Learning self control and discipline is the single most essential knowledge that one must acquire to lead a healthy and fulfilling life.
The delightful feeling of a sumptuous cookie, the joyfulness after a glass of wine, or the state of excitement on watching a pornographic video; all impress their associated pleasantness on our mind. But just like an insect gets attracted to the sweetness of the honey and gets stuck to it, our minds also get stuck to these gratifying sensations. The nature of the mind is to crave pleasurable sensations and instant gratifications.
Cravings are the primary cause of cultivating unhealthy habits in life. The satisfaction from engaging with the objects of our craving is short-lived and results in a sense of unfulfillment in their absence. Since change is the only constant, holding on to any object leads to dissatisfaction. Mental and physical health deterioration results from our lack of strong will to resist the temptations of our minds. Learning to stand strong against the self-destructing wants of the mind is the key to personal and spiritual growth.
Conditionings and Habits govern Human lives
Humans are the creatures of habits and patterns. The delicious aroma automatically pulls you inside the shop every time you pass your favorite bakery store. You believe that you are acting on your own will but in truth, you are functioning according to the whim of your senses. The senses get stimulated upon encountering objects and command the mind to take the necessary steps to gratify them immediately. A conditioned mind without knowledge of disobedience blindly follows what it has been instructed.
Around the place where I live, I have been noticing a person carrying water jars in both his hands every day. Something peculiar about him and his body language aroused a feeling of extra kindness towards him. When I inquired, I got to know that he had been brought to the town from a distant village in his childhood. The family had trained him to work hard, have a meager diet, and then sleep off the day in the animal shelter. He has been doing that for 25 years and doesn’t know what disobedience is. He is acting out of habit and has no knowledge of alternatives or ways to pursue them.
Begin With Informing Yourself
Your minds have no information to make an alternative decision when encountered with commanding inputs of the senses. There has to be a repository built to inform the mind about the benefits and ways of not subjugating blindly to the senses. This has to be done by reading and acquiring knowledge of healthy food, healthy habits, healthy lifestyle, and conscious living. Stepping out of ignorance is crucial in your journey towards inculcating discipline.
Be mindful to not consume blindly any information to educate yourself, and do not over-consume. It’s wise to start with verified and trusted knowledge from experienced teachers. Also, surrounding yourself with people having healthy habits and being part of a community that is aligned with the values of mental wellness/ conscious living is particularly important. It allows you to build a strong base and prevent it from the destructive influences of bad company.
Acknowledge Your Consciousness
A parallel process that must be carried out is the continuous effort of knowing yourself. It is an effort because the natural tendency of the mind is to function out of habit/ conditioning without any requirement of being conscious. If someone has a strong addiction to gambling, then their minds have no necessity to make a conscious choice other than being swayed by their habits. But it doesn’t mean that consciousness doesn’t exist. It notices all the actions being performed. To some extent, it assesses the consequences but is soon hushed. It is in its weak and timid state.
All humans are conscious of every action they undertake. Even if he is engaged in the most self-destructive activity out of tendency, his consciousness is aware of this. If you train an AI to phase-wise destroy its parts one by one then it will keep on doing it without any awareness. It doesn’t feel any sensations or emotions that could regulate its actions. At no point, it will stop damaging itself unless overridden. But you are not an AI. You experience the physical, mental, and emotional pains and sufferings associated with your habitual actions.
Empower Your Awareness
You have to empower your awareness by acknowledging it and beginning to give it respect. It is the only thing that distinguishes you from machines. Inculcate an attitude of gratefulness for being aware. Allow it to take the front seat of your existence and not just be left abandoned as a redundant tool. Encourage yourself to engage in activities that make you more aware of yourself. A few such activities are writing about what your likes and dislikes are, journaling about your difficult and good feelings throughout the day, observing and maintaining the pattern of your food habits and emotions, etc.
All the time you are in action mode. Whenever you get an impulse you jump into the activity or your mind immediately starts the chain of thoughts. There is no rest involved. To become aware you have to facilitate a pause for your mind to get out of the grasp of the conditioning. Signal your mind to stop for a while at any instance where your consciousness notices the action as not beneficial for you and others, however feeble it might be. Find a place to sit down and breathe a little heavily a couple of times. You are free to stick to your original decision but just a few moments of rest and observing your breathing. That’s all.
Separating Yourself From the Mind
Gradually as the awareness is empowered you become conscious that your mind is a part of you and not entirely you. To understand it better consider the example of a train. Suppose you embarked on a train running between city A and city B. The train is programmed to end its trip only after reaching city B. But you are not the train, you are just a traveler who can disembark at any other point in between those cities. Similarly, your mind and its habits are a part of you. You have wrongly identified yourself to be entirely your mind and its patterns and thus ignorantly get governed by it.
Mindfulness practices are extremely useful in achieving this. Through these practices an observer’s consciousness is inculcated compared to the regular doer’s consciousness. If you have an addiction to alcohol and a strong urge to get into a bar kicks in. Usually, the doer consciousness that has identified itself with the mind gives in to the temptation. Whereas when you have developed a faculty to distinguish yourself as an observer of those thoughts in the mind then you have the opportunity to surpass them. More about it in my book Boxing Thoughts.
Recommended Mindfulness Practice
Mindful meditation is a powerful technique for training your mind in this regard. This practice begins with watching your breath. Finding a dedicated time and space to sit down calmly and cut yourself from all distractions for at least 30 minutes every day makes a lot of difference. Choose any comfortable position to sit down and start observing the incoming and outgoing breath. Observe the pace of breathing, associated sensations around the nostril, and falling and rising of your chest. Become aware of every breath entering your body.
Slowly, as you develop the faculties to be aware of your breathing, the practice has to be extended to observe your thoughts. At first, it would be difficult to sit calmly and not get troubled by thoughts. But as soon you find yourself disturbed come back to your breath and become calm. With due course of practice, you shall be able to observe the thoughts without reacting. Along with thoughts, the associated emotions are also observed in this practice as an outsider. Ultimately with dedication, you would be able to champion the art of establishing yourself as a separate entity from the mind and thus in a strong position to control it.
Other mindfulness practices like body scans and walking meditation are also good tools. Find one that speaks to you the most and kickstart your journey. Don’t spend much time planning in the beginning.
Incorporating Self control And Discipline
Self control is an opposing force against the strong currents of the tendencies of your mind. A sturdy and stable base is required to act as a dam against these currents and channel the thoughts in a beneficial direction. All the above steps help you accomplish that. With your newly developed sharpened intellect to discriminate properly, you have to make a shift from the usual direction of the harmful tendencies of the mind. The first such conscious exercise is tough as you are breaking a long pattern but stay motivated to take it.
The renewed vigor of change is empowering and sends waves of hope throughout your body and mind. You have displayed the highest standard of commitment in coming so far. The hard shell is broken. Now all you have to do is maintain this. You have to safeguard and not allow the old habits of your mind to sabotage your work. This is where discipline becomes vital. The mind will play tricks to persuade you to get gratified. It will play its old friend card and try to drag you but you have to exercise strong discipline. There is nothing to worry about as your discrimination has excellently developed by this time, just stay focused and strong.
Even if you relapse, nothing has been lost. It’s a step back acknowledge it and get over it. There should not be any judgment. Cmmon! you are trying to overcome a pattern that has been going on for years or maybe decades. A small relapse is still way better than constant indulgence. Stand firm again and arouse discipline with additional vigor. It will take time and effort. You have to be patient and consistent.
Arise and Awake! The best time to start a positive change in your life is right now.
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