Harmony with the Soul
by Chris Duvall, RScP
“Self-discipline is doing what is in harmony with the soul.” – Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brien
New Year’s resolutions often require self-discipline to exchange less healthy habits for healthier ones, sometimes with restrictive energy. O’Brien opens a different way. She says self-discipline is liberating when it is in harmony with the soul, does what one’s essence wants, or makes a conscious choice to enable purer self-expression and higher inspiration to flow through the body, mind, and emotions.
I like that perspective and am connecting her soulful self-discipline to a process of exchange. Just as Life ebbs and flows, engages and releases; ideas, forms, practices, or habits are not permanent. They come into being through us and can be surrendered back to Source.
As I consider our times in which great loss has visited so many, I wonder, what is worth disciplining myself to do? In which habits shall I find harmony with the way of Life? What oldness can I release so newness may formulate? What gift can I offer to enhance my own and others’ soul-joy?
I offer this New Year’s blessing:
May our resolutions attune to soul’s desires. May they be easily and joyfully fulfilled through the power of Love for the sake of Life.