Steadfastness
“My
writing practice taught me the important thing is steadfastness. It's
not necessarily discipline. Discipline can become a prison. When your
spiritual practices become another thing for you to be anxious about,
they've lost their usefulness.”
Elizabeth
Gilbert
You may know if you've
been reading this blog for a while that I get up very early in the
morning and write. It's not the disciplined, cloistered life you
might imagine. I simply wake up before daylight, and I have found
that writing something thoughtful grounds me and keeps me focused on
what is important. I don't always hit it out of the park with my
writing—in fact, that's rare. But, that's not the point. The point
is sharing with you, whoever you may be, what is in my heart to
share, with the hope that it connects with at least some of you. I
have had enough feedback from you to know that now and then, it does
connect. For that I am truly grateful.
I looked up the
difference between discipline and steadfastness. Discipline has to do
with control; with obeying rules and adhering to regulations. No wonder the
thought of it conjures up prison, and makes one anxious.
Steadfastness, on the other hand, means unwavering, fixed in purpose,
firmly established. In other words, committed to something or
someone. Whether you are creative in your endeavors or not,
steadfastness is a requirement for achieving whatever you set out to
do. We have to persist through frustration and failure in order to
accomplish almost anything. It is unrealistic and self-defeating to
expect oneself to always exceed expectations, but necessary to stay
focused on the goal if we are to have any chance of success.
Spiritual practice is
exercise for the mind and heart. Just like a physical workout, it
varies in style from person to person and changes over a lifetime.
One's soul is the life force that animates the physical
body—keeping it healthy is as necessary to vitality as good food
and clean water. Unwavering, steadfast commitment to soul expansion
makes life here on earth an exciting and sacred experience.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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