I struggle from a long laundry list of ailments that come up and go, depending on how much attention I’ve been paying to myself. It’s this never ending and constant attention that I need to pay, to what I eat, what I think, what I do, which is at times necessary to keep things going smoother in comparison to when I don’t. I do not know about you, but it is taxing. This constant babysitting of oneself because you have allergies or you have serious side effects or well you just go into a sugar coma and it takes multiple migraines to get out of it. I cannot eat to soothe myself. I cannot stuff myself to fill that void or hole or whatever the hell it is that gets you feeling like it is the end of the world. Depressed, Cursed, Infinitely Sad.. Or so I tell myself at the time.

It takes a strong level of discipline to get me out of the depressive hole that I dig myself into at times. It is natural. We all go through phases. Just like nature, we have our seasons, we have our days and nights. Some nights longer than days, but well, the day does dawn in my experience. Took a lifetime to understand the natural-ness of it and not fall prey to the limit that such experiences bring to our thinking and way of living.

It gets me thinking, what is the the point of discipline and what is freedom, truly? Is discipline needed to be truly be free? Not sure I’m able to digest that thought yet, but it is a painful realization that I’m coming to these days. Painful because I never associated discipline with freedom. Let’s just say discipline left a bad taste in my mouth when younger, so my association with it is not the nice sort. I’m redefining it, understanding it in a new light and even understanding the why of those who enforced it, understanding me as to why I resisted it, and perhaps the resistance now is due to me challenging what my original definition of discipline was.

I’ve often thought no rules, do whatever I please, go wherever I want is freedom. But all that brings chaos and a lot of uncertainties with it. To a lot of you out there, that is perfectly fine, perhaps that IS true freedom to you. To me, however, this generally defined expression of freedom just causes confusion. As I mentioned at the start, long laundry list includes me being partly OCD and HSP. The sensitivities don’t do great with that level of freedom. The freedom needs limits. Oxymoron, I know, but yes, Understood limits. Awareness defined limits. To keep my sanity in check, to keep my health in check.

So, what is freedom then for me? The chance and the choice to be aware of oneself, the courage to step beyond the limits my own mind sees and what the world judges of me, the discipline to say yes and no to myself, others and do the things necessary, to get back to myself, mentally and physically. So yes, discipline is integral to me being truly free. Sometimes and many a times, it is not about what others say a certain thing has to be. They do not live your life. You do. So, live on your own definitions. Only you know you.