Is Your
Life Run by "Should"?
by
Maggie Craddock
Whenever we say to ourselves, "I should ..." we are
speaking out of an internalized belief system that reflects our inability to
trust ourselves. The bummer about "shoulds" is that when we are
dominated by them, we are also dominated by the fear of being rejected or
abandoned in some way, because that's the core emotional fear that activates
many of them. These ongoing fears leave many of us drained and exhausted. Part of the work in this stage is to take a deeper look not
only at what the thoughts swirling just below the surface of our consciousness
are but also at what they are doing to us daily. Those pesky little shoulds
"I should lose weight... I should stop smoking... I should have a bigger
house... I should spend more time with my kids... I should be making as much
money as my sister... " — that keep nipping away at our psyches are
the psychic equivalent of Chinese water torture. Every time we use the word
should, either mentally or verbally, not only are we giving our power away, we
are also losing energy that is vital to our ability to take creative ownership
of our careers and our lives. The trick to releasing the shoulds is realizing that they
have an emotional component as well as an intellectual one. You can make a list
of the shoulds that you need to release, but you will be making this list over
and over unless you deal with the feelings that keep them clinging to your
psyche like Velcro. Obviously, listing them is just going to remind you of ways
you are falling short of the glorious role you are playing to prove you are
"good enough." You need to try something more strategic. The following two exercises are designed to help you begin to
release your litany of shoulds and identify your authentic priorities. Many
people feel a tremendous surge of energy while doing this work. When you
release your shoulds you finally stop giving yourself those messages that drain
you of the energy you need to move forward. WEEDING
THE "SHOULDS"
I got the name for this exercise from a client who told me that
when she became discouraged, she often realized that she was having a
"should attack." To help retrain her thought process, she actually
got down on her knees and pulled the weeds out of her flowerbed. She visualized
herself pulling the "shoulds" out of her psyche as she pulled the
weeds out of the ground. This client developed a physical ritual that got to
the heart of the work for her. Likewise, we need to physically release the
emotions connected to our shoulds if we are going to make meaningful progress
in thinning these "mental weeds." Find a picture of yourself as a small
child. Next, take your journal, notebook, or laptop and find a place where you
can be around children. "Kids!?" I've had incredulous clients thunder
(these are usually the ones who are not parents; parents get this exercise
before I'm through describing it). "I'm a busy person," I had one
client respond in a huff. "I don't have time for this! I have important
career decisions to make and I'm on a deadline!" The reason it's important to do this exercise around kids is
that they reawaken an energy that has been dormant in many of us for far too
long — the energy of gentleness. Spending time with children reminds you
that a vital part of getting in touch with your authentic self is learning to
be gentle with yourself. Phrases such as "Get
that client meeting or you can get
a new job! Are you an idiot? Didn't you hear me tell you?" are the types of harsh messages that too
many of us have become accustomed to in our jobs. What's worse, since the way
we speak to others is a direct reflection of the way we speak to ourselves, the
mean-spirited behavior and verbal abuse that takes place in many workplaces
reflects a growing problem — we are suffering from a gentleness
deficiency. The limiting beliefs and self-doubts that plague most of us
are formidable opponents. One of the most effective ways of dealing with these
harsh internal messages is to learn to question every single should and
limiting belief with the gentle innocence of children. It was only when we were
children that our psyches were malleable enough to absorb these beliefs without
questioning them. By acknowledging our limiting beliefs and honoring the way
they may have served us in the past, we align mentally with what's going on
inside us. Telling our-elves that we are "wrong" to hold the beliefs
we do or denying them altogether just keeps us fighting a losing battle. Now
that I've explained why you need to be around children to do this exercise
(spending some time in a public park is a great way to do this), let me be a
bit more specific about how this exercise works. While you need to be around a bunch of kids, you're also
going to need some privacy for part of this exercise to do a bit of written
reflection. This means that whether you are spending time with a friend's kids
or your own, you are going to need a buddy who helps you take a
"time-out" in the corner of your room while you write in your
journal. The first part of this exercise is easy — just get a
feel for the kids. If you are in a public park, notice how they run and play
and interact with each other. If you are with some kids you know, get right
down there on the floor and play with them. Notice how they react when they
want something, how they recover after a fall, and how much they trust their
caregivers to take care of them. When you are ready, take a time-out and take out the picture
of yourself as a child. It's time to reflect on what you imagine you were like
when you were about the age of the children around you. Now, from the
perspective of that child you were in the past, take out your journal or laptop
and start listing your shoulds. Just write them all down as fast as you can.
