Raise your hand if you love rules. Yep, me too!
Rules [the more the better] feel safe to me. But something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is when rules run rogue becoming… rigid.
January is a month of program curation for me and as I refine, polish and re-work how I teach wellness, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of discipline.
And what I’ve landed on is this: discipline is freeing until it becomes rigid.
Here’s what I mean by that: discipline [when enforced gently and mindfully] is a set of guidelines creating structure that breeds ease + fluidity.
Early bedtime, diverse and abundant vegetable intake, time outside…. all life-giving discipline. And when enforced with a sense of flexibility and intuition, daily disciplines become a conduit to ease and safety by decreasing the number of decisions we must resolving resistance.
Rigidity on the other hand is a set of rules enforced with a sense of blind grit and determination elevating the mantra: hard work = good.
“I must go to bed at 8:00 pm, eat 10 cups of vegetables a day, and workout for 1 hour daily.”
So definable and also…unsustainable.
When I’m at my best I’m disciplined. My habits serve me daily with margin and grace.
When I’m at my worst? I’m rigid. My habits rule me with urgency and create feelings of inadequacy.
What about you? Where does discipline breed ease and comfort in your life? And where does it become rigid?
Where does the script you follow actually re-write the outcome?
As you prepare to tip-toe into the 2nd month of 2022, I dare you to tune into the rules in your life that have joined the cult of rigidity.
Then take a sticky note out of Aristotle’s principles on living by design and embrace sweet comfort and ease birthed out of discipline rooted in freedom [not blind rigidity.]
