The Discipline Of Compassion ~ Strength Without Self-Forcing

Can we be both disciplined and deeply compassionate with ourselves? In this talk, we’ll explore how compassion itself can be a form of inner discipline — one that strengthens rather than suppresses.

Drawing on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), you’ll discover how to shift from power over yourself to power with yourself.

This approach unites compassion and discipline into a steady path toward empowerment and balance.

Music: Permafrost by Scott Buckley; Alex Grohl

Transcript

So I wanted to talk in this session a little bit about a conundrum that I've been facing. The question whether self-compassion and self-discipline are actually mutually exclusive or not. So a while ago I was doing a three-year-long Iyengar yoga teacher training which is very rigorous, Very Spartan. It's like the essence of it is very disciplined. And it brought me to a new level of maturity I would say and also because I worked so hard and deeply with myself and in myself I also somehow had a closer relation with my own youth. Like somehow the way I imagine it is that the tree that I am was both more growing upwards with mature branches and leaves and also digging deeper into the roots of my childhood and solidifying there more my self-connection. So with this discipline I just grew so much and at the end of that I was coming in contact with non-violent communication which is all about slowing down and self-connection and compassion and checking in and it feels very different. And I more or less made a shift in my life from the very disciplined hardcore yoga of Iyengar to the gentle, Deep, Subtle compassion work of non-violent communication. And so this question comes in me. Is it mutually exclusive? Can I never enjoy the benefits of discipline anymore? And the answer I would say is no. I've been disciplined before Iyengar yoga and after Iyengar yoga but still there's a question. Are they compatible in some way? And the problem arises I think that it seems to be an opposition, A contradiction is the way we typically tend to think about discipline. And I think Mike Tyson, The ex-boxer, Actually he's still boxing but he used to box more in the 90s, And he said something like discipline is doing something you hate but doing it like you love it. And this makes me think a lot of another master of discipline Mr. David Goggins, An ex-navy SEAL who is well known for his amazing discipline. But he too has a kind of attitude that he basically calls himself, Well you know imagine the word for a female dog, A little bleep. And then he sort of dominates that little bleep. And you know these two men have undeniably reached enormous heights in performance and in overcoming obstacles. So there's nothing I could take away or nor want to take away from them but I'm asking the question what is the price of that? And so I do see the possibility of combining or marrying self-discipline and self-compassion. And one way would be sort of a sequence and the other way would more be like a synthesis. So what I mean with that is you know we can sequentialize discipline and self-care or compassion. So you could say for instance in the morning I do my meditation, I take care of my body and I take a long walk and in the afternoon I work really hard and I'm disciplined. Or you could for instance have the example of I'm going to yoga class, For about 40 minutes I work my butt off and then for the last 20 minutes I'm laying in shavasana. So then you're having a sequence where one comes after the other. So of course you can have both in your life right? You just do one after the other. But the real question is can they actually be the same thing? So can you do something which is both at the same time discipline and self-compassion? So if you imagine an apple, A red apple, You know if you could just picture it for yourself. The apple has a kind of shape and it also has a color. And these two things are completely different but they're also inextricably connected. You couldn't take away the color without touching the shape and the other way around. So is this possible? And just to maybe land again with a question, As a reflection question for you. If you look at your own life, For instance the last week, You just check with yourself. Do you wish looking back in these days that just went and came and went, Do you wish you had a little bit more discipline in those days? Or did you wish you had a little bit more compassion for yourself? And do you ever notice that these two are at odds for you? So now we're landing, I think, At the crux of it. So for most of us I think I'm imagining you're having some kind of a yes perhaps, Maybe not. But the real interesting part, Like I said, Is can they actually be the same thing? And then I have some ideas about that. So discipline can be compassion. If I'm for instance disciplined about running, I run every day and the reason is I want to care for myself, I want to care for my health, I want to give myself a body that's also functional when I'm 68 or 83. Then my discipline is actually an act of compassion. So there I can see that something that looks like discipline and is discipline is also self-compassion. So there I see that the contradiction dissolves. And another way is to flip it around. Can something that looks like compassion also be an act of discipline? And how I see that is, For instance in myself, Is I have a very strong inner critic that