This feels like the Mondayest Tuesday. We stayed up extra late at night over the holiday weekend, enjoyed many hours of pool + sunshine, hosted our Sunday Night Dinner, played Spades and Phase 10 multiple times, and boy, are we dragging today! I had to catch up on email this morning, homeschool forms, implement the boys’ morning routines again, roll out my mat for Pilates. I had to fight hard to choose the healthy paths that will help us regain equilibrium. My feelings said sloth, my mind said discipline.
Here’s the thing about discipline. It doesn’t mean a lack of rest or pushing yourself too hard when you shouldn’t. It means doing the things you need to do in order to feel the way you want to feel. When I ate my breakfast of oatmeal and nourished my body with salmon and brown rice at lunch, I am making choices to help my tired body feel better and not ride a rollercoaster. When I read the Word, checked in with our finances, and updated my calendar, I am helping my soul and mind find peace and ease. And when I discipline myself to lie down and sleep this afternoon, I am admitting my limits in life and that I am not in control. I can fall fast asleep because He’s got this.
I used to think daily disciplines were taskmasters that offered me productivity coupled with exhaustion. It was dig deeper, try harder, do better. And certainly, all the great performance gurus out there use daily disciplines in that way. It took time, maturity, and grace to realize that if we prayerfully and thoughtfully discern the ways that help us function well in this world, daily disciplines are life to us. It doesn’t mean we won’t skip them, neglect them or do it perfectly, but they are a means of grace to help us live and love well in our callings. We try again. Our paths in this life are not linear, a perfect line of discipline and strategies and solutions. We go up, down, back around again, ever moving upward and onward, beloved and steady.
I look back on today and know that I did the right things even though I still feel tired. I am giving myself the best opportunities to feel well. Food, planning, water, movement, cherries, reading, napping. I discipline myself in productivity and that can look like sleep. I am producing a kinder human, reducing stress and healing my body. I hope that you find freedom through choices that help you feel connected and good in all the ways, not pushing yourself beyond your limits or losing yourself through mindless activity. There is a middle space we can walk where we find the daily paths that bring life and peace.
Here’s to a week of wellness as we begin a new month!
Aimee
This is so exactly perfect, especially today! I’m realizing that in my 20s +30s my energy was spent in different ways. Now this year as I approach 49, I definitely feel a shift in how my energy is utilized for more of a gentle endurance than the heated sprint of youth. I can no longer afford to neglect my body +soul needs in the ways I sacrificed them for productivity 2 decades ago. I have been fighting a cold for the last 5 days, but I too rolled out the mat for pilates today, even if I did lay there and just breathe during those 10 full body roll ups 😆 Thank you, thank you for always writing the affirmation and truth we all need to read right now!🌸