02.24.20 Intuition V. Discipline
I have always been a good girl. As a child, I got good at listening to the world and the people around me. I began to anticipate what was coming and figuring out how to behave in relation to that. People around me have always loved this about me. I learned how to turn my attention away from whatever is going on inside my own heart and mind so that I can meet the expectations of the moment. I cultivated great discipline in this area.
It was good that I developed this ability. This skillset probably saved my life and definitely provided more opportunities in the world than I could ever tell were available for someone like me. By training my attention on the discipline needed to thrive in the world, I was rewarded over and over again with good grades, and the right friends, and jobs, and mounting responsibilities.
I learned how to work through pain, sadness and discouragement. I learned how to stay up all night. I learned how to disregard anything that my body or heart presented as important. I learned how to keep my eyes on the prize. I learned discipline. In doing so, I became an expert at ignoring my intuition. My intuition never went away, I just decided not to trust it.
I found myself on diets that I knew damn well didn’t make sense. I trained on top of injury. I found myself unable to speak my mind in meetings. I did things that met the requirements of the moment and shushed my questioning inner dialogue. I did dangerous things. I did hurtful things.
The replacement of intuition with discipline is an outcome that is an absolute win for systems of oppression. These systems require us to respect discipline and respond with obedience. When we learn to replace intuition with discipline, it is hard to know if we are acting on our own behalf.
That is not to say that there is no rational basis for discipline. I mean, personally I practice yoga, train as a powerlifter and I am committed to the liberation of myself and everyone around me. None of that can be done without discipline and I am not ready to give up any of those aspects of my life.
I think in general, at least in American culture, we get really afraid of distancing ourselves from discipline. This makes sense, our culture presents a relentless requirement of constant performance in order to be meaningfully rewarded. It makes it hard to just call in sick or call in … anything. There are real consequences to intuitive behavior.
I think the sweet spot is combining discipline and intuition. We need to constantly re-evaluate our disciplined behaviors and ask ourselves if they are still of service to us. The judge in this trial has to be our intuition.
For me, right now I am burying myself as deep as I can into intuition. I am taking everything I have ever learned about how to be and setting it on fire. I am unlearning to work hard, unlearning how to diet, unlearning how to apologize, and unlearning how to dominate. Initially, this felt horrible. I still feel a bit untethered and I am sometimes worried that I am unlearning integrity.
When I quit my job, I just wanted to sleep for about a month. I was scared and thought there was something wrong with me. I was worried that I might not ever get up again. My husband assured me that this was a normal response to working the way I did for so many years. I decided to trust him.
Now I have time to feel things. I have time to decide what feelings I am willing to wrestle with and which ones I want to put away for another time. This feels like a real treasure.
So far what I am experiencing is that if given the chance, my intuition will not let me down. If I make the space, my intuition will point me to the areas of discipline that I need and will support this function. After all, intuition is at it’s best our most potent survival mechanism - so it seems that ignoring it, is never in our best interest.