#180: I Hate the Word Discipline

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hey there, welcome back to Your Favorite You.

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I'm still Melissa Parsons, and I'm still so grateful that you're here with me today listening. Today I want to talk about a word that makes my whole body clench up. This is a word that when I hear it, I often hold my breath, my shoulders rise up to be earrings, and yes, I will be completely honest, I have been known to roll my eyes when someone says this word.

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And this word is discipline. Today I want to explore why, because I don't think my reaction is just a personal quirk or stubbornness. I think a lot of us have a complicated, painful, maybe loaded relationship with this word.

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And I think it's worth talking about. So I want to get into it. Just this morning, I was in a hot yoga class. It was a power class. If you've never done a power class in the heat, imagine doing a challenging, sweaty, physically demanding class that makes you hold poses in a room that feels like it might be on the surface of the sun.

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I was sweating before we even started. I swear to God, my boobs were sweating and I had boob sweat. Anyway, it requires focus. Of course, it requires breathing because it's yoga. And it requires showing up for yourself in a really powerful way.

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Our instructor this morning was wonderful. She was encouraging, she was knowledgeable, and she was clearly trying to motivate us through some hard moments in class. But she kept using that damn word that makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

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Discipline. This is where your discipline shows up. Discipline is what gets you through the hard poses. Your discipline practice starts here. And every single time she said it, my whole body clenched up.

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I held my breath, which again, if you know anything about yoga, it's literally the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. And I know I rolled my eyes at least once. I don't think anyone saw me, but that is not in the spirit of yoga.

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And I found myself thinking, why does this word do this to me? Why does hearing discipline in what's supposed to be a healing, self-caring space make me want to shut down? So I did what I always do when something gets under my skin.

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I got curious about it. I brought it up to my coaching group today, and I want to share with you what came up. And honestly, I told my neighbor who I didn't know was going to be at the class, my neighbor Courtney.

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Hi, Courtney, if you're listening, that I was going home to write a podcast episode about why I hate the word discipline. And she laughed. Okay, so here's the honest truth about my relationship with this word.

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If you've been listening for any time at all, or if you know me personally, you know that I spent 12 years in Catholic school, 12 years. And if there's one thing that I learned in Catholic school alongside with Catechism and the Rosary and going to confession as a class, which again, by the way, what does a friggin eight-year-old have to confess?

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Nothing. But anyway, going to Catholic school teaches you that disciplined people are obedient people and that obedient people are good people. And if you're not disciplined, you probably need some punishment to get you there.

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Discipline in my upbringing was not about growth or learning or becoming your favorite version of you. It was about compliance. It was about following the rules without questioning them. It was about being a good girl who did what she was told and didn't make waves and certainly didn't roll her eyes in yoga class.

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And as I've told you before, I was a little bit undisciplined in school. And although I made great grades, I spent my fair share of time in Sister Barbara's office when I was in seventh grade and then in the principal's office at my Catholic high school.

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So here's the broader thing, and I don't think that this is unique to my Catholic upbringing. As women, we are broadly raised to be disciplined and to be obedient. Like I said, to be good girls, to follow the rules, to not take up too much space, to not want too much, to not need too much.

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Discipline in that context is just a prettier word for control and not self-control in the empowering sense. Control imposed from the outside. Control that says your natural instincts here are wrong.

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Your desires are suspect. That was certainly taught to me in Catholic school. Your body and your needs and your wants need to be managed and reined in and kept in line. And I internalized all of that for years and years and years and years.

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And then, of course, there's the body piece, because for me, and I suspect for many of you, discipline also became inextricably linked to food and weight and body image. The message was clear and it was constant.

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If you were more disciplined, you would have a better body. If you struggled with your weight, it was because you lacked discipline. And lacking discipline meant you were lazy, undisciplined even. Maybe even, and here's where that Catholic piece comes back around, slothful.

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Sloth, of course, one of the seven deadly sins, the sin of laziness and lack of effort, the sin of not trying hard enough. I cannot tell you how many times, directly or indirectly, I received the message that my body was the way it was because I wasn't disciplined enough.

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That if I could just control myself better, be stricter with myself, have more willpower, more discipline, then I would finally have the body I was supposed to have. And do you know what that message does?

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It doesn't motivate. It shames. It creates a cycle where you feel bad about yourself, which makes it harder to take care of yourself, which gives you more evidence that you're undisciplined and lazy, which of course makes you feel worse, which makes it harder to take care of yourself.

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There is no room in that cycle for self-compassion. There's no room for kindness or gentleness or understanding. Discipline, as I experienced it, was the opposite of self-compassion. It was strict and punitive and cold and demanding.

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It left no room for being human. And don't even get me started on that fucking Maha commercial with freaking Mike Tyson that aired during the Super Bowl. Oh my God, it just made my blood want to boil and serenity now.

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Okay, so I shared all of this with my coaching group today because this is what I love about the work I get to do. I too get to be human when I'm with my clients. I get to say, hey, gals, here's something I'm wrestling with and see what comes up for them too.

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And what came up was rich and real and of course so validating. One of the women in my group described having a negative, almost sterile reaction to the word, like it was clinical and cold. It had nothing warm in it at all.

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Another woman pointed out something really important, that discipline is often used as a weapon. It's used to make people feel less than if they don't have it, as if having discipline is a moral virtue and lacking it is a moral failing.

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We talked about how much we prefer words like intention or consistency, words that feel like they come from a place of choice rather than from obligation. Another of my clients said that she's been grappling with the word, that she was actively trying to make peace with it and to become friends with it.

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And I loved her honesty about that. She wasn't ready to throw it out entirely. She was kind of in the middle of figuring out her own relationship with it. And she also shared something that really stuck with me, that she wished that there was a word that combined discipline with self-compassion, that captured the commitment and follow-through of discipline without the harshness and the judgment.

