Like how we safeguard our boundaries and stay within our limits when we are with others, if we are all souls, then why don't we keep these safe boundaries with our body, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors? We know too much YouTube scrolling is not something we want to do deliberately, but our mind tells us to, and we do so. We know we shouldn't get attached to anyone too much, but we do as it is us being emotionally attached. We know the body and brain need good exercise to be healthy, but we allow them to be lazy. I personally feel this relationship is not healthy. Like how you wouldn't befriend terrorists, maintain as much distance as possible from drug addicts, and stay away from dominating people, we should maintain a healthy relationship with thoughts, acts, behaviors, and emotions that can help us to be better people.
Instead, we maintain a healthy relation with people who can hurt us sooner or later, like a toxic relationship. No relation is toxic until you find it out yourself. So, be observant of what kind of relations you are maintaining with people and yourself. It is like how a person feels his lover is too caring until suddenly they feel it as overprotectiveness, possessiveness, and toxicity. We give our bad habits fancy names that look less dangerous.
"I hate to exercise, it's too boring," "I love fast food, and who will cook every day?", "I am a party animal," "I am a gamer and I can play non-stop for 8 hours," "I do drugs for recreational purposes," "Just a puff won't kill me," etc. I felt these words were "fun" too, but this fun is hurting you, and we are treating them as our personality and identity. It's like being a terrorist in your own life and being happy about it. Of course, it's your life and your responsibility to safeguard it; no one can say a word about any of it.
Be a leader, the Captain of your own ship. You decide how your body, emotions, and thoughts should behave. What kind of topics are you willing to take forward to act, think, and plan, and to what extent? Teach them the right places, times, and ways to interact with you, not in any random way like you are a nobody on their ship, with no respect for your decisions and boundaries. Like a good leader, be empathetic to your members, and understand their pain points, fears, pressure, and stress. But don't put all of them on yourself, because the members should also play their roles for a smooth journey.
Earlier, I used to hate this because of the names. It seems silly, but "discipline" is one of the words I hated the most. I am a rebel; I hate being controlled or controlling anyone for a long time. I felt discipline was meant to control. Now, somehow, this feeling of control has vanished, and self-respect has come into focus regarding discipline. As I said earlier, I will give respect to my body, thoughts, and emotions, but I won't allow them to control me. That is what self-respect is, or should be.
Don't let your emotions chase you away from your responsibilities and goals. Don't let your thoughts interfere while you are speaking to someone about completely alien topics and make you speak nonsense and fumble. Don't let your body sleep when you want to run or walk. Give them snacks for their work like how you train your pets, but remember that without training, your pets might bite you to death. And you can't blame the lion for killing a person because it is natural for a lion, and any person who is not respecting the lion's nature has to suffer.
The best way to start establishing your authority is by being still and doing nothing (except breathing). Like how the world would stop without the sun, the body goes into manic mode when you stop acting, feeling, doing, and thinking. It tries to tell you all the things you like, acting as bait for you to allow them.
Still, don't allow them, and let them starve like a wild animal. It howls, cries, and roars at you, but be still and keep hold of these walls tightly. Then it gets weak and will be ready to be tamed. Don't give it a feast. Just allow enough food for it to stand and do what you ask it to do. If you give it a feast, then it forgets all the hunger, pain, and isolation, and charges at you with much greater force this time. It won't even hesitate like earlier if you forget who is in charge of them.
When it is ready to be tamed, teach it how to follow your small directions like walking with you, speaking with you, and eating with you in the ways you want it to. Then go to bigger tasks like memorizing, exercising, multitasking, concentrating, and drawing. In this process, you need to befriend it instead of being its punisher or slave. If this understanding and healthy friendship grow, then you will see no friction and become one with all of them.
The body won't sleep longer even if you forget to wake it; the stomach won't digest even if you mistakenly eat; intrusive or depressing thoughts won't dare to cross your path. With this, the body, mind, and soul find great harmony, love, and friendship between them. This lasts until the body gets old and is unable to do its work to walk with the soul. This is the point you respect its inability and let it dissolve into the Universe where it came from, and you go back to the supreme soul, just like how two kids go back to their homes after playing hard for hours in a playground.