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Personal Breakthrough

What Discipline Really Means?

You probably stumbled upon the word discipline since you were so little and got scared of it from the very beginning of your life, especially because we would mostly hear it when we got into trouble or we were prevented from not following it. And, regarding the title of this article, “What Discipline Really Means,” and addressing the redundant use of the word ‘really’, I can tell it is because in my experience made me relate the word discipline with an unpleasant emotion about a concept of being under arbitrary control, earned that is something you would do against your will and sorts, enough reasons to keep myself away from it as long as I could. Even I was practicing it in many ways distinctively from the former concept unknowingly, walking in life carrying a concept I was completely and ‘really’ misled about.

After studying it, traveling around, and paying special attention during observation of people and vast nature, I now define the word discipline as written in my books, as “a habit you cultivate consciously.” – Jor. A concise definition, isn’t it? I tried to explain it as easiest as I could. And as minimal as it brings to existence flourishing ways of personal growth opportunities and great things if, of course, the discipline it has the direction of love, and this is maybe the most important thing when deciding which discipline you choose to cultivate in your life.

I am happily mentioning some definitions by legendary knowledgeable and interesting minds that are or were part of the living, and we the readers and spectators are lucky their ideas resonated enough so we can print them and read them here, starting from the artists to the philosophers:

The meaning of discipline to David Bowie (in the late 70’s)

“Discipline doesn’t mean you wake in the morning and have breakfast at 8 o’clock in the morning and leave the house at half past 8. Discipline is, if you conceived some thing, then you decided wether or not it’s worth following through , and if it’s worth following through then you follow it through its logical conclusion and do it with the best of your ability, that’s a discipline. Wether there are areas in it that are not to ones liking, you have to go back the way through it and do it, and that’s what I do”

David Bowie

I especially like the part about “then you do it with the best of your ability,” it doesn’t only say much about what discipline means but it particularly says a lot about what discipline takes, and how amazing and mesmerizing things are achieved by it, such as in nature and arts, but how he saw work in general. This may be the way discipline should be followed.

Camus’ quote about discipline

In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths. The required diligence, doggedness and lucidity thus resemble the conqueror’s attitude. To create is likewise to give a shape to one’s fate.

Alber Camus

Here Albert Camus’ quote does not refer directly to the term discipline, but rather ‘a discipline’ and what it implies. It lets us know how discipline and its required determination bring an intended accomplishment.

Martin Luther King Jr. referring to the importance of discipline

“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

There’s a great variety of registered times when Martin Luther King Jr. took time to speak about the intrinsic requirement to act following discipline to legitimize the power of the people.

Discipline according to Epictetus

“No greater thing is created suddenly… If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

Epictetus

I especially like the way he talks about affordability and sustainable living in the respectful interaction with the environment and nature, something not considered in the XX or XI century industrial realities, producers and consumers, a reality in our habits we need to asses daily.

Discipline according to Seneca

“Our life should observe a happy medium between the ways of a sage and the ways of the world at large; all men should admire it, but they should understand it also.”
“The heart is great which shows moderation amid prosperity.”

Seneca

Again, and previously from Epictetus’ times, self-restraint as a form of discipline, focused on community and common good.

Plato about discipline

“Discipline is a kind of order. A master of pleasures and desires. And the person is described being in someway a master of himself”

Plato (The Republic)

Around 2500 years separate us from Plato, and fairly his ideas survived its era. Plato mentioned the concept of assessing and personal growth in many ways, and discipline is about you taking control of yourself, not being ruled instead.

Conclusion

Discipline is a must, and crucially deserves great attention and practice, once you discover its benefits in your own life you will only wish you started before you did, so start the change by cultivation, today, just after this reading is a good and the best of times. Enjoy!

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Playlist

Upbeat Music Playlist

So many times the best solution to anything is the most simple one. And you come back to the best of you is just to play the right upbeat music and upbeat song.

This personal upbeat music playlist is composed by the ones that make me smile, get reactivated, dance and do and accomplish whatever is want at the moment.

Zara Larsson – Lush Life

This is the kind of songs that take you from unnecessary overthinking to enjoyment. Forget everything smile and enjoy everything and everyone around you.

