Ritual vs. Discipline
And a glimpse of Patagonia
Ahead of some musings on Ritual vs. Discipline, I wanted to share this beautiful video highlighting a trip I guided in Patagonia last year with Chulengo Expeditions (h/t Justin Rosengarten).
I've been blessed to guide in some magical places - enjoy the window into the experience.
Ritual vs. Discipline
Last week, I spent all night skiing 40 miles through the Colorado mountains, from Crested Butte to Aspen.
I took my training for the Grand Traverse *seriously* - hiring a coach, getting all the lightest gear, tracking my training to hit heart-rate zones and elevation targets. My optimizing brain, the part of me that trained as an elite golfer for years, loved it.
But I felt incomplete. I felt disconnected from the wonder, awe, and flow that attracted me to backcountry skiing in the first place. And I wasn’t been sure why.
It wasn’t until my friend Brooks sent me a podcast with Jim Dethmer, co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group, that I found a framework that helps me understand what’s missing. I’ve been prioritizing discipline over ritual.
Devotion vs. Willpower
I love the Conscious Leadership Group frameworks, and embed them deeply in my personal life and work. However, I’d never before heard Jim speak about his view on the distinction between discipline and ritual. To paraphrase:
Discipline is a practice undertaken on a regular basis in service of some personal development or goal.
The driving force behind discipline is often willpower.
Ritual is an offering of some kind in service of transcendence, or connection with something beyond yourself.
The driving force behind ritual is devotion.
To be clear here, there’s nothing wrong with discipline. We all have areas in our lives in which we need willpower to show up, do the work, and delay gratification towards some larger goal, whether personal or collective. While I think there is power in viewing life as ceremony, I’m not saying that each moment needs to be drenched in deep ritual meaning (personally, I’m not sure I have the capacity for that).
Which gods are we feeding?
That being said, from this perspective there are so many opportunities to examine not what we’re doing, but how we’re doing it.
Cooking - am I operating a factory in the kitchen or devoting myself to creating beauty?
Work - am I exercising willpower to get myself to sit down and produce, or am I exploring with curiosity how I might offer myself more fully to the projects in my life?
Meditation - am I sitting to calm my mind so that I can better deal with my daily life, or am I offering my sacred attention in service to glimpsing that which I truly am?
Exercise - see above and below.
To what am I offering myself in this moment? Or, as a friend of mine shared recently - which gods am I feeding?
So before I slide my boots on, click into my bindings, and start skinning, I’m now asking myself - how can I most deeply offer my time, attention, and love to this particular place? How can I be in reciprocal relationship with this land?
How can this ritual be in service of the wild world?
Upcoming Events
Climate Tech Wilderness Retreat - June 23-26, 2023 - near Denver
On this 4-day wilderness retreat, we’ll rediscover our inspiration and motivation for the critical work we do. We’ll share successes and challenges of our professional and personal lives, and emerge as part of a tight-knit community ready to support each other in the years to come. Learn more here, and join the info session April 13th!
Mmm love this framework. A beautiful mindset shift. An invitation to be more present.