'one of those people' who can stick with things. We believe ourselves to be weak, lazy, broken and incapable and generally feel like we...suck.
And the world reflects this back to us. Even as it parades all kinds of indulgences and distractions as part of 'normal' culture, there's still a deep core message that you SHOULD be able to get and keep your shit together in your life at all times, and any time you can't that YOU are falling and YOU need to invest in some product or service to help you get into shape.
Today, I want to explore this concept of discipline. Why we would want it. What the REAL point is. Why if there is any level of shame or guilt involved we're missing the point and how we can approach discipline from a place of self love instead of a place of obligation or trying to fix ourselves.
My hope is that this talk will change the concept of discipline from one of 'should' to one of 'benefit focus' so that we can shift out of the abstract and into the pragmatic.
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