My strongest discipline is to stay in the heart

Discipline is important on a spiritual path. When people hear the word discipline, they may imagine strict routines, extraordinary willpower and someone performing every spiritual practice perfectly before sunrise.

And partly, this is what is needed to stay on target. But not in an amount that overwhelms. It should nourish!

I am not perfect. I have never been perfect, and I do not believe perfection is the goal.

For me, discipline is most of all remembering what I have chosen. It means staying on target. And my deepest target has always been freedom. More precisely:

To be free to love.

First, you must know your target

Discipline without direction can become another form of control.

You can become extremely good at following rules without asking where those rules are leading you. You can meditate every morning, perform complicated ceremonies and follow every piece of spiritual advice you receive—and still become more rigid, frightened or disconnected from your heart.

Before deciding how disciplined you should be, ask yourself:

What is my discipline serving?

What are you actually moving towards?

Recognition? Power? Safety? Enlightenment? Control? Freedom?

There is no shame in discovering mixed motives. We are human beings, and our intentions are rarely completely pure or simple. Spiritual practice can be influenced by fear, ambition and the desire to feel special, just like anything else.

The important thing is to keep looking.

My target has always been freedom. Not the freedom to avoid responsibility or remain untouched by other people, but the freedom to be fully alive and fully capable of loving.

That direction gives meaning to my practices.

Begin the day by returning to yourself

If you want to work spiritually in the way that I do, I believe it is important to begin the day with a few practices.

They do not need to be complicated. The purpose is not to complete an impressive spiritual checklist before breakfast. The purpose is to return to yourself before the demands, emotions and expectations of the world begin pulling at your attention. For example:

Meditate. Even if it is for 3 minutes.
Breathe.
Become aware of your body and energy.
Connect with your heart.
Remember what you serve.

These practices create a point of inner orientation. They help you notice what belongs to you, what you have absorbed from others and what is still pulling you backwards into an old story.

Without this return, it is easy to spend the entire day reacting.

Discipline gives you a moment in which you can choose.

Recapitulate and reclaim your energy

Recapitulation has been an important part of my spiritual path.

We leave pieces of our attention and energy in the past. They remain attached to conflicts, relationships, regrets, old identities and moments we repeatedly revisit in our minds.

Part of us may still be trying to change what happened. Part of us may still be having an argument that ended years ago. Part of us may remain trapped in an old fear, waiting for a different outcome.Recapitulation does not mean denying the past or pretending that painful experiences did not matter.It means meeting those experiences consciously and reclaiming the life force that is still bound to them.

You remember.You breathe.You feel what is there.You release what no longer needs to control you.You call your energy home.

This is rarely something we do once and finish forever. The past has layers. As we grow, we become capable of meeting experiences from a different level of awareness.

The purpose is not to erase your history.

It is to become free enough to live now.

Become more fluid every day

One of the purposes of spiritual practice, in my opinion, is to become increasingly fluid.

Rigidity is tempting because it creates an impression of safety. If we can define everything as right or wrong, spiritual or unspiritual, success or failure, we do not have to remain open to uncertainty.

But life is fluid.

Reality moves. Relationships change. We change. Something that was true for us ten years ago may no longer be true today. Something that helped us survive one period of life may prevent us from living fully in the next.

Fluidity allows us to respond to what is actually here.

It does not mean having no values or allowing ourselves to be pushed in every direction. Water is fluid, but it is also powerful. It can change direction without losing its nature.

Spiritual fluidity means remaining deeply connected to your core while allowing your understanding, expression and path to evolve.

You can be committed without becoming rigid.

You can have a direction without trying to control every step.

You can change your mind without betraying your soul.

Discipline is the practice of returning

You will lose your centre sometimes.

You will become distracted. You will react from fear. You will fall into an old pattern, forget a practice or spend far too much time inside a thought that makes you miserable.

This does not make you a spiritual failure. The discipline is to return.

Return to your body.

Return to your heart.

Return to what you know beneath the noise.

Perhaps you will need to return a hundred times in one day. Then returning a hundred times is your practice. Perfection says that you should never lose your centre. Discipline says that when you notice you have lost it, you come back.

There is far more compassion in this understanding of discipline. It makes room for our humanity without turning our humanity into an excuse to abandon what matters.

Staying in the heart is not always soft

My strongest discipline is to stay in the heart.

This does not mean maintaining a pleasant emotional state at all times. It does not mean smiling while someone mistreats you, avoiding anger or saying yes when every part of you is saying no.

The heart is not weak.

Sometimes staying in the heart means setting a boundary. Sometimes it means speaking a difficult truth. Sometimes it means leaving. Sometimes it means refusing to participate in something that violates your values.

Love can be gentle, fierce, joyful, grieving, protective or wild.

Staying in the heart means continuing to seek the place within you where love, truth and freedom can exist together. It means asking love to guide your power. It means refusing to let fear, pride or the desire for control become the unquestioned ruler of your life. And when you discover that you have left the heart, you return.

Again and again.

Remember what you serve

Spiritual discipline is not about becoming superhuman.

It is not about becoming the strongest, most enlightened or most fantastic person in the room. It is not proof that you are better than anyone else. It is the choice to continue moving towards what matters. Meditate because it helps you listen. Recapitulate because your energy belongs in the life you are living now. Release what confines you. Practise becoming fluid.

Return to the heart whenever you notice that you have left it. And remember your target.

My target is freedom.

Freedom inside myself. Freedom in relationship with life. Freedom to experience the mystery without forcing it into a fixed belief.

But most of all:

The freedom to love—and to remain free while loving.