Discipline - Do I need it?

The word discipline keeps coming up for me this past week. I have always considered myself pretty determined but never disciplined. Discipline is for athletes achieving a life time goal. I was just strong willed and pushed through anything that stood in my way.

I never gave myself credit for what I accomplished. I wasn't achieving I was just surviving. I didn't have time for basking in the spotlight of self-admiration I had to get to the next thing on the list. Nothing was ever enough.

I didn't appreciate my own discipline and my ability to get things done until it was gone. With the grief I lost myself and my ability to make myself do anything. What I did get done was done by a ghost of my former self. I barely made it through each day and this went on for years.

During that time my spirit refused to listen to any gentle coaxing or not so gentle threats I made towards myself. I felt totally lost without this part of myself. I had to learn to love a person that accomplished nothing achieved nothing. This isn't easy when you have spent your life tying your self-worth to the number of things you get done in a day.

I think that was the point for me anyway. I finally got to a place of acceptance and told myself well this is the person you have become so get over it.

Now it seems I have returned, not exactly the same, but a wiser version of myself I have to say I learned some other things too. I have learned just how much you can do without. Just how many days you can do little or nothing and still survive.

Most things on the to do list can stay undone the world won't come to an end if you don't live up to your own expectations or the expectations of anyone else. I learned that the pressure comes mostly from me and besides food and shelter(food can sometimes be optional) you can survive.

I not suggesting that anyone take the same trip that I have but maybe just question the belief that everything on the list is so important. That the world will stop spinning if you don't meet your commitments for one day.

In my world I am happy to report that today there was some monotonous things of my list of to dos. I told myself I had to get them done and felt grateful that my spirit went along with it.

First on emotions - then a family disease

It is the time of year for me that brings up a lot of emotions. Being dumped twice at Thanksgiving gives me cause to be just a little cautious this week. Deciding what are emotions from the past and what it is I am actually feeling today.

What I have learned is you don't have to be a slave to your emotions but ignoring emotions will only delay them. I dreamed this morning that my ex not only had an affair but was sleeping with everyone in our high rise apartment building. Everyone knew but me and they were all consoling me. We lived in a house not an apartment so I interpret this as me thinking I should have known. It is pointless to go there but it tells me my subconscious is still acknowledging the date.

I am feeling sadness just below the surface today. I can accept that this too shall past and know that leaning into it is the fastest way to move on. I have learned the hard way that resistance is where the pain lies.

I went to lunch with my co-worker and ran into my original sponsor and she said I was thinking about you last night. I was thinking about her last night too. So this afternoon I called her and we discussed the above issues. I have known her 20 years and she knows me probably better than anyone emotionally, all my fears and how my mind works and I trust her to be honest with me. I felt relieved after the call and went on with my day.

Just as I was getting back to the office my nephew called. I had to look twice because he has never called me before. Unfortunately he got his brain from our side of the family the analyzing side. Thinking too much, being keeper of all things the beacon in the storm. Most reliable in a crisis.

His dad is an angry adult child of two parents addicted to prescription drugs. His volatile unpredictable behavior over the years have brought out different traits in their three kids. My brother in law recently started taking medication himself to cope with his sister's addiction to drugs and they haven't seen much of him since.

My nephew is in his early 20's and is trying to decide a career path and his mother wants him to go to law school and take over her practice. She told him to call me because she thought since we have similar personalities I could maybe give him some insight. He started by giving me the run down on the Thanksgiving plan and how he's forcing the rest of the family to go the his aunts house because this is what his dad wants and if they buck then there will be a scene.

I feel for those kids and I know their road with be tough. My sister has done a good job raising them to be confident and not follow the crowd. But the things they have endured with their dad and my sister's denial will shape their lives forever.

This is why it is a family disease. The grandparents didn't need help because they were taking drugs prescribed by a doctor. They are both gone now leaving a legacy of addiction behind.

On the bright side they have me and they can have a program if they need and want some help. My sister has been to Al-Anon but didn't feel that she could relate since she isn't married to an alcoholic. She went because her husband sister's son needed someone to go with him. She did have some advice for the group. We have all the answers and I lives are still unmanageable.

What was my advice to him about his career? Well I said if he is like me he is probably ADD and will need a variety of different kinds of tasks to keep him busy. He is a people person and can be disciplined when he in interested in a subject so law might actually work.

Do what you love and you will be a success, at least in your own mind.

Watching Too Much TV

I am from the first real generation of kids raised on TV. My first recollection of TV was a really scary Vincent Price horror movie when I was about 4. My mom had left the TV on while she was cleaning house and even though I had never ending nightmares after that, I was really hooked.

In our house my mom was the strict disciplinarian and my father was passive and really served as vocal back up. So we had rules about how much TV we could watch and we could pick one hour of shows a day. I agonized over which ones and would try to negotiate more time with chores or give various elaborate justifications for why I should have more time. This never worked and I had to settle for just two shows.

When she got sick we spent most of our time in hospital waiting room and watched a lot of TV and drank lots of soda. The TV was my friend and kept me busy while the life I thought I could count on slipped away. Towards the end and after she was gone I watched sometimes six hours or more of TV when I got home from school.

I hear people talk about how much time kids spend in front of a screen of some kind today and how they are being ruined by that and I think about all the time I spent there. Even now when I use TV to occupy me, soothe me and kill time when I want to escape. I do get bored with it sometimes but it is still my friend and with TIVO I can watch my favorite shows any time and more efficiently.

So tonight I am policing myself and have turned the tube off to spend time in front of another screen. So maybe the damage was permanent.