Learning Discipline (Again)

Recently, I’ve realized something about myself that I haven’t wanted to own up to really–I’ve realized that I have become undisciplined and am thus far, far from the physically fit individual I was in my late twenties/early thirties; and this lack of “fitness” certainly has carried over to other areas of my life that aren’t physical (emotional fitness, spiritual fitness, etc.). If I’m honest about it, my lack of physical fitness began with pregnancy; and, as usual, there was a “good” reason why. I was put on strict bed-rest for a good part of my pregnancy. Then, after I had my little girl, I used her as the reason I didn’t exercise more. I was, after all, really busy taking care of her all the time. And then, well, I started getting sick a lot when my daughter was just a couple of years old, and then shortly after that I found out that I had smoldering myeloma; and then, about three years after that, I was deathly ill from full-blown myeloma. Then, I had a lot of chemo and a stem cell transplant and a little more chemo. And then there was recovery. Yep, there’s always been some “good” reason, lots of them, to be “unfit.”

But, what about now? I feel most unfit, even after being back on my feet for several years; and, other than the obvious fact that I’ve allowed myself to become an undisciplined person, I have no “good” reason why. Sure, I’m busy–most everyone else I know is too, and many of them make time to exercise. I have realized something interesting. I have realized that I’ve given myself lots of “free passes” regarding certain indulgences in life–and all because I became critically ill and had to go through much unpleasant treatment to get well. It seems that I’ve been feeling like I have somehow earned the right to not push myself too terribly hard. There are a lot of layers to this realization. Sometimes I really do treat myself rather delicately, but sometimes I treat myself pretty harshly. And other times I allow myself to think it really doesn’t matter at all how I treat myself. I just don’t seem to know exactly how to deal with me.

Is this lack of consistency toward myself because I’ve seen the brevity of life and how quickly things can go from “ok” to catastrophic? Is it because I’ve embraced some sense of entitlement (regarding earthly pleasures like food) since I often feel like I’ve gone through so many more “big” things in life than it appears most of my contemporaries have? Is it because I wonder if any of the “good” choices I’ve ever made in my life really have counted for something? I don’t know. I just know that it hasn’t been all that easy to figure out how to move forward, how to live with me, how to be me on the other side of such a traumatic sick season. Nobody really tells you that. People walk you through the disease and the treatment and the recovery from both, but they never really tell you that there’s more to recover from that just the disease and the treatment. There are shattered dreams, new “norms” all around, permanently-altered relationships, layers of guilt, and the list could go on and on. I realize there’s a lot of psychology here, but I just don’t want to think about that. It’s too hard to try to make sense of it all.

At the end of this day, at the end of every day, I believe there’s only one thing that I must realize–my treatment of God is what ultimately matters; and I will never “treat” myself properly (pun intended) in any area if I’m not treating God properly–and I’m not. I’m trying to but I’m failing miserably right now. I must take my eyes off of myself. That’s what I feel like he’s teaching me right now all over again. It just doesn’t matter so much what I’ve been through or even what I’ve done or not done in response to what I’ve been through–he’s what matters. He’s big and he’s good and that doesn’t change. And choosing to remember this each and every moment of each and every day is the type of discipline that I need most.

And no, I am absolutely not talking myself out of physical fitness or any other type of fitness. I’m just saying that the main thing simply has to “remain” the main thing. The prefix “re” means “again” and this so fits here–we must tell ourselves again (and again and again) what the main thing in this life is–and God’s it. And hanging on to this down here amidst all the pleasures as well as all the pain that we could so very easily drown in if let ourselves go completely does indeed take a really special kind of discipline–a supernatural one.