Discipline, The Word I Loved to Hate

Me and discipline did not get along for 48 years of my life. I equated discipline to being punished like a child who misbehaved or a student who had to study for years to get into a specialized school. Since I grew up so worldly, I didn’t have any aspirations and I was a lazy person. Even as an executive in corporate America, I did the least amount of work to keep my job. Yes, my root sin is sensuality. Not just in pleasure, but also with comfort. I would not go over and above for anything or anyone and certainly would not step out of my comfort zone.

Admiring Those Who Have Discipline

At the same time I was hating on discipline, I was admiring those who practiced it. How did Susie only have one drink at dinner? How did Bob choose such a healthy meal and skip desert without complaining? Why doesn’t Tom miss a workout? Why is Nancy is always doing the next thing to improve herself?

My entire life has been a battle with my weight and not for the good reasons, for the worldly reasons, that I should look a certain way to be accepted and to be successful. I was bulimic for a good chunk of my early life and had a disordered relationship with food and drink, pretty much moderation of anything in general. My attitude was one of discipline is bad and I want nothing to do with it. I had no idea how quickly things would change.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates reproof is stupid (Proverbs 12:1).

Changing My Attitude Toward Discipline

When God found me in 2013, I was learning about discipline in my life and in prayer. Of course, God was showing me all the sinful ways I was living and how much I had to change – which was everything. As time went on, I noticed my attitude toward discipline began to change.

Once you reflect on changes in your life, you will notice patterns. When you see these patterns, it is easy to identify a temptation coming or ‘something’ that could lead us to sin or vicious behavior. In the beginning of my journey, I relied a lot on myself to change. Every week I would drag my sorry self to confession so that I could receive Jesus. I was not able to change on my own. I learned that I needed humility and transformation from the Holy Spirit. That was when I started to not only lean on God, but to make it an offering.

I was connecting discipline and obedience to freedom and empowerment, thanks to the saints. I was seeing that denying myself is something I should be doing regularly, not just during certain times of the Liturgical year.

Three Daily Advent Mortifications

Lately, I have not been happy with how my body has been feeling. I groan when I pick something up off the floor, I am achy in my hips and they are worse when I am trying to sleep. My hands, knees and ankles are inflamed – who am I kidding, my whole body is inflamed. As I prayed what to do this Advent season, God put on my heart to do three mortifications a day. I wanted to focus on mind, body and soul. However, my first commitment was to work out for thirty-minutes each day. I knew this was one thing I needed to do for my body, there was no getting around the fact that I let my body atrophy over the past few years.

I filmed my experience and you can check out my youtube video series here – I share my raw walk every day. I learned how much better I was feeling with working out and that I was beginning to look forward to it. I then took my health into my own hands and decided to learn about my body and how it works. I found a guy online who had sore hips at the young age of twenty. He could barely drive his manual stick-shift car or sit for any length of time. His doctors were driving him toward surgery. He decided to do his own research and what he did for himself was truly miraculous. This guy has completely changed his range of motion, flexibility and muscle tone. I learned that it is all about the muscle. But it’s not just about doing the typical workout movements, it’s about real-life movements with full mobility. I was on a new adventure, learning about how my body works and experiencing what God had been trying to teach me for decades.

The mind, body and soul are interconnected. If one is out of balance, the whole life of that person is out of balance. To be true Catholic Christians, we need to take care of our mind, body and soul. We need to be good stewards of the gifts God gave us and protect ourselves – from sin and from physical harm. We cannot be good evangelists if we are out of shape, tired, and in pain – can we?

Do you not know that your body is a temple^* of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body(1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

2023 – Time to Show My Body Who Its Master Is

I was diving into new exercises and feeling great. As I was researching more mobility exercises for my lower body – something else was put in my way. I do not believe in coincidences, only God-incidences. I started to investigate how best to feed my body. As you may surmise, there are some heated opinions and emotions around diet and lifestyle out there. All I did was expose myself to information while reflecting on my body and how it has reacted throughout my life with what I have put in it. I also prayed and asked God if this was something I should consider.

I was already doing some intermittent fasting and cutting down on the carbs, but I was not full keto like I was about a year ago. I believe God put two doctors in my online searching who both shared the benefits of prolonged-fasting. Disclaimer, I am not a doctor and I recommend you do your own research, but this is what I found.

I was learning to listening to what my body was communicating to me and I was reacting to what it was telling me. I found that I would eat when I was truly hungry and at the same time, plow through a hunger wave with no issues. My Advent Bodily Mortification was teaching me to be even more present. I wanted a new challenge, so I decided on New Year’s Eve that I would begin a 72-hour water fast with sodium and potassium and vitamin D and C.

My knees totter from fasting; my flesh has wasted away (Psalm 109:24).

Be That Witness – The One Other’s Admire

Many people were commenting on my fasting, “I could never do that, there is no way!” I kept responding with, “I thought the same thing, but God is helping me through this, I am so grateful to Him!” When I reported the benefits along the way, I felt as if God was using me to say, “I made this amazing body – it can heal itself – let me show you.”

While I did not do my prolonged fast for religious purposes, I will say that I was skipping around thanking God for how great I felt. I was amazed and perplexed at how good I felt, how much energy I had, how little sleep I needed and I just kept thanking Him. My husband was shocked at how good I felt and how much energy I had as well. I never took credit and always thanked God, it was all His doing and it was Him who gave me all that energy.

Because I felt so good, I kept going and ended at 5 days, 9 hours. I could have gone longer, but my husband wanted me to eat. Here is a video recapping the entire fasting experience. Remember, I did my own research and am only sharing my experience, you need to do what is right for you. Each person is different, and I always say you should learn and experiment with yourself and know your limitations – perhaps with your doctor.

What did I learn from this? That discipline means freedom and empowerment, not punishment. I continue down the workout path and with intermittent fasting and I am back eating full keto. I am living with purpose and meaning and walking with God throughout my day thanking and praising Him for showing me this light after 52 years of living.

Lord, this body is yours, you paid a great price for me. I promise to treat this body with respect and love and to work it out to keep it healthy – mind, body and soul. For more on discipline, you can listen to my Relevant Radio interview.