For example:
List as many as you can as fast as you can; don't bother
making sense of them yet. Please be sure to include your thoughts about the
professional role you "should" play in life:
Once you start winding down, take a look at this list from
the perspective you would have had as a child. As vividly as possible, try to
imagine yourself as a small child sitting next to you reviewing each item on
this list and asking with the innocence that only kids possess why you should
do all these things. If you can't explain why a particular goal is on your
list, you might consider weeding it out. Bear in mind that a child is likely to
ask why doing a particular thing will be fun for you and how it will make you
happy. If any of your shoulds can't pass that test, it's time to weed them out! Take your time with Weeding the "Shoulds." Some
people can do this exercise in an afternoon. However, other clients have
reported that they kept coming up with new and subtler shoulds over the course
of a week. Getting through this exercise successfully is critical to building
the self-acceptance necessary to proceed to the next stage, Emotional
Ownership. HAVING
IT ALL!
Let's face it — we all want it all! Wealth, power,
flexibility... with as little effort on our part as possible, please. Ask most
people what their ideal lifestyle would be, and frequently you will hear
something along the lines of, "I'd like to earn enough money to set my own
work schedule... to have a beautiful home... to spend time with my children ...
to travel whenever I want...." The list goes on. One of the issues that many of us have to confront as we
integrate our diverse desires is how to prioritize. When we have a clear
picture of what our authentic goals are, as opposed to what we believe we
"should" pursue in life, we are able to make temporary sacrifices in
the interest of our long-term success without having our energy drained by
self-doubt. This is particularly vital in a culture in which we are presented
with so many choices and where the media encourages us to "have it
all." One of the first steps in achieving your goals is deciding
how much you really want them. When our desire for something is a reflection of
our authentic sense of self, we can focus on achieving this goal in a way that
maximizes our ability to achieve it. One of the main impediments to success is
that many of us have been taught to suppress our passion in favor of the
logical arguments we hear from others about what we "should" do.
Because of this, many of us become confused trying to separate what we really
want from what we have been taught we should want. Now that you have some experience listing your shoulds, you
are ready for the next exercise, which is designed to help you identify the
genuine desires that you may have suppressed while making choices based on the
values you have internalized from others. UNCOVERING
YOUR AUTHENTIC PRIORITIES
This exercise consists of three parts: reviewing your
shoulds, describing your authentic self, and ranking your priorities.
The only way you can make a mistake with this exercise is if
you answer it the way you feel you should.
One of the main reasons that it is vital to weed out the shoulds is that these
negative messages have the ring of internal commands rather than suggestions
and keep us so rigidly focused on what we "should" become that we are
no longer enjoying the process of getting there. Shoulds are sneaky. Our psyches can fool us by allowing the
rigid roles we play to mutate, so we may think we've gotten in touch with our
true selves but all we've really done is switch masks at the costume ball of
life. One of the key areas where some of the self-help systems fall down on the
job is in preaching that all we have to do is think happy thoughts, and we will
reconnect with our true selves while our troubles dissolve into the light.
Promises like these are the philosophical equivalent of popping a pill to feel
better so you don't have to learn from life's challenges. Both our negative and
our positive feelings and experiences are vital parts of reality. Getting in
touch with your authentic self will help you make good use of both the negative
and the positive forces in your life in a gentle and transformative way. Group Site: http://www.gaybombay.info ========================== NEW CLASSIFIEDS SECTION SEEKING FRIENDS? VISIT www.gaybombay.info click on classified section and type your message in the post section once the link opens This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address. For Parties and events go to: http://calendar.yahoo.com/YYY,04497/srt,0/gaybombaygroup/?v=42&POS= Post:- gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact Us:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html Yahoo! Groups Links
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