I attached myself to you so that I wouldn’t be alone. I became who you wanted me to be. My goal was to please you and only you, and In doing so, I lost myself and forgot the real me. Now it’s time to move on, to cut the ties that bind. It’s time to take back my independence and freedom, what was always mine.
~ Faith Dunsmuir
I Attached Myself to You
I’ve Learned that No Matter how Powerless we Feel
I’ve learned that no matter how powerless we feel or how horrible things seem, we can’t give up. We have to keep going. Even when it’s scary, even when all of our strength seems gone, we have to keep picking ourselves back up and moving forward, because whatever we’re battling in the moment, it will pass, and we will make it through. We’ve made it this far. We can make it through whatever comes next.
~ Daniell Koepke
Redefining Discipline: Adapting to Your Reality
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ~ Lao Tzu
I was on this guilt trip after the birth of our daughter. I used to be a regular yoga practitioner, doing the online class no matter what happened in the day. After the arrival of our third child, the practice has taken a back, back seat.
My core is not as active as it used to be, my strength level has taken a slight dip, I wake up with a stiff lower back, of course the body takes time to recover after the process of giving birth.
So a morning which was spent in class has been replaced by either preparing lunch for the older one to take to school or feeding the baby, and in between telling the second child to get ready for school.
This has brought up feelings of being unproductive, because this practice has always been my saviour and I hold it very close to my heart.
Adapt or wilt
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” ~ Albert Einstein
One way to approach this situation is to fret, wallow, whine and sulk (I do that too) in the corner of a room, with feelings of self-pity, that isn’t going to change the situation. This way we only develop resistance, resentment, self-loathing and so on.
Adapting to this new reality has to be the order of the day. I have been trying my best to accept the situation, which has helped to an extent that I have stopped sulking.
Self-development gurus talk about putting your needs first, indulging in self-care rituals, and so on. While that is important, but on delving deeper into that, I realised you can’t put yourself first in every situation. Rather, adapting to the situation is one quality we need to learn and imitate from the animal kingdom.
Our 13-year-old dog Cosmos in the heat of peak summer will dig holes in the ground to find wet mud to keep himself cool, and he will fall asleep in it till the temperature dips. Squirrels gather nuts in summer to store them for winter. At the animal shelter close to our home, we see 3-legged dogs running around comfortably because they have adapted to their new reality.
Whereas humans always struggle to do that, because we are so fixated on how things should be, our habitual patterns, or routine, that we forget it’s also important to be present in the current situation and to ride the wave of change instead of going against it.
With 3 children, life has been a bittersweet symphony, not only in terms of juggling between the various roles to be played in a day, but also to keep the calming vibes flowing at home. So there are days when I get time to do work, write, look for story ideas, but there are also many days when it doesn’t happen.
Does that mean discipline and self-care isn’t important?
If I maintained discipline in my practice and join the class in the morning, I would neither be able to do justice to the yoga practice, site work, nor to the 3 children etc., due to morning schedules and family constraints. This would only disrupt the peace in the house.
In order to flow and not be stuck and become an obstacle in your own path, we have to be able to give in to the need of the hour. Self-care is essential to stay healthy on all levels, at the same time not being too hard on yourself is equally important.
Change is inevitable, respond to it the way you want it to go
Change is as certain as nature’s rhythm – night follows day and vice-versa. It is not in our control, but what is within our control is our response to it.
Weather the storm, without getting distracted and demotivated. Think about a problem differently, and see what comes up for you. When we do that, we increase our ability to adapt, and then realise change wasn’t a bad idea after all.
Don’t fret if you aren’t getting the time to pursue what you really desired – whether it is yoga, meditation, reading a book, painting, or any of the self-care rituals, find an element of divine in your day-to-day activities, find moments in between the ebbs to slow down and flow.
Harbor a growth mindset
“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” ~ Carol S. Dweck
Keeping a growth mindset happens with practice and consistency. For me, I try to squeeze in time for my practice in between – I will do about 8-10 Surya namaskars, few asanas, stretches here and there, and I feel good, and I am able to move on to the next task. I feel this takes care of the current situation – the body is happy to get its exercise, the mind is not sulking, and the soul gets its medicine when the body and mind are at peace and harmony.
Work on increasing your capacities
This way you are also working on expanding your capacities and not getting rigid in your thinking. Discipline doesn’t translate to rigidity, because being rigid means something has hardened within you, there is no growth or development that happens in that space.
At the end of the day, when I review my day, I am amazed at the number of roles, tasks I have done in a day. It is keeping the growth mindset and changing the perception of the situation I am in that helps me to get through the day. This is redefining discipline, it is about finding the balance between inner peace and commitment to oneself to find opportunities for growth, even if it is in the mundane tasks.
Adapt and not wilt, change and not succumb, hang in there and enjoy the ride! The universe is there to take care of the rest. Trust me!
“ I make everything a ritual, and I always do my best. Taking a shower is a ritual for me, and with that action I tell my body how much I love it. I feel and enjoy the water on my body. I do my best to fulfill the needs of my body. I do my best to give to my body and to receive what my body gives to me.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements)
Image Sources:
Self-love is About Participating
Self-love is about participating in healthy environments that grow you and nourish you. It is also about cutting yourself off from evil and energy-draining environments that kill you slowly.
~ S. McNutt
The Art of Zigging While Everyone is Zagging
“Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, including myself. Then I found everyone, including myself.” ~ Rumi
In a world where everyone is zagging and waiting for everyone else to have the courage to zig, there must come a point where someone gains the courage to break rank.
This article is about how to cultivate such courage. More importantly, it’s about trusting the process of courage by transcending discomfort and then becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
As Joseph Campbell wisely surmised, “The modern hero must not wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. ‘Live,’ Nietzsche says, ‘as though the day were here.’”
