How to create a life of freedom — The Art and Practise of Self Discipline
As a 35 year student of R.Buckminster Fuller, I have found his core foundation of self disciplines very inspiring. (See Critical Path, Chapter 4.) About 15 years ago I resolved to create my own.
I will be clear, this was not the first time I created a code to live by. The distinction is that this was the first time I created a code that I knew in my heart resonated with my highest values and that I held (and continue to hold) with the highest commitment. All these years later my self-disciplines have become habits, so ingrained are they. Yet they are also always up for realignment, review, reframing, revision and adaptation. Life is, after all, emergent.
I was determined to keep this list as brief as possible. And to have it become a part of my daily practice of review and reflection.
It is an act of self-deception to create self-disciplines and throw them into a drawer to become lost in the never never of failed promises to self. Each day I read this list and checked that I honoured my agreement with myself. If I was unable or unwilling to honour this agreement with myself, then I watched as my self-esteem eroded. I become a person I was unable to trust. I was not my word.
Discipline =Disciple unto the self.
Disciple = pupil, to learn, to take apart, to grasp intellectually.
An important distinction to make about discipline is that to truly be a disciple unto the self, we need to discriminate between when to do what we have said we would do because to not would be failing ourselves and others, and when the body/soul/mind would be better served to take a break. I learned this skill through my sport. Every day for close to 30 years I have risen early and participated in some form of endurance sport. Running, swimming, biking, and more recently, surfing. On rare days, my health is better served to stay in bed. How do we know the difference between serving our health by resting and the voice of procrastination and laziness winning the day?
There is a fine distinction between discipline and obsession.
Obsession is when the mind/ego is in control, discipline is when the self/our highest wisdom, is clearly heard and acted on. Learning to distinguish between the voice of the ego and the voice of the higher self is one of the journeys we take as we learn to honour self.
Show me anyone who has ever achieved anything of significance without a healthy dose of self-discipline?
Many people find discipline abhorrent. In our world, the search for freedom is such a big deal that we have simply forgotten that the partner of freedom is discipline. They are paired, forever, as the two sides of a coin. Unity is plural, at minimum two.
If you want more freedom, consider then your own self-disciplines.
If you want to be a better leader, or parent, consider your own self-disciplines.
I share with you now the list I have as my core self disciplines. I do this to give you a template to potentially be inspired to create your own list or code. I will go through each one briefly, explaining what they are and what they mean to me. They are in no particular order. Each one is significant and synergistic.
1. Clean Communication
This simply means I have zero relational charge, today and from my past. I have no residual upset, there is nothing about another person’s actions or words to me that disturbs me on any level. Clean Communication is one of the core elements of a Syntropic Enterprise. It is also one of the modules we cover in the upcoming Dare to Care program. (Commencing September 19th 2022) For more on Clean Communication see this article.https://syntropic.world/clean-communication-living-and-working-light/
2. Daily Exercise-Maintain Health
This one is easy for me, as I have been practising health and self-care for 35 years. However, it is important that I keep this on the list, as I also get to look at the multiple ways I maintain health. Good food from local suppliers, great sleep, great company and emotional support, plenty of exercise that makes me feel good and happy, keeping my weight at its right place, dining in venues that are passionate about good food… are some of the components of great health. I feel vital, alive and energised most of the time. My preference is to do my exercise outdoors, in nature. I am a natural endurance athlete, long-distance running, swimming and now surfing are my main activities.
3. Spend less than I earn. Spend only cash for personal items
I learned this the hard way, after accumulating credit card debt. I also learned that predatory capitalism wants to keep people in debt. As a result of being in debt, I spent many years invested in understanding money, credit, debt, finance, capitalism, economics, currency and complementary currency. I wanted to no longer be a victim and pawn, to take back my agency in reference to money. I cut up all credit cards nearly 2 decades ago, and only spend when I have the cash to pay for it.
