Discipline is not Self Punishment
though the twain often meet.
A conversation I frequently have with clients, especially in my coaching programs, is the convergent and divergent points of DISCIPLINE and SELF PUNISHMENT. These two modes of operation often Venn Diagram over each other and over the actions that make up our lives (or at least our mental states, which is also where our lives are lived). Often, after healing ourselves from the worst of our past self-harming behaviors, we confuse one, Discipline, for the other, Self Punishment.
On the path of healing, learning, and self-awareness, we find ourselves averse to Self Punishment, rightly so. As we become more gracious, more loving, and more capable of caring for ourselves, we understandably develop hypersensitivity to anything which might be reminiscent of the behaviors and patterns that used to rule our most painful past selves. We may eschew structure in an attempt to release obsessive organization. We may give up consistency in a bid to let go of rigid regularity. We may release intention, hoping we are releasing self-criticism. I believe this is all part of the healing process. We should experience total release from self imposed pressures and an about-face on the societal biases that created them. But this structure-less stage is also a stepping stone. It too must be passed through.
Discipline, being so nearby in feeling and action that it often looks similar from the outside, is also tossed, collateral damage to our inner evolution. Discipline, though literally uncomfortable, (that’s the point, frustratingly, that’s how growth and change happen) offers relief. Discipline sows resilience, calm, gratitude, expansion, and a deep sense of satisfaction. It is not the contracted state of Self Punishment. It is not the mental spiral of endless repetition. It does not require the all-or-nothing self-bullying from which Self-Punishment feeds. Discipline creates. Self Punishment limits. Sometimes the paths look similar; doing a thing regularly, setting limits, but the internal state and the ultimate outcomes are vastly different.
Discipline is the writer who writes, the painter who paints, the dancer who dances, the baker who bakes, the runner who runs, the student who studies, the teacher who teaches. It is prioritizing the actions that allow us to do the things we want to do and like to do. It is the doing of things that in the doing of them, our lives are made fuller, deeper, better, more rich, more satisfying, more pleasurable, more powerful, more exciting and ultimately, more clearly us.
What intrigues me is that many many people who push against any kind of activity around their health and wellness that might look similar to Self Punishment are actually already AMAZING at DISCIPLINE. They have finished thesis, written books, run marathons, attained career milestones, have children (which I assume means they are caring for them in a somewhat intentional manner), have clean homes, care for pets, have reasonably good dental health, maybe achieved more than one higher degree. They have set goals and reached them. They have been inspired and committed to the actions and activities which would enable the fruition they seek (even if that inspiration is never to have another cavity filled). They are Disciplined.
Crushing ourselves, SELF PUNISHMENT, often mistaken for Discipline as the same activities done in discipline can also be used to harm ourselves (especially in regard to how we eat and how we move), does not expand our lives. Self Punishment shrinks. Self Punishment works very hard at keeping our life exactly where it is - small.
It is really tricky because sometimes the resistance to Discipline is a kind of Self-Punishment.
The tricky part is MOST LIKELY, we are enacting BOTH these states FREQUENTLY. The tricky part is especially when we don’t realize it. We are only so mature as we are self aware. Realizing there are places in our lives where we still employ Self Punishment as motivator even when we think we left that behavior behind is tricky as f*ck.
There are places in our lives where we are actually the most incredibly disciplined person EVEN when we have built a very strong self-protective story that we are actually really LAZY (or insert DISORGANIZED, ANXIOUS, BEYOND THAT) and would never be able to do the things necessary to experience the thing we (kind of secretly) really wish we could do or be if we just gave ourselves a little consistent ‘push’. Control is not the same as starting from self inquiry, then creating structure that best serves us.
Force is not the same as imagining outcomes, our big picture, and asking what do I want from this activity, action, choice? What do I need to do, or what resources do I need to gather, to move towards that? Can one action be 'to make myself' take that step? Is all 'pushing' negative?
And this is the scary part… there are places in our life (or in our past), where we push too hard, don’t listen to our needs, and use pushing to ignore things which are causing us pain or isolation or create that pain and isolation as the only means of coping with other pain and isolation. (OW! it is really hard to be human and I mean that.) It is tricky because sometimes the resistance to Discipline is a kind of Self-Punishment. It is the self-punishment of pushing away needs, desires, dreams, goals that deep in our heart we want to at least TRY for, but some other part holds us tight to punishing, keeps us small, forces us to stay stuck.
