The Inner Discipline That Changes Everything

In this episode, I explore the deeper meaning of discipline, and how it can become a supportive, empowering force rather than something rigid or restrictive.

Discipline is often understood as consistency, structure, and the ability to push through difficulty in order to achieve goals, and while these aspects have value, they are only part of the story.

This episode explores the idea that true self-discipline begins within.

It is not simply about what we do, but about how we relate to our thoughts, emotions, and inner patterns.

I explore:

• The conventional understanding of discipline and its role in daily life
• Why external discipline alone is often unsustainable
• The importance of self-awareness and knowing how we function
• The role of breath, attention, and observation in developing inner discipline
• How our thoughts and emotions shape our experience of life
• Why discipline is less about force and more about awareness

When we begin to observe our inner world, our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours - something shifts.

We move from reacting unconsciously, to responding consciously.

And from that place, discipline becomes something very different.

It becomes something that naturally arises from clarity, presence, and self-understanding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Today I'm going to talk about discipline, which is quite a thing and would probably amuse my parents and my teachers because I was the naughty naughtest girl in the school, the naughty girl at home, I was the naughty girl wherever I went, and was often having to have disciplines imposed upon me in the form of detentions and punishments and all sorts of things. So it's quite a thing that I am doing a podcast on discipline. But what is discipline? What do we think of when we hear the word discipline? And I would I would say that really a kind of common understanding is also a one that kind of refers to self-discipline because obviously I have just talked about being disciplined. But if we're thinking about discipline from being a disciplined person, we'll often think of consistency and some sort of structure so that we can do the things we want to do and achieve the goals that we want to and work towards things and make things happen. And it's commonly known that that takes a degree of discipline, and that can entail doing something when it's difficult, going and doing it when we don't feel like it, doing it as a routine anyway. You know, do we feel like it? No, do it anyway. Just keep showing up, and it can be then associated with this is the way we then will achieve an outcome because we want to get a project done or a train for a race or practice a piece of music that we want to play, anything that we need to show up and show up and show up, and then that means that we'll get the outcome that we want. So it's therefore often associated with a certain degree of control, and that's why I think people can kind of push against it, and also again, as I said, it's can be associated with punishment. So, in a way, there are kind of mixed feelings. I know when I talk about discipline with my clients, we will investigate what that touches in them because sometimes it will take them back to parental discipline or school discipline, and therefore it can be a block to creating disciplines for themselves that work for them. Like morning routines can be a really useful way to start our day in a positive vein, a discipline of how we think when we get up, what we do, what actions we take, what we put into our body. And um yeah, my I have a morning routine. Do you want to hear my morning routine? I um listen to Spanish because I listen to a Spanish podcast, and I just found a new one which is above my level, which means I don't understand a lot of it at the moment. But um, she's uh she's called Sarah, and she is lives in Madrid and owns a cafe and makes granola and is a marathon runner and does um mountain biking, and she is 26 years old and I think has five businesses. And I would imagine that she, I mean, I've only just started listening to her this week. I think she must have um what we would what we're describing is a lot of discipline to show up and be able to have created all those things. So, yes, so I listen to Spanish, I do some exercises, I've got bits of exercise equipment here, and then it's time for a cup of coffee. But it's a it's a nice morning routine for me because it means it keeps my Spanish in my ear, and the exercises I do just keep me balanced and ready to run, and there is a discipline to being on time that can be an area of difficulty for lots of people, and then of course, there's discipline in education, in parenting, at work. There's a lot of areas where having certain ways of doing things and having those consistently applied can mean that workplaces work, families work. The thing with any of these situations where there are rules slash disciplines, it is without question much, much, much more effective when the self-esteem of everybody is high. There was a wonderful psychotherapist called Virginia Satyr, and she wrote some great books. And one of the things I remember that struck me in one of her books was about family rules and implying applying disciplines to make the whole show run well. But she said the self-esteem of each member of the family being high was vital for the rules to be um set and then adhered to, and then, of course, that goes into deeper areas, which again in all my podcasts