4. Learn Fully From My Mistakes
Mistakes are the way we learn. Mistakes are good, yet we so often see them as bad. They become bad if we make the same mistake over and over again. To take the time to review mistakes, understand our process in making them, and be certain we do not need to repeat the mistake again, is a worthy investment of time. You will know when you have learned the lesson from the mistake because there will be zero residue. (See Clean Communication) No guilt, shame, embarrassment, upset, angst, anger etc. All gone. Very liberating.
5. Be in Gratitude
People I admire most alive and dead speak/write about gratitude and the daily practice of gratitude. We can always find something to be grateful for. We breathe, we think, we move…
As a runner, I am always grateful for being able to walk and run. Those times when I am injured and unable to run or walk without pain remind me of the very simple pleasure of running and walking freely. Gratitude has become an always-on-all-the-time way of being. Even when I am not experiencing joyous moments, I find a perspective that includes gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for.
6. Give more than I take
Generosity of heart, mind and spirit is worth cultivating. There is a big distinction between givers and takers. Persistent takers are energy vacuums. Some givers need to learn to receive. They can find receiving unbearable, potentially highlighting a part of themselves that feels unworthy. I aim to be ever mindful of giving more, and to be sure that I do. Giving comes in many forms. A kind thought, a smile, a compliment, physical gifts, time, energy, prayer, or kindness. When I feel resentment in giving I review my boundaries and communication. I might also challenge my own fear of lack.
7. Be Open/Receptive
An open mind and open heart require vigilance to maintain. It is very easy for us to shut down. We either shut down our thinking, and live in righteousness, or shut down our heart and block expansiveness and love. We can also shut down our body, and withdraw ourselves from the world. As we grow in maturity we do need to learn discrimination about when it is wise to build some boundaries and protections. Not every message out there is healthy for the soul. Distinguishing between messages sent with love and to add value, and messages sent to harm and overpower is an important part of learning how to be open and receptive.
8. Impeccable Integrity
The practice of integrity is multifaceted. Integrity means wholeness. To live an integrous life means to live in truth at every level of self, expressing ourselves as we were designed — expressing our Pattern Integrity. On the micro-level, it means no lying, either overtly, or covertly. It means that what we say to ourselves and others, is what we do. It means taking the highest road possible. When we look into our eyes in the mirror, we know we are in truth.
9. Using gravitational attraction as my marketing plan
Gravitational attraction is about increased mass. I don’t mean literal physical mass, but metaphysical energetic mass. The more we live in impeccable integrity and all of the other self-disciplines mentioned, the more metaphysical mass we have. And the more mass we have the more attractive our expression into the world becomes.
There are some very subtly seductive marketing methods that make my skin crawl. They appeal to our greed, lack, loneliness, or our desires to be rich. We read their long spiels and find ourselves saying yes to something that we actually don’t really want.
Bucky Fuller refused to market at all. While I do think his choice was extreme, and he did so consciously to demonstrate how the Universe would support him, integrous marketing allows for the people who want and need the service you are offering to be able to find you to make a clear choice that is in their highest interests. It means offering way more value than people expect and allowing relationships to build through generosity. Simultaneously, a clear acknowledgement of the value you have to offer is presented.
When we stand for a purpose that is far greater than we are, a purpose that we care so much about, then asking for that purpose to be supported as it needs to be supported (not as we need it to be supported) is easy.
10. Say no to anything unless it is an absolute yes
When we are in complete alignment and every cell, muscle, and heartbeat, says to us YES, this is an absolute YES. Anything that is not this needs to be put on hold, worked through, with more questions to be asked until we reach the place of YES.
This practice means we avoid the after experience of…if only I had listened to myself. It honours our infinite wisdom.
I invite you to write and commit to your own self-disciplines. Often it is better to start with ONLY one, especially if you have lived with self-deception for too long.
Start with one that you will absolutely commit to. Do this until the self-discipline becomes a habit, then choose the next one.
This is how to live free. To live light. To keep our own integrity.
Do let me know how you go.
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