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And of course, I've been thinking about that ever since. When I started exploring my aversion to the word, I tried a reframe. So I connected discipline to its root word, which is disciple, as in a student, a learner, someone who's devoted to growth and understanding.

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And I have to say, that softened me a little because I love being a student. I love learning. I love growing. I love the idea of being a disciple of my own life, someone who's curious and devoted to understanding myself better.

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That feels really good. But here's the honest truth. It didn't really work. The negative associations that I have are just too strong. And even when I connected the word disciple, my body still remembered everything else that it had been taught to associate with discipline, the obedience, the punishment, the shame around food and around my body, the good girl who needed to be controlled.

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And I think that's important to acknowledge. Sometimes we can reframe a concept and it transforms completely for us. And sometimes the reframe helps a little bit, but the word itself just is too loaded, too heavy with history.

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It's okay to put the word down and pick up a different one. And sometimes the reframe, frankly, doesn't help at all. So of course you're going to put that word down and pick up a different one. So if I'm not going to use the word discipline when I'm referring to myself, then what am I going to use instead?

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I've been sitting with this, of course, and the word that keeps coming back to me is tenacious. Tenacious means holding fast, being persistent, not giving up, continuing to move forward with what matters, even when it's hard.

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And here's what I love about Tenacious versus Discipline. Tenacious feels like it comes from inside me. It feels like a quality that I choose, not a standard imposed from the outside and from other people.

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It feels warm and fierce and alive. It doesn't imply that I need to be controlled or that my natural impulses are somehow wrong. It just says I care about this deeply and I'm going to keep showing up for it.

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I also love words like intentional because intention implies that I've made a conscious choice, that I'm living on purpose. I also love consistent because consistency is just showing up again and again without judgment about whether I did it perfectly.

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And then persevering because perseverance acknowledges that it's hard and I'm doing it anyway. None of these words make me clench up. None of them make me hold my breath. None of them carry the weight of 12 years of Catholic school or a lifetime of being told my body was the problem and the evidence of my failings.

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These words feel more like mine and that matters. Now, you might be thinking, okay, Melissa, but isn't this just semantics? Does it really matter what word we use? And I want to say, fuck yes, it really does.

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The words we use shape how we feel about ourselves. They shape the energy we bring to our own growth. They shape the energy we bring to our healing arc. They shape whether we approach ourselves with kindness or with judgment, with curiosity or with shame.

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And when I hear the word discipline, my breath stops. Something in me shuts down. And this is not a state from which I can grow. That is not a state from which I can take good care of myself. That's a state of defense and shame and contraction.

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And I don't want it. I unsubscribe. When I think of myself as tenacious, as someone who holds fast to what matters, who keeps showing up, who perseveres with intention and consistency, my heart opens.

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I can breathe. I feel capable. I feel like growth is possible. So same concept, but completely different energy that I'm bringing to it. And here's the self-compassion piece that I think is the most important thing I want to say today.

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Discipline, as it's traditionally understood, leaves no room for self-compassion. It's strict. It's cold. It's binary. You either have discipline or you don't. You're either disciplined or you're lazy.

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You're either a good girl or you need to be punished. And I need to say something to my romance readers. If you want to be punished, that's totally fine. This is not that. Okay, back to the podcast. Self-compassion, on the other hand, is soft and warm and kind.

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It says you're human. You're doing your best. You're going to have days where you show up fully and days where you don't, and both are okay. It's not a moral failure because you skipped a workout or didn't finish a project or you yelled at your kids.

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You're just human. Humans need compassion, not discipline. So here's what I want to give you permission for today. Permission to hate a word. You don't have to make peace with every concept that's been handed to you.

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Permission to hate this podcast. It's fine. Permission to love the word discipline. Some words carry too much history, too much pain, too much shame. You're allowed to put those down. And of course, permission to find your own word.

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Which word captures the quality you're going for without the baggage? Is it tenacious, intentional, consistent, devoted, committed, persistent? There's a million words. Get curious about what word makes your body open instead of close down.

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I also want to give you permission, of course, to bring self-compassion to your growth. You don't have to be strict with yourself in order to change. You don't have to be harsh with yourself to grow.

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In fact, research shows and my experience coaching hundreds of women confirms that self-compassion is far more effective than self-criticism when it comes to lasting change. I'm going to quote Terry Real here from his book, Us.

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He says, there is no redeeming value whatsoever in harshness. Harshness does nothing that loving firmness doesn't do better. I love that quote. I'm also going to give you permission to be a work in progress.

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You don't need my permission. There is permission to be a work in progress. Like my client who's still grappling with the word discipline, trying to become friends with it. You don't have to have this all figured out.

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You're allowed to be in the middle of it. You're allowed to still be working it out. That is not lack of discipline, my friends. That is being beautifully, bravely human. The words we use to talk to ourselves and about ourselves matter enormously.

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They really do shape our relationship with ourselves. They determine whether we approach our own growth with kindness or cruelty, with openness or with shame. I spent a lot of years believing I needed to be more disciplined, that if I could just control myself better, be stricter with myself, demand more of myself, then I would finally be enough.

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And what I've learned is what I actually needed and what most of us actually need is not more discipline. It's more compassion, more tenacity, more intention, more self-trust. And maybe a yoga class where nobody says the D word.

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Just kidding, mostly. If you want support in exploring your own relationship with the words and stories you've inherited and in building a kinder, more compassionate relationship with yourself, that's exactly the work we do at Melissa Parsons Coaching.

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I'd love to work with you. Becoming your favorite you doesn't require discipline. It requires showing up for yourself again and again with tenacity, intention, and a whole lot of self-compassion. Thanks for listening.

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I'll talk to you next week.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!