I will I will refer to the fact we need to you know work at a deeper level and have self-awareness, but that um that is how our self-esteem grows by being able to clear away anything that blocks us from accepting and loving ourselves at the deepest level. So the disciplines, of course, there can be preventative disciplines in big schools and places of um, you know, where there are a lot of people that they'll put in place. I suppose it goes on in society, doesn't it? All sorts of nots, don'ts, shouldn'ts, do's, don'ts, but lots of things that prevent things going wrong. So there's also then a very supportive form of discipline, which can be helping people to achieve the things they want to achieve. So that's what coaching is. Coaching, and I, you know, I I work with people on all levels, and a lot of my work is helping them and supporting them to create um patterns and behaviours and disciplines that really help them to go where they want to in life. Then, of course, there's a corrective discipline. I my dad was from the era where you still got beaten if you didn't do what you were told, and you know, the the disciplines have you know eased in schools, fortunately, but there's obviously those corrective disciplines. I was very much the detention era, and I think those goes on now as well. And of course, there's you know, ranging from all manner of things to uh fines when we park in the wrong places and um being put in prison when we do things that you know don't work for the rest of society, and um I suppose really I suppose really what is that? What am I thinking about in terms of the kind of positives of discipline? Because those all sound a little bit dramatic, but I think really it's a there's there's characteristics that we can develop which will help us get the things we want in life, to live as we want to live, to feel good, to feel healthy, to feel well, and you know, eat in ways that support us and exercise and have patterns and behaviours that really work for us. And there is a certain discipline in all of those, making choices about what we eat when we get up, we do when we get up, um, you know, how we get our to-do list done, all those things that actually mean that we have a happier life. So I I think there's a degree of resilience needed so that if we have got something we want to do, but it's you know quite difficult. Maybe I mean the obvious metaphor of my obvious, you know, historical thing is training for a particularly long race like a marathon, or training for any race, um, you have to show up and do your training, and you do it week in and week out. And there's a degree of resilience needed for that because it can be bad weather, you're not feeling like it. Now that's very much a metaphor. I only talk about running because obviously that is being close to my heart, but everything when we're doing a PhD, I mean, I interestingly, my friend Jim, who I've run with for years and years, Jim and Rob I've known since around 2000, ran many miles together. And for seven of those years at one time, Jim was doing a PhD because he was doing it part-time because he was working. So we spent seven years, interestingly, talking about resilience because his PhD was when went on kind of whether resilience can be developed or whether it's you're you know it's born into you, or whether it comes from those early years of what happens in your childhood. So we spent seven years in dialogue about that and other things. Meanwhile, we were training for ultra races between the two of us. We ran five ultra races. Jim did three, I did two over a period of a few years, and um so we had a lot of resilience then because we did, you know, we went for three, four, five-hour runs regularly and often in terrible conditions. Not so much, one of them we were training for through the summer because we did we ran from London to Brighton in the October, so we trained through the summer, so that wasn't quite as you know challenging, should we say, in bad weather, but there is a degree of resilience needed for those disciplines and and also a focus on the process that is key. I think the real disciplines that are showing up and not getting too attached to the outcome, although, as I said at the beginning, they obviously ultimately produce an outcome. But if we're not attached to the outcome and we're focusing on the process, the disciplines are more fun and we actually can find ways of doing the things, even if they are hard, that mean that we want to maintain them. And obviously, as I said before, we well, I said about being on time actually, but that is connected to time management. I think there's a degree of time management needed which makes a big difference to how our lives play out. Now, that again is a podcast in itself because all these things I'm talking about have deeper layers to them, and you know, it's obviously looking at our daily routines. We do have disciplines where we just do them probably without really thinking. I would say we generally, you know, all the ones of keeping ourselves clean, washing our bodies, cleaning our teeth, um, eating, making sure we eat throughout the day. I remember I had a um homeless friend called Steve, who actually has I did some podcasts with who came off the streets, um, beat his addiction, and is now living in France, teaching people to fish. But he said that one of the things that was really difficult for him, he said this, I think he either said it in the podcast, but he definitely said it to me, was that you suddenly, if you come off