Inspired by Writing for your Life by Deena Metzger (Originally written 1/13/2021)

 

Moments of devotion, required discipline, required dedication, priest or priestess

I'm attempting to reacquaint myself with discipline. Dedication. Because I believe the piece I was missing was devotion. And the word REQUIRED brings a shutter to my soul.

I grew up in a very strict household, there were rules and boundaries and structure. Not a lot freedom to choose what you wanted to dedicate yourself to. 

Fast forward to now, and I am so simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by structure. It feels so hard to create it. I seem to default to structure. I talked to someone just the other day about rules and structure. For everyone, it needs to be consistent and I said I could appreciate that but I could see the also and the and, and when I completed the conversation I fell like a light went on in my head. Me, the rules girl, the control freak, the type A, but also the rebel, the questioner, the critical mind that can see where a spot of light breaches a dark hole. Embrace the and and also over the black and white. The either this or that. A struggle, one I have been in all of my life. 

So when I approached trying to diet, it was either I ate super healthy OR I ate crap. If I ate crap, then I would berate myself about how I was a failure as a person, not looking at the taste of chocolate as a mere moment in time - which could just as easily be followed by a tall glass of water or carrots, the spiral would leave me feeling awful with Doritos breath, covered in crumbs.

I think about setting a practice, and I immediately go to how will I fail? Instead of understanding the meaning of the word practice, to attempt, not to pass or fail.

Devotion can be a love or passion, which does not mean you will do it ALL of the time, maybe it will just be in your mind.

I had a yoga instructor tell me once that you could just picture yourself doing yoga, or in a pose, and that was just as good as actually doing it and at the time I practically snorted in derision - laughter

Imaging telling my father that I was thinking of doing the dishes, which is practically like doing them, I think I would have found myself stuck at the kitchen sink, face smarting from a slap and tears falling into the dishwater as I ACTIVELY did the dishes.

How to reprogram years of believing that it is this or that, not this AND that. Ah, religion, which is the first thing I think of when I think of discipline or devotion. You are either with me or against me a paraphrase from a bible verse that was drilled into me as a child. Etched in my brain, that piece of wisdom that translated for many around me in the all or nothing camp. If you are not following God's teachings, and living by his word, you are against him, his goodness and protection. Not willing to fall into that camp, I dutifully read scripture, I studied, I thought, but, if I asked questions it was quickly made clear that Satan was at work...

Now, I often waffle between structure and the flow, I can see how it works, but I so often default to the all or nothing...it is practice, just coming back to practice which is not mastery, just practice.

Today - May 26, 2021 I am grateful for collaboration with work colleagues. We are working on an exhibit for the Library/Archives and I love working with others who love the work as much as I do. You can almost feel the excitement when talking about what may work and how it will look.