Indeed. He goes on further to say, “It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal––carries the cross of the redeemer.”
And so the art of zigging while everyone is zagging is born…
Don’t just take the road less traveled, create it:
“I can do nothing for you but work on myself. You can do nothing for me but work on yourself.” ~ Ram Dass
Trailblaze the maze. Create worlds between worlds. True creativity never comes from “business as usual.” Don’t be obvious. Be Contrarian. Rise above the status quo and transform bureaucracy into autonomy.
Contrarians do not have ‘a way.’ But if they did, it would be the Middle Way: the bending, zigzagging, perpetual crossroads touching all paths and none. This is the path that you are free to create. Free from extremes. Free from being pigeonholed, or forced to fit a mold, or coerced into fitting into a cul-de-sac of stopgap beliefs and makeshift delusions.
Being contrary will keep you open to all paths, even as you’re creating your own. This will keep you free and curious. You’ll be ahead of the curve; “the curve” being the petty drama of the road most traveled. You’ll be flying by the seat of your pants, but at least you’ll be less likely to fall victim to the delusions and extremisms of the herd.
Instead, you are free to blaze the trail of change, going full-frontal boss-mode into a unique way of being human in the world.
Give yourself the latitude to make mistakes:
“To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things.” ~ Martha Nussbaum
The ability to trust uncertain things is the hallmark of zigging while everyone else is zagging. While everyone else is clinging to the known, walls up, fortified in their comfort zone, you are taking leaps of courage out of faith and into fortitude. You’re busy bridging gaps, squaring circles, and spinning theories. While everyone else is squabbling over borders, laws, permissions, and limitations, you’re out there transforming boundaries into horizons.
You realize that the only certainty is uncertainty. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes. The only answer is to question. The only real mistake is not to have the courage to make mistakes.
That’s why you’re out there testing uncertain waters, meddling with a full-mettle-jacket on, making glorious mistakes. That’s why you’re out there reconditioning cultural conditioning, reimagining imagination, and reinventing God.
Life is too short not to leave some things to chance. Fate is more of a factor than most people can imagine. And so you keep fate on a short leash, close to your chest. You practice the ability to embrace paradox and to hold the tension between opposites. You learn how to live with uncertainty. Everything else is a delusion at best, a deception at worst. Curiosity will be your guide through the screw tape.
Don’t gravitate, aggregate:
“To be human is necessarily to be a vulnerable risk-taker; to be a courageous human is to be good at it.” ~ Jonathan Lear
Don’t settle, meddle. Better yet, have mettle. Strict scripts kill creative progress. Choose risk-taking over script-making. Choose uncomfortable courage over comfortable timidness. Take risks. Turn tables. Flip scripts. Push envelopes.
In a world on fire, choosing indifference is tantamount to cowardice. Don’t be a moth gravitated to the wasteland. Be fire instead. Fire plus fire equals greater fire. And the fierceness of your fire might even have the power to discover water. Ironically, it will take the courage of fire to bring water to the wasteland.
As Stephanie Sparkles wittily observed, “I love when people that have been through hell walk out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire.” Yes indeed!
While everyone else is living it up as a zagging moth gravitating to the wasteland (of which it’s not even aware) you’ll be out there zigging in fiery displays of courage. Absorbing what’s useful and displacing what’s not. Subsuming cosmos and using it to transcend the ego. Unlearning what you’ve learned, so you can relearn how to learn.
Absorbing what is useful is absorbing what is healthy. The path becomes clear. You’re free to question with a good conscience. You become undeceived. In a state of undeception, you are free to wield the question mark sword—the Sword of Truth—and to use it in a way that distinguishes what’s healthy from what’s not.
By aggregating rather than gravitating, you become a beacon of hidden truths. A hot magnet. A mercurial middleman between cosmos and psyche. You emit a gravity all your own, and people are forced to come correct or be crushed by your vitality.
Choose improvisation over tradition:
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” ~ Robert Browning
Point the way; pilot the way; pivot away; repeat.
While everyone else is wallowing in the impoverishment of tradition, it is incumbent upon you to be out there improvising toward progress. The healthy evolution of the species hinges upon it.
When you point the way, some may follow, but most will not. But you cannot force them to be courageous. You can only show them courage. Which is why the next step is so crucial. You must also pilot the way. Show your courage by flying out of tradition and into uncertain improvisation. And then, the most crucial step of all: pivot.
You must pivot lest you become stuck in a new tradition. You pivot to prevent the construction of stifling comfort zones. You pivot to thwart closemindedness, hardheartedness, and brittleness. You pivot so that you may remain flexible, adaptable, and antifragile.
If, as Joseph Campbell said, “not everyone has a destiny; only the hero who has plunged to touch it, and has come up again—with a ring,” then it stands to reason that in order to keep your destiny open and free, you must, in the final analysis, have the wherewithal to question even the “ring” itself.
Otherwise, your destiny becomes stagnant. The “answers” you’ve found become prison bars. You become stuck, entrenched in believing you’ve “made it” or that you’ve “become enlightened” or that your “way” is the only way. In short: you become dogmatic. You have neglected to “kill the Buddha on the path,” and now you’re blinded by the light.
As Nietzsche’s Zarathustra puts it: “And this secret Life itself spoke to me: “Behold,” it said, “I am that which must always overcome itself.”
So it is imperative to always see the way through “the way.” It is vital that you maintain the capacity to pierce the veil. Even if that means that you must become a beacon of darkness in the blinding light.
See the way, guide the way, then change the way. Do this again and again, in improvisational humor despite tradition, and the secrets of the universe will not elude you.
Image Sources