My favorite part of the song:

I live my day as if it was the last
Live my day as if there was no past
Doin’ it all night, all summer
Doin’ it the way I wanna
Yeah, I’ma dance my heart out ’til the dawn
But I won’t be done when morning comes
Doin’ it all night, all summer
Gonna spend it like no other

Yaeji – Raingurl

I try to adapt the lyrics of this on the idea of being ready and fearless of anything on the way. Like, bring it on! Best part when she says make it rain, raingurl make it rain!

Tim Impala – Let it happen

When we let it happen and let go with courage, accepting we are existing among so many things we didn’t start, and it is about going through making it awesome and enjoying the ride.

Sometimes I listen to this song I close my eyes and I meditate, continuing the day stronger than before. Awesome for work out as well

Simon Field – Shake The Tree

Don’t let the lion sleep gotta shake the tree! Be the lion of your day the hero of your life.

Sacre – The Call

This song and it’s lyrics invite you to focus on being yourself and celebrate who you are in union.

I couldn’t mention a little part of the lyrics without mention a big chunk of it:

We’re all Going to celebrate now
Let’s make some noise
Ready, steady, moving on up to the future,
Reach out we can light the stars
Ready steady, all the way up,
Be a trooper
Express who you are!
Ready steady, never give up
Spark the fire
Tonight we’ll ignite the sky
Ready steady no one can stop
What we started
Just open your eyes!

Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild

If you sometimes feel overwhelmed by other people’s expectations of how you should be or which way you should take, this is liberating to listen to.

When you realize you were born to be you, to express yourself and authenticity, and this always means to be a bit or a lot different, and why not wild? Born to be wild!

Categories
Personal Breakthrough

Instant Motivation With Motivational Videos

Instant Motivation With Motivational Videos of movie scenes. Collection of videos that instantly motivate me to go and make things happen.

Activate the.great achiever in you with this motivational videos, get inspired go for it, and finally get all you wanted.

Any Given Sunday – Al Pacino Motivational Speech

I don’t play American football and probably you either, but you can apply this way of seeing your goals and the need to achieve them, in any personal or business project that you might have. Al Pacino’s character tries to inspire and motivate the players with a dramatic motivational speech, where it draws the fact that the one the want to achieve the goal the most is the one that is going to be the one that is going to succeed on achieving it.

Rocky – Silverster Stalone’s Inspirational Speech

I probably didn’t watch and maybe you are not a big fun of Rocky movies, for many reasons. But, the speech that Rocky, played by Silvester Stalone, gives in this scene can be very moving and make you realize that change and your destiny are in your hands.

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Neuroscience Psychology

Perception

Perception can be defined as the ability we have to perceive stimuli through our senses and make sense of them in a particular way.

Therefore, we mentally construct reality out of our perception, by creating associations between previous and present experiences through cognitive processes.

Our perception process does the job of selecting, identifying, organizing, and interpreting the sensory information bringing into existence, in this way, new memories and consequently knowledge of our cognitive-generated sense of our unique reality.

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Psychology

Cognition

The ability of thinking, understanding, or awareness.

Cognition is defined as the mental function of assembling information and understanding it.

We use cognition for every single one of our mental processes. Cognition intervenes and surrounds our perception of reality, memory creation, attention, evaluation, judgment, reasoning, calculation, comprehension, learning, problem solving, decision making, and the use of systems of communication like language.

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Neuroscience

Motivational Neural Circuitry – Reward Neuroscience

Every new experience that we have creates neural pathways in our nervous system making possible, in this way, the sharing of electrochemical between neurons located in different parts of the brain and nervous system.

And when we repeat a specific experience we create a new neural pathway each time we repeat it. Also, we relate those new pathways created with the ones created previously (while having the same kind of experience) and we related them with the subconscious perceptions, reactions, thoughts, and other memories surrounding the experience.

Because of the accumulation of information surrounded an specific experience, the brain makes sense of what it is and how it makes us feel, the effect it had on us, emotionally and physically, all according to the unconscious memory associations created by the brain.

