Melissa Reddick

What is your relationship with discipline?

Do you think discipline = punishment?

Does discipline = freedom or a prison sentence?

Why do you think that?

What has your experience with discipline been in your lifetime?

Most people have the experience that “being disciplined” means getting in trouble, being forced to stop doing something you wanted to do or do something you didn’t. “Being disciplined” is something that someone else enacts on you.

That is unfortunate. This is a difficult mindset to break, but it is one you must challenge if you want to succeed in your purpose. Why is that?

Well, why do you think that is?

My perspective on it is because discpline isn’t a punishment. Discipline is the ability to set boundaries and create structure within yourself so that you can succeed. Punishment is something that someone else does to you in order to “teach you a lesson”.

Discipline is something you cultivate within yourself that keeps you on track to completing your plan. The fruits of that discipline are actually freedom, success, and manifestation.

What are you doing to make your dreams a reality? Whatever it is, it requires discipline. Otherwise, you’re not manifesting your dreams, you’re just doing whatever you feel like.

Before I continue on this thread of thought between punishment/outer discipline and inner discipline, I want to introduce two other realities.

When you are a person who wonders “am I the reason this is happening in my life?” you also afford yourself the opportunity to realize that not everything is your fault. “Am I the reason this relationship isn’t working?” “Am I the reason that person is treating me the way that he or she is?” Maybe. And once you explore it in earnest, you have the opportunity to discover where your responsibility lies and what is not yours to own.

The trouble we often run into is that neither party wonders this about themselves in times of conflict. When one person does question this, and reveals that he or she is willing to self relfect, more often than not the other person capitalizes on what he or she percieves as weakness and takes the opportunity to gain the upper hand. They use that opportunity to beat the other person down and avoid responsibility.

Rarely, even though this is the ideal situation, both people question themselves in order to identify opportunities for where harmony can be reached with equal effort from both of them. Where is each person right and wrong? And can they be forgiving of themselves and one another as they try to negotiate and navigate these situations?

By chipping away at yourself every time you encounter a disagreement with someone else, you are able to strengthen that which serves and release that which does not. You also allow the people around you to reveal their true colors. Are they considerate or power-hungry? Confident and compassionate or arrogant and out for blood?

And do you have the discipline to give them enough space to reveal that which they’re choosing?

So, back to discpline. And back to the discussion about your Master of Light instructor. Your inner Teacher and disciplinarian.

Is the Master of Light that you’re seeking going to have to discipline you in order to get you to do everything? Or is He or She going to teach you how to cultivate the inner discipline that allows you to stick to the plan? How are you going to know what is part of the plan and what isn’t?

When you encounter obstacles, will you accept them as part of the plan or as a sign that you should change direction?

Ask yourself these questions and write down the answers today:

• What does discipline feel like when it comes from a higher order and instructor? Where can I feel it in my body, where do I become aware, and what is the sensation that I am experiencing?
• Where will an inner order of discipline guide me in my life? Will I trust it even if I do not understand the path ahead?
• What kind of signs and signals will my inner Teacher give me when I am veering off course or rejecting the way?
• How will I know that I am headed in the correct direction, especially when I am feeling an increased need to rest, relax, or recover? How will that feel? And will I trust it, even when it seems like the wrong thing to do according to everything I’ve ever done to be successful materially?

This concept of rest and recovery is a huge one today. Tomorrow we will work on what rest and recovery look like in alignment with your purpose, because I am sensing a need to embrace it as part of your work.

This is why a Hermetic lineage is awesome. We are given permission to rest.