the streets and you're living a the life, a different life again, you have to do the things like cleaning your teeth and washing and eating. And he said they were all quite things that taking that responsibility, those disciplines were quite a huge thing to start to do again after years and years and years on the streets. Um, obviously, there's a degree of discipline on how we spend our money, how we you know look after our health, how we do what how we consciously choose what we eat. Um, when we want to learn a new skill. Um, as I said, I do this Spanish every morning and I've I've maintained a level through that. And I've just recently started to have some lessons again because I thought, right, I have said four or six years I'm going to improve my Spanish. Now, to be fair, I have maintained a level, but I haven't improved it. So now is the time, and that will take yeah, more learning to develop that new skill. Takes a degree of discipline. I need to show up to the lessons, I need to show up to my new podcast, even though I can't really understand much of it. I was feeling so um happy with my podcast I had. I was listening to what was I listening to? Spanish around, and I I understood all the chats in the streets with the people in Mexico. Anyway, I'm not understanding an awful lot of what Sarah's saying, but um that's the whole thing. It will take a discipline to just keep keep showing up and keep looking up the words, and it's I think with discipline there needs to be a degree of um desire and fun. Now, that again can be deeper work because there will be patterns that aren't supporting us if we're not finding we're not disciplined around our money or our health, or if we want to develop a new skill and then don't do the things necessary. There'll be often patterns that we need to we need to investigate, and so really the it always comes back to um inner work, it comes back to knowing yourself, it comes back to awareness. So, as Socrates said, know yourself. So we need reflection, we need to really start to know ourselves, and we're all different. That's what's so magical is that we're all absolutely unique, we all are you know having a unique experience as a human, we're we're divine sparks of the whole, but we're all completely unique and completely different, so we do need to get to know ourselves, and what works for one person may not work for another, which is why discipline is such a unique thing because the way people do things, it's so obvious to say, okay, you do this every day, but I said I have these morning routines, which I do, but I also, if you watched me, because I do it in my own unique way, so I will do um an exercise. I have the Spanish in my ear all the time trying to understand it, but I'll do an exercise, then I might clean my teeth, then I might do another exercise, then I might put on put on a pair of pants. Maybe that was too much information, but um, then I might do another exercise and put more clothes on, and eventually what emerges is an exercise having listened to Spanish, having cleaned my teeth, having put the kettle on ready for morning coffee and tea with my husband Julia, but I do do it in my own unique way, so it is about um getting to know, you know, how do I work with myself, my own unique, my own unique patterns, because we are all different and we do have different ways of doing things, and we do have to way work out the ways that we learn, the way that works best for us, and not feel you know, this is where the deeper work can come in, because if you're not doing it the same as somebody else, you've gone get into comparison, and that never ever is helpful. We should never compare ourselves adversely with other people and how people do things. We can use inspirations, we can get ideas, but never compare adversely. It's not not um healthy, not good for us, and we're all unique, as I said. But the most the most important discipline, really and truly, as always, I'd always say this, isn't what we do externally, it isn't necessarily the well, it isn't the things we do, it is how we relate to our thoughts and our emotions, and this is the foundation of absolutely everything. If we can't do this inner work, if we can't get to know ourselves, if we can't get to reflect and look at our patterns and look at the way we behave and look at how we do things and how we can get to where we want to do, get to where we want to go, then no amount of external disciplines will truly, truly, truly sustain. You know, they won't sustain us and they probably won't last. Because if we're just trying to put an external thing on us without having reflected, I mean sometimes we'll we'll do an external discipline and it will access something internally, but really it's life as an inner reflection that changes absolutely everything because I think it's quite common to feel that life's happening to us and kind of be looking outside, but really and truly, if we go from the position, even if you don't believe this, for the purposes of getting some ideas about discipline, why not go from the position of that life reflects absolutely everything that is within us? So, therefore, that way we've got more power because we can have a look within, and there's the saying, so within, so without. And obviously, I know that people often do understand this intellectually, it's it's said, and people, there's quite a lot now. We're in a different kind of world where people are saying life's a mirror, it's there's a lot more on YouTube and all over the place that's