I inherited from my parents and my culture. And so for me, Especially when I want to transform my thinking and my relationship with myself, I have to keep on going back to compassion. If I have the inner critic, My habitual reaction is to go along with the inner critic and get all guilty and really believe the inner critic and stay on that level of self-attunement. But it's a kind of a discipline to keep going back, To keep listening deeper, To keep translating the inner critic to a voice of compassion which actually is beneath it. Because the inner critic comes from a beautiful need, They come with a message, But the language is tragic. So me keeping on applying non-violent communication to myself is, If I say to you, I listen to myself with compassion, That is compassion, But it's a discipline in the sense of I keep on working at it. It's a work. And then there's one other thing that I want to name, Actually two other things, And one is a bit of etymology. So if we look at the word discipline, It actually comes from the latin word discipulus or discipulus, However that is pronounced. Latin is a dead language. But the latin word actually means pupil. So to be disciplined is to have the mindset, The disposition of a learner, Of a student. And what does that mean? A student learns from a teacher, And a teacher could be a literal person, It could also be the image of, For instance, A bodhisattva, Like I surrender to this teaching of the Buddha, Of bodhisattvas, Or I surrender to a path, That can also be a discipline. I can be a pupil to my path, I can be a. . . I want to learn spiritually from life itself. Life is my guru, You know. These are all ways in which we can be a pupil, And a disciple is also a follower. And it's not exactly a follower of. . . I really do not promote blindly following other humans and not listen to yourself. For me, Discipline, Especially this kind of spiritual discipline, Is a following ultimately of the heart. And there I see that discipline and compassion are completely the same thing, They're almost indistinguishable only in talking about it. But I find this actually beautiful, That this the link between discipline, Disciple, And pupil, And then ultimately the surrender to the heart, You know, To the path of the heart. Of course there are different ways you could imagine that, But at least I hope you see that there's a very clear way where discipline is a manifestation of compassion, And compassion is a manifestation of discipline. And again, To return to maybe a bit more of the typical perception, Where I mentioned earlier Mike Tyson and David Goggins. And so the idea what they embody, Brilliantly I might add, You know, Again not taking anything away from their amazing achievements, But the perspective that they seem to propagate is discipline as somehow conquering oneself. You know, Does it resonate that the discipline is a kind of conquering? And for me, This conquering of oneself subtly implies a violence to our inner parts. You know, Discipline is often seen as overcoming laziness, Or overcoming, Well let's stay with laziness. So if I look at myself through the lens of, For instance, Internal family systems, Or just to see that there are different needs that I have, That have different voices, If I continually ignore or even dominate this voice in myself that wants rest, That I then call lazy, I think that is ultimately not sustainable. I think that is not including all of myself in my life. It's sacrificing one part for the other. Do you really want to do that? I'm not sure that I want to do that. You know, Even in yoga, To take that example, One time there was a beautiful instruction from the daughter of, Or was it her, His cousin, I don't remember, But one of the Iyengars, I forget her name for the moment. But when she was instructing us to do, I think it was a trikonasana, So sort of a triangle shape with your body, She also said, So if you extend your left flank, Don't contract your right flank too much, Don't sacrifice one body part for another. And that, I think, Is also where I want to go with discipline and compassion. You know, If we do the inner violence of conquering ourselves, Of basically ignoring or dominating or making a part of us submit, We can accomplish a lot, But it's based on an inner separation, An inner conflict and this inner domination. And so my question is, What does that kind of discipline do to our heart, To our humanity and kindness, If we are dominating our inner life into submission? You know, Even David Goggins, The man who ran ultra marathons on broken feet to honor bodies of his that passed on, Absolutely beautiful, But the way he was using his body, He later had to do a lot of reparations, He had to do two hour stretches a day to sort of heal his body from the abuse. And so, I hope that I've been able to touch upon some clarity that discipline doesn't have to mean I'm dominating myself. Discipline can mean, If we include all parts of ourself, It can mean a beautiful marriage of compassion, Of deep self-connection and of productivity. Thanks a lot for listening. That's all for now. Thank you for being with me in this session. If you'd like to stay updated with more content like this, Please consider following me here on Insight Timer. And if this was meaningful for you, Leaving a rating or a review really helps me reach more people on this shared journey of wisdom and compassion. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day.