It seems a polar wave is coming. Yesterday winter began. Today it rained, the sun came out, it got cloudy, it was cold, it was nice. A lot of diversity throughout the same day. If my decisions / plans had depended on the weather, I would have been a kite at the total mercy of stimuli. And if I had ignored my surroundings, I would definitely have had a bad time.

July, which is approaching, brings multiple themes, such as the weather today. It is my turn to write about freedom and discipline; Meanwhile, the furious wind of the beginning of winter blows, gets between the trees and to that clear climate of unease, which is sometimes experienced on Sundays, is added that of the restlessness of the wind, of what can apparently be, in the same way, kind and hostile.

I feel before this subject as one who sits before a small fire that shelters. In part it was because of this sometimes unthinkable duo —freedom and discipline— that years ago, one day, I decided that I wanted to teach the DeRose Method. It was the combination of those two things that I didn't know it was possible to put together. I call discipline, in my case, the ability to build anything: paint a picture, run a school, write a book of poems, sustain a bond, train something consistently (beyond the weather). I call discipline the sum of little bricks that give existence to what we want to carry out. And freedom, the way we build it. Without that reaching the point of subduing us. Being able to build, create, carry out projects, relationships, life itself without it being at our expense. It seems obvious, but it is not. That is why it often happens to us that, even doing what we like, something is not being as we wanted. And not because everything has to be as we want, far from it. But sometimes we have that clear feeling of being aware of more, that what we want to do so much is occupying places that belong to other things, even that it has lost its course and overflows everywhere.

I thought that freedom and discipline permeate the way we train in schools, but also our way of teaching, working and building. Not because we always do well, but because it is a variable that we take into account when making decisions, I would almost say when doing anything.

Discipline brings us the possibility of building. Freedom, to establish a bond with what we are creating, whether individually or collectively; a loving, considerate, powerful, channeled and therefore lasting bond. I don't know if you've ever wondered how freedom and discipline coexist in you, but know that they are a great duo and, when they go hand in hand in a project, they unleash unexpected potential.

The path of self-knowledge is the pursuit of authenticity. And the pursuit of authenticity is a process of freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the common.

Discovering those things that at some point we imagined could be different, that could be better, but that we resigned ourselves to because they are common. Oh well, everyone does it that way.

Staying attentive to those things that we never imagined possible, that are totally outside our imagination, but that when we see them we recognize them as authentically our own.

Like all qualities, some people have them innately and others need to develop them. Some are endowed with authenticity and are indissoluble in the mass. Others find it more difficult, they mirror themselves in the nearest one and have difficulty differentiating their own thoughts from the echo of someone else's.

And it all starts with innocent observation. Observe what we feel in certain situations, but what we really feel and not the idea we have of what someone should feel in that circumstance. Observe the flow of our thoughts and perceive how sometimes brilliant ideas, warnings or questions spring up that we simply ignore. Observe what we dream, which in the language of symbols puts us face to face with everything that our subconscious is processing.

Through simple observation, all artificial additions fade away and we find that authentic core that knows no limits and is totally free from the moorings of the normal.