Reviving discipline: connecting to your creative fuel sources

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I’ve noticed a trend towards demonizing discipline. We conflate one particular experience or interpretation of a word with its every expression and discard it entirely, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We hear the label, revert to its assigned meaning, and our critical thinking is turned off, curiosity anesthetized. What I prefer to do is change my relationship to the frequency itself, to explore its essential nature—to get curious about what other experiences I might have with that concept.

For the last 2 years, I have been on a journey with the concept of Discipline and its twin frequency, Devotion. If devotion is the principle of being in service to something we value, how does discipline play a role in this process?

Discipline, to me, is the principle of being responsible to that which we are devoted to.

If devotion runs off of love, excitement, an intrinsic sense of the worthiness of some cause or course of action, discipline is what is exerted when those peak emotions run out. Discipline is the determination to resume contact with the inherent value of the task at hand.

In order to understand discipline, we must divorce it from the idea of rigidly, uncritically following orders. We must uncouple it from the idea of blind obedience. We must redefine it in accordance with our Will, our desire, our embodied boundaries.

We must recognize that the objective of discipline is not to disconnect us from our intrinsic motivation but to reunite us with it.

Notice how this feels in your body. How this might immediately transform what the pursuit of discipline looks like to you. In a moment, discipline shapeshifts from force and strain and violation—a process inherently disrespectful to the individual and all our disparate parts of Self—to one that honors our capacity to remain in alignment with our deepest desires; the ones that transcend our constantly shifting emotions.

Changing how we relate to productivity

In order to redefine discipline, we start by transfiguring the concept of productivity and what it means to “do the work.” We have to take a step back from what we think the creative process is supposed to look like, from how we think it should appear to pursue our desires, and consider how organic processes of creation actually appear.

You are not a machine. If your objective is to show up every day with no preparation and write a polished and publishable article, to make a gallery-worthy art piece, you are going to have to adjust your expectations.

Consider that the greatest portion of the creative work takes place when you are not “there.” The majority of the development of your ideas occurs at a subconscious level, arriving in your conscious mind as a flash of insight or awareness. Some of it comes to you while you’re in the process of experimenting, circling the action of creating art rather than sitting down to do it procedurally the way you would solve a math problem. Most of your solutions are spontaneous accidents.

When you consider this truth, does it seem reasonable to think of productivity in such an external, goal-oriented way?

Maybe you are at your most productive when you aren’t trying to be productive at all.

Maybe you are at your most productive when you are feeling your way through life, partnering with your instincts.

You are at your most productive when you are connected to your creative fuel sources.

Turning on the gas

Imagine yourself as Mother Earth herself; a spherical rock encased in its own atmosphere. Containing sky, surface, and deep underground pockets of all sorts of natural resources. Recently, using the same technology designed to detect and record earthquakes, it was discovered that there is 3x more water under Earth’s surface than atop it in one single 700km reservoir. Besides this groundwater there are pockets of oil and natural gas. And the way we often happen upon these resources is by accident.

If you want to make contact with your own inner resources, you have to sink your hands into the soil of Self.

You have to dig deep and discover what is there to create with. You have to make contact with your own intrinsic curiosity to create. But sometimes, we get too distracted with our own surface contents; with the mountains and molehills that disconnect us from our desire and the worthiness of our creative cause. Our preliminary excavations turn up hidden boulders of avoidance and fear and we don’t stick with those emotions long enough to move through them.

We tell ourselves we don’t actually want what we know, in the deepest parts of our Selves, we fervently want.

This is where discipline comes in. This is where our commitment and responsibility to those parts drive us deeper into these emotions. And often, there is no other way to travel into them—to gather more intel on their origins and qualities—than to do the work we’re avoiding.

After all, these parts that are creating resistance are only imagining what will happen when we show up to pursue our desire. They are forecasting based on past experience. But they have no data in the Now. They don’t actually know how creative work is going to feel that day or how they should approach it because they haven’t experienced it yet.

This is when we need to create a space where accidents can happen—where we can reconnect with our felt sense of desire rather than gazing glumly upon the object of it.

We need to set up an experiment.

Entering the laboratory

Whether there’s an idea you’re summoning the motivation to explore or you’re simply following the desire to be creatively engaged, there is some vision—some energy, image, or sensation—that alighted upon you one day, fertilizing you with this dream. However distant that desire might feel now, it lives somewhere inside you, closely guarded by parts of Self whose need for it exceeds their fear of it.

Remember that this feeling is always available to you, even when it is unseen or inaccessible.

Remember that you can always go back there.

All you need to do is get out of your head, remove yourself from any demands or expectations, and return to a state of play. All you need to do is get really curious about what sparked that desire in the first place. All you need to do, is stop choking out your creative channel with a narrow focus and coveted result and create some space.

Creating space

To do this, I usually dip into my toolkit of practices and exercises that help me connect with a sense of spontaneity and genuine surprise. But first, I start by intentionally “zooming out.”

Before I start my apprenticeship session, I turn my attention to what I would like to get done or how I think the session is supposed to look and note how this feels for me when I imagine it. “Ah, I see that part of me is thinking I should show up to write an article today on the topic of discipline. When I feel into that topic, I don’t feel very excited about it but I don’t feel a strong resistance to it either. I don’t notice any thoughts immediately available and I don’t feel any close under the surface.”

Next, I intentionally allow myself to let that go. “I am willing to release my demand for this idea. I release control over how this idea will come about and I release my need to create a specific result. If this idea would not like to be born today, I will honor that.”

Then, I open myself up to discover something new. “I surrender to the whims and desires of my deeper Self and I honor the intelligence of my creative channel. My only intention for this session is to discover what energies, entities, or parts of Self wish to meet me. I give myself over to my own needs, including the ones I hadn’t predicted or don’t quite understand.”

Finally, I turn to the scared and resistant parts of me and I offer them my support. I call out to them and give them a moment to share anything they would like me to know—allowing myself to acknowledge and feel any thoughts, images, emotions, or sensations that arise in response. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I state my commitment to honoring their boundaries. “I extend a hand to any parts of me that are not on board with this session today. I invite you to be a part of this practice even if all you do is watch from the sidelines. Is there anything you would like me to know? … I see, thank you for sharing that. I honor these emotions and will remain available if you need to stop this session or do something differently. Know that you can always reach out again if you need to.”

This puts me in a headspace where I can temporarily set aside all of the fears and demands and resistance keeping me from showing up for myself and my emotional wellbeing—even for only 5 mins.

Surrendering to the process

Creativity is an emotional need because it is a process of engaging with all parts of Self. I can’t neglect my creative practice any more than I can neglect my needs to eat and sleep and move my body. Discipline allows me to have boundaries with myself that reflect this imperative.

Once I’ve zoomed out a little, I usually begin creating space through intuitive movement, meditation, and meta-journaling. I write about how I’m feeling, what is coming up for me, and what stirs within me when I contemplate my idea, if I have one. I might even ditch my usual practices entirely and go for a walk or doodle in my hypersigil journal.

What I do in this space isn’t particularly important. What is important is my intention to inhabit a creative headspace—to be in the Void—and to remain open to whatever wants to emerge and move.

While I am engaged in this practice, I don’t question what comes up—even if it seems wholly unrelated to my art. When I’m in this space, I am in service to Spirit. I am in service to my extended Self. I am not in charge because only my Genius can see the full timeline of events that must take place.

Whatever worries I have about “doing things right” or making the wrong choice have to be set aside for a moment. For now, I have to commit to seeing the full picture.

The tree of life and the inner wellspring: a ritual for connecting with your creative channel