Where can we deploy Discipline and release Self Punishment?
When can we untangle them when they are mixed together?
When can one be the balm for the other? When we can use our (too large) capacity for Self Punishment and shift that energy, that capacity for focus into Discipline instead?
Too often I see people finally find relief from years of Self Punishment only to fall into a pit of complete un-structure, total laxity to the point that another kind of stasis has emerged. Not the binding, tight, suffocating bonds of Self Punishment but the too loose, no net, too-wide-a-field-void of having no positive relationship to self structure, to Discipline at all. Because that’s what Discipline is, a little structure that we impose on ourselves.
I like to call Discipline ‘re-parenting’ or ‘parenting ourselves’ because we are simply guiding ourselves towards actions and activities that we know we will be happier with in the long run. (this might mean also acknowledging that your own parents did not do the greatest job giving you guidance on whatever aspect of your life you are trying to parent: money, relationships, food, health etc… the list is long) Without this self structure, we are left feeling always a bit out of control, at odds, confused, ungrounded, unsure, and definitely anxious as grounded-ness and structure are the antidote to anxiousness. (which is why obsessive control is so very attractive in the first place.) Which is why re-parenting the chosen aspect of our lives can really be the next stage of healing from Self Punishment.
Discipline helps us frame the positive experiences we want: finishing a project, creating schedule, working on our physical well-being, being more present. It also helps us engage with concepts that DIET CULTURE has stolen and made into gross capitalist merit badges so that now it seems like we are traitors to self-acceptance and self-love when we seek discipline and structure to help us eat with more balance, consistency and regularity (because DIET CULTURE has co-opted apparently any and all consistent movement and also vegetables). It makes us out to be shills to the system when we employ Discipline to help us move our bodies more frequently. Even when it is uncomfortable, even when Discipline means 'pushing' ourselves, as so often, bodies, which are prone to rest and wired evolutionarily to save energy no matter how at odds that is with our modern destructively sedentary lifestyles, need to be.
What is not commonly understood is that Discipline means self-inquiry, creativity, honing the ability to pivot, developing emotional, physical and mental maturity. It means seeing rigid regularity for what it is, a fear based strategy. It means being open to change, striving for consistency over mindless sameness. It means understanding (and even PREDICTING) that we will fall off our respective wagons and encouraging us (without judgement and shame) to simply climb back on. These are not skills which Self Punishment creates or encourages. How did we get to Self Punishment in the first place? By non-inquiry.
Someone (or society) said a very very mean thing and we accepted it. We took it in. We let it live in us then lived through it. Maybe this was because we were a child or a teenager, both states where it is normal and expected that we are underdeveloped, ie still developing our mental and emotional capacity. This is not blame. This is the tragedy of life. We hear or experience a painful event (or series of events or entire environment ie our horrifically unkind, cruel, racist and misogynistic society) at a young age and it SHAPES us, simply because we do not developmentally have the capacity to defuse it, guard against it, have perspective and space from it. We immediately DEFINE ourselves as it and spend so many years stuck so hard to it that we can’t see ourselves.
Our society does not encourage DISCIPLINE.
Our society encourages CRUSHING OURSELVES, self punishment.
They are not the same thing.
Who among us has not gone on a run for no other reason than that we hate ourselves just hard enough that only sweat and pounding will serve? And yet hopefully, after some years of healing, we no longer harm ourselves in this way but maybe (secretly a little bit) long for the collateral POSITIVE aspects of our former self-hating running habit? Insert here your past Self-Punishing work-a-holic, study-a-holic, every-night-party-ing, over-thinking and OF COURSE food measuring self! There were benefits that couldn't help but emerge alongside all the pain. It’s ok to miss those benefits. They were real too.
Perhaps we were fitter, stronger, got outside more, prioritized the 'me time' needed to get those self-bullying runs in. Perhaps when we Self-Punished in all our other ways we created more, saw more people, did more things, had more new experiences, were in 'better shape' whatever that means for you and your body, ALONGSIDE all the negatives. We are more than ONE THING or ANOTHER THING, even in our darkest times. How do we find those positives that live like gems, next to the shrapnel we created or lived within, without falling back into Self Punishment?