In terms of reward, depending on how strong the memory associations are, we tend and can be motivated to repeat pleasant experiences and try to avoid the experiences that gave us an unpleasant effect. And, as well, to be indifferent or neutral about stuff we didn’t create associations yet.

We have limited control of how we store information but knowing how this works. we can tell why we react in ways we do when in contact with certain information and what drives our actions and behavior. Including why get motivated to decide taking distinct actions when presented with particular perceptions.

Motivation and reward to take specific actions are triggered by our memories relating to specific subjects. This system of neural pathways and associations is known as motivational circuitry or motivational neural circuit or reward system.

Categories
Psychology

Stimulus and Human Stimuli – Behavioral Psychology

Stimulus is the impetus, the stimulation, the inciting thing or event that provokes a particular and detectable physical or chemical change or functional reaction in an individual, organism, organ or any other biological unit.

Categories
Neuroscience

Neural Pathways – Behavioural Science

Neural pathways are the structured neural connections between different parts of a nervous system that enables the propagation and process of electrochemical information from and to neuronal units.

The axons, nerve fibers projected from neurons —also known as one of the two types of cytoplasmic protrusions— enable the transmission of electrochemical impulses between neurons and between neural units and muscles and glands.

Categories
Psychology

What Stress Actually Is – Behavioural Psychology

Stress, in its most basic meaning, denotes and represents the pressure or tension that is exerted on a material object.

In psychological terms, stress is defined as a state of emotional or mental strain resulting from a perceived adverse or above normal levels of demanding situations.

This psychological stress can be emotional, cognitive and outer perceptual.

In behavioural psychological terms, the stress response can be compared with an alarm for awareness, and sustained over time can cause health harm.

Types of Stress

Acute Stress

The less damaging and the most common of the types of stress. It is experienced immediately after the perception of threat, either emotional, psychological, or physical danger.

The physical reaction to acute stress is the shunting of blood from extremities to big muscles to rapidly prepare the body to action into a corporal state of something called fight or flight response.

Acute stress can be especially dangerous to people with pre conditions like heart diseases.

Episodic Acute Stress

Acute stress becomes episodic acute stress when it presents itself suddenly and triggered easily becoming an ordinary event in the life of the individual affected by the condition.

Chronic Stress

A stress condition is considered chronic when the feeling of stress is long-lasting and constant.

Some causes of chronic stress can be challenging times, in terms of relationships or financial situation, or high-pressure daily activities.

Stress Management

Stress can be relieved, managed, prevented and even avoided, using relaxation techniques, developing stress coping skills, changing the situation, environment, and implementing habits to manage the influence of stress in our health, behavior, mood and sense of well-being.

Acute stress is the easiest to manage because it doesn’t long after it is triggered by the perception of threat.

Other Kinds Of Stress

There are additional kinds of stress that can affect your wellbeing and daily life, and some are easier to cope, to prevent, or to manage than others.

In psychosocial terms, we can consider stress as the outcome of personal relationship difficulties, professional relationship challenges, job and opportunities loss, material loss, personal loss, lack of resources, lack of satisfactory amount of social interaction, and social values crisis.

In physical terms, stress can denote a trauma, intense physical labor, environmental impact, illness, fatigue, hormonal or biochemical imbalances dietary, substance abuse, lacking, dental, and musculoskeletal imbalances.

The word ‘stress’ can be used in a sentence to emphasize and denote certain and distinct value and importance to a statement that someone makes in a given speech or writing.

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Meditation Personal Breakthrough

Meditation – Techniques, Benefits, and More

Meditation Practice

The practice of meditation can bring many life-changing benefits to you. And incorporate the awareness of your full potential in your experience of life. How profound the effects of these benefits are going to affect your daily life depends on the intensity and/or regularity of the meditation practice.

Benefits of Meditation – Scientific Findings

It has been scientifically proven that the practice of meditation can provide practitioners with the following benefits:

  • Anxiety reduction by the constant repetition of mantras
  • Ease depression and anxiety. According to a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine
  • Break down negative personal habits and create new ones. This by the formation of new synapsis of existing neurons, and the creation of new neurons. According to a study by researchers in the US.
  • Prevent future relapses for people with substance consumption disorders. According to a study published by Substance Abuse Rehabilitation.

