Discipline vs. Surrender

Finding my Flow

My whole life, I’ve always felt a tension of two sides:

Discipline Gloria

Surrender Gloria

Discipline Gloria is extremely diligent. She’s hard-working, resourceful, organized and loves making lists and checking things off. At her best. she’s a go getter. At her worst, she’s an overachiever and controller. She is my Capricorn Sun.

Surrender Gloria is allllll water. She loves to daydream, write poetry, take long walks at the park. At her best, she is a vessel of peace and beauty. At her worst, she is in La La Land. She is my Pisces Rising.

Make it stand out.

Most of my life, I thought I had to choose one identity and suppress the other. Surrender Gloria was usually the unfortunate twin sister hidden from the public.

In school and career, Discipline Gloria took me to new heights. I studied hard, got good grades, climbed the corporate ladder. It was all good, until it wasn’t. Eventually one day, she took over my entire life.

Make it stand out.

I desperately needed release. I poured myself into poetry, escaped to tiny cabins in the mountains alone for my birthdays, and found myself wanting to retreat from my overly structured, perfectly polished life.

I was violently swishing back and forth, alternating between identities which were parts of me but either were all of me. I thought that all of me would be too much.

Make it stand out.

Twice in my life, after unhealthy stretches of Discipline, I was forced into Surrender.