Discipline opens the doors and keeps opening them. It only finds open doors for us. Self Punishment is always banging at a closed one. It is already shut out and keeps trying to keep everything shut. Self Punishment shuts us out from ourselves. It isolates. And here is where these things can look the same (can be SO TRICKY) and be so different.
I remember being 17, snow shoe running one winter night in the dark. High knee stepping at pace through thick snow for nearly 30 minutes. I don’t know if I will ever be that fit again in my life. It seemed like I was a Navy Seal. My determination, an endless fount of anger and grief fueled me. I remember the only reason I was out ‘snow shoe running’, if that’s a thing and I’m sure it is somewhere, was because if I didn’t, and didn’t get the calm chemicals that come from (extremely) hard exercise, I would cry inconsolably for hours, sometimes days.
This summer I ran trails through unfamiliar woods and up and down elevation heights I have never done before. I went on 8 and 10 mile runs that took me 3 hours at a time as I picked over roots and rocks, climbing what felt like mountains, stopping to check maps all by myself. But I also have a memory of mile 8 of my 23K (14.1 mile race) feeling great. Just feeling great. And doing a thing I never thought I could do, and doing it from a place of self investigation, adventure, and curiosity. And it looked so much like when I ran but hated myself. I could have been wearing the same clothes. The outfits were the same. The action, the activity, but the intention was different. The values had changed. I have an experience now, of finding my way back to those benefits I experienced so long ago; good chemicals in my brain, the regularity of training, the power of my own body, a reaching out to find myself, (extremely hard exercise even!) but the internal monologue is unrecognizable.
This is not just Discipline but what it offers. There is never any joy in Self Punishment. There is never any relief. It is endless. It never lets up. I never let up. There are only little ‘highs’, like notification pings on our ever present devices. Self Punishment feels like being hooked. Discipline feels like making space.
Through Discipline I have new interests, new experiences, new pleasures, new adventures. In Self Punishment I worked very hard on remaining scared and keeping the world from doing what it will do anyway; be out-of-my-control, big, hard. I kept doors shut that could have opened sooner. I mistook pain for ‘doing something’. In Discipline I learned to allow myself my humanity, to try, to struggle, to fall down, to get back up. I stopped relating to myself as two-dimensional; only good or bad. In Discipline I found space to grow.
I invite you to look at where you are already Disciplined. Be honest, maybe it’s just that you have the cleanest bathroom ever. Everyone is disciplined somewhere in their lives already. I invite you to look at where you still Self Punish, we all do, where’s yours? Can you employ one to untangle the other? Can you take the sensation of completion, organization, that you apply to the Disciplined place in your life and put it over, like a gentle net, the area of your life where you’d like more structure? What does that look like? How does it feel? How might you feel in 3 months if you try it?
What does it feel like to give yourself a little push, gently but firmly, like a parent encouraging a child up the big slide ladder, to the two wheel bike, toward the next hard thing? And who might you be and what might you experience, if you get there?
If you are not ready for Discipline please enjoy my essay on Guacamole Fulfillment
And how not all poor mental health is ‘bad’.
My podcast Busy Body is out with a new season. The most recent episode interviewing author Susanna Crossman on her book Home is Where We Start about her childhood in an experimental Utopian Society is here.
Curious about exercise? HATE exercise? Please check out my offerings…
Every Virtual Run Club series starts with a group coach call and 9 out of 10 participants begin by saying how much they hate running and don’t ever want to. It’s a wonderful group and many have gone on to create non-obsessive, joyful running practices to this day.
I also teach beginner strength and stability via Kettlebells and Pilates as well as several restorative classes and workshops including Anti-Anxiety Cardio and Fascia Release™ all of which are designed to gently shift our bodies into balance without the ableist fat shaming ‘sweat is fat crying’ mentality that infects to much of mainstream fitness. I also do a twice a year ‘remnants of disordered eating’ de-programming coaching group called NOURISH YOURSELF. It’s worth checking out.
I hope you can find something here that supports you.
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