Discipline is how you show up for yourself.

Discipline is less about how hard you work and more to do with how you show up for yourself.⁣
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For many of us, we associate the act of discipline with a form of punishment. It’s hard work to show up every day for ourselves in all of our perceived flaws and imperfections. I mean, how can we possibly become more disciplined to work on ourselves if we don’t even like ourselves? I’ll admit that sometimes showing up on my mat feels a lot like hard work when confronted with what I cannot do. ⁣
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In the Yoga Sutras, a “persevering practice”— what I’m calling discipline, requires the act of both effort (abhyasa) and ease/non-attachment (vairagya.) For the longest time, I figured non-attachment was simply ‘to let go of old stories,’ however, for you to do that, you need to show up for yourself as you are. Whether it is to become a better parent or to take better care of ourselves, the “discipline” is always to show up as you are. ⁣
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Can we find comfort in the discomfort? Can we show up in our mess and unreadiness? Can we dive into our insecurities and swim with our fears? ⁣
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How many times have I dragged myself to my yoga mat or the gym… regardless of how I felt, even if I did nothing but lay there, demoralized. In this space, I realized that showing up for myself is not only a practice in itself but also an act of discipline. ⁣
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It means to arrive each day on my mat, to witness, observe, accept, and let go all the things that I am, even all the things I am not. It is the practice of cultivating more compassion for ourselves in every moment, no matter where we are in our practice, no matter where we are in life. ⁣
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This is the commitment. Discipline is learning how to show up and love ourselves completely as we are right here, right now, with patience, strength, devotion, and compassion. ⁣
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📖 Day 1: What does the word discipline mean to you? If discipline means to show up, how have you showed up for yourself lately?⁣