saying, Yeah, life's a reflection of us. But so the people might understand it intellectually, but they don't always live it. So again, we come back to the breath, come back always to the breath. We bring it if we come deep into the into our body with the breath, so with a big deep breath, then breathing out. And then there's that space that's stillness at the bottom of the breath. There's actually space top and bottom, but the space at the bottom is nice and expansive. We come back into the body, and the body can't be anywhere than the present. If we use the we use the breath to bring us into our body, then we're going to be more willing to be aware and start to really start to be more present to notice things. So, first of all, we need to notice the breath, notice the notice where it is, feel it anchorous in the body. That's really important. So, if you do that as a practice, you can do it as a you know a practice sitting and doing that for a few minutes, but it's also important to do it throughout the day to bring yourself back into the body. And then if you're coming back into the body and you're coming back into presence, you can start to notice your thoughts and notice your emotions. Because once you start to really notice them and you start to get to know yourself, this really is where the real self-discipline begins. Because this real, real self-discipline is to be willing to have self-reflection and then really get aware of your own patterns and not just think, oh, that's just me, or this just happens to me, or that's just happened. So it is a long-term practice to keep coming back to the breath, the body, come back to the breath, come back to really, really starting to be willing. Notice your thoughts, notice your emotions, and then notice the patterns, notice the patterns in thought, and how these patterns in what I'd call psychological dramas, sometimes there will be an emotion in the well, there'll be a thought that creates an emotion in the body, and then you get stuck in a loop and you get stuck in thinking about something that made you upset or um confused or angry, and then you're stuck. And actually, it takes a discipline to come away from that, to notice that but come back to the breath, notice it, come back to the breath, so that then you really start to notice these um patterns, you'll notice these psychological loops, these dramas that you get involved in, you'll notice your behaviors that come from that, you'll notice your reactions because always when we react in that way, when we've had a thought and a feeling that's you know reactive, we're upset, we're cross, we're disappointed, they're all valid to clear through the body. If you feel that, clear it through the body. It's when you create a loop with it and start to act out of it. So the discipline is to notice, the discipline is to notice and notice and notice without judgment and just awareness. And it is awareness that starts to create change because you know when we start to see ourselves and know ourselves, then we can start to become the master of ourselves, the master of our body, the master of our mind. And it's really important, as I said about my unique way of doing my morning routine. We all have very unique ways of processing, unique minds. We're all very, very different, we're all wired very differently, and I think there's a much more much more awareness nowadays that we are wired differently, and that we all have you know different strengths, different ways of thinking, different emotional patterns, and different ways that we do process things. So understanding this is brilliant, but I think the key thing isn't so much that we need other people to understand us if we've you know got our own unique ways of being, we need to understand ourselves, we need to dive so deeply into ourselves that we can work with ourselves, you know, truly, much more intelligently, much more consciously. Because, you know, really and truly, regardless of how our mind works, we can all return to awareness. Whatever our patterns, whatever our mind, however we are, whether we're logical, whether we're more creative, whether we're more our mind jumps around, we can all come back to stillness. And that is the true, true, true discipline. We all have it. We can all return to awareness. True discipline is the ability to return to stillness again and again. And as I said, in the breath, we breathe deeply into the tummy, we breathe out, and there's that space before we breathe in again. Keep connecting to that space again and again and again. And the more the more you get still, the more you well, you are still actually, the more you connect to that still space inside you. From that space, you can properly start to make conscious choices. You can really practice self-discipline because you can consciously choose what you do, what you create, what you commit to, how you do those things, how you make it work for you. And then from this place, we can all express ourselves in our own unique way. And it's not forced, it's not rigid, it's not this is the way it has to be done, but it's super aligned, it super goes through us. It is um the flow, the life force, the flow of us, the flow of all that is can flow through us. So it's not about forcing ourselves into shape, it's not about going, we've got to do this, and you know, we're bad people if we don't, but it is about learning to work with us ourselves. It is about that awareness that we can absolutely choose consciously. So the real discipline is to return to yourself.