Meditation Techniques and Types

All meditation techniques differentiate one from the other on what their aims and approaches are.
Remember that you don’t have to follow a strict approach or align your and with the traditional ones. You can feel free to adapt any of the techniques according to what feels more natural and beneficial to you.

In the following list, I mention and describe some meditation techniques with high adoption across the world. These meditation techniques are easy to learn for you to start to practice, or to experience and decide to try another one:

Breath Awareness Meditation

Goals and Benefits: Reduce stress levels in your body, reduce the possibility of burnout for caregivers, regulate better your body’s reaction to fatigue and stress, better manage struggling situations like pain, helping to overcome depression — among others.

Approach: Mindful breathing by focusing only on your breathing performance and ignoring other thoughts that can distract your disconnection from ‘reality.’

Zen Meditation

Goals and Benefits: Improve focus, increase creativity, improve memory, restore energy, acceptance and empathy building, ability to prioritize and plan, better manage struggling situations like pain, helping to overcome depression, and to foster a positive work attitude — among others.

Approach: Focusing on your breathing performance, and mindfully observing your thoughts — all without judgment.

Transcendental Meditation

Goals and Benefits: Boost mindfulness and rise above the person’s current state of being.

Approach: Breath slowly while repeating selected powerful mantras, chosen by the teacher or by the practitioner. Sometimes you can repeat a word or even a sound, to maintain concentration on the practice.

Body Scan Meditation

Goals and Benefits: Feeling of calmness, release body tension, and sometimes pain.

Approach: Mentally scan your body for areas of tension to be released.

Kundalini Yoga

Goals and Benefits: The practice of Kundalini Yoga energizes your brain, give you the feeling of bliss, give you the feeling of awareness of a eternal cosmic power, and you become a more conscious person.

Approach: It blends yoga movements with deep breathing and repetition or chanting of powerful mantras. These mantras can be given by the teacher or can be personal ones, as well.

Mindfulness Meditation

Goals and Benefits: The practice of Mindfulness Meditation can improve your power of focus, your memory capabilities, a better managing of your thoughts and emotions, a better managing of reactions and to lessen impulsive behaviors.

Approach: Awareness of your present moment and your surroundings without any judgmental thoughts.

How to do meditation: FAQ about meditation

How often and for how long to do meditation?

It depends on how badly you need to disconnect from the world. To determine the frequency of meditation practice and how long it is needed to last each time depend directly on how much your mind feels it needs it.
Take into account that the more you practice meditation the better you will know what is best for you and the more natural its practice becomes for your body and mind.
Recommendation about how often: Once or twice a day. There was some moment in my life when I had to meditate 5 times a day (while working in offices).
Recommendation about how long each time: about the time you start to feel you are connecting enough with your unconscious and connecting more naturally with the rest of the universe or other high energy concepts you choose to connect with. It can go from 5 minutes(or less) to as long as you feel comfortable and have the time to practice it.

You will feel and recognize which technique and which ways are working better for you, as well as the time and intensity.

The changes in your mind processes and the feeling of a better connection with yourself, the others and what you want in life will be obvious enough for you to notice, and the situations that caused you anxiety before are going to have less power over your feelings and attention.

What do I have to see or feel to know I’m doing meditation right?

There is no need to carry expectations to the meditation practice. The experience you will have can be very unique, different from the others’, also different from time to time you practice it.
This diversity of experiences is one of the fascinating characteristics of the meditation practice.

Do I have to sit to do meditation?

You don’t have to follow strictly any position. There are no strict rules for it. For example, practicing meditation with kundalini yoga or another kind of yoga you don’t need to sit. You can lie on your back or put yourself in any position, as long as you feel comfortable enough, so your mind doesn’t distract from trying to be in the ‘right’ position.

How do I know if I am doing meditation right?

When the true goal is to connect with higher levels of energy, there’s is no space for the classification of right or wrong. Judgemental views are not compatible with the meditation practice when your goal is to achieve spiritual growth.
As long as you feel meditation provides you with positive effects in your daily life, and you feel you are practicing meditation enough and with an intensity that makes you feel good; everything is amazing, you can be grateful, enjoy it all.