Shoulding yourself?

Me too.

The tough part of being a human who teaches, mentors, and coaches as a vocation is that it keeps my own soul dust stirred up. It’s almost inevitable that if I give guidance on a topic, I begin to see it or experience it in my life too. It keeps me humble. 

This ain’t complaining. I’m all in on living life to the fullest. Love.Being.Human. isn’t just a tagline. It was a divine revelation that has been unfolding for the last four years.  

But I noticed recently that I’ve been shoulding myself. There’s been a lot of internal head nodding as I’ve tuned into the voices that are doing their analytical gymnastics.

I’m turning toward this painful learning or remembering (depending on your perspective) to share a practical way you can do less shoulding and more “leading, creating, and re-creating.”

We’d all be much happier if we got rid of the word “should” from our vocabulary.

But before we take that big leap, let’s start with a practical action to actually bring some awareness to our shoulding.

Do you like lists? Let’s make a list—a should list.

Name the shoulds in your life, but not with the intention of changing them.

My gig is power not force, remember. 🙂

We all like a clear path to achievement. Here’s one for you to consider.

List the should.

Notice its details.

Look for and name the fear under the should. Naming the fear will help you meander to the deeper wanting, the more significant meaning that is present, or wanting to be present in your life.

Three simple steps to knowing yourself and your true intentions.

It’s a never-ending spiral.

Being keeps moving and changing. It’s meant to.

Static experience without movement isn’t living; it’s called death.

I’ll go first. Leading by example and all… I’m not playing pretend either; this is a real should excavation.

Step 1: I should do what I said I was going to do.

Step 2: I notice that changing my mind might make me seem flighty or flippant.

Step 3: My fear is being rejected and criticized.

Bonus Points for Step 4:

Instead of staying trapped in something that no longer feels good, I can be aware of my needs at the moment, and trust that my highest good serves all. I’ve been in this same learning loop for a dozen years. The learning gets more and more subtle, but loving and trusting is exponential when I see it in action.

Shoulds keep us trapped in a prison we build with our hands. We each have the key to our personal freedom. Shoulding is about what everyone else wants from us. Shoulding is noise, pretending to protect us from what we fear. In my case, it’s rejection or criticism. When we dive beneath the surface should, we’ll find what we want, what we actually need at the level of our Being.

That desire isn’t selfish.

When I get under the rug of the either/or lie, I find a third, fourth, or even fifth option that doesn’t require compromise, and instead serves me and the world equally.

Let me know how it goes for you. Reply if I can offer insight or help in your excavation process. 

My friend Sarah Seidelmann looked her own should right in the face. I should be happy. I should be a physician and not a shamanic healer. She faced her own should and tapped into her deeper wanting—to live in a lighter, more conscious way. Healing is still happening, but rather than just the physical needs of her patients, she’s tuning into their spiritual needs. She wrote a book about it, and it’s available now. Here’s a sample chapter as a taste of her journey.

We also recorded a chat on the Turning Inward podcast in 2016 that you can tune into here.

Moving you closer to conscious choices by interrupting patterns is what I’m here for. I believe that the only thing we truly own is our actions. Evolving into our best self is not a competition, nor is it comparing ourselves to others. Rather it is an awareness of our current state and a movement towards our personal best.

That’s what all of this is for.

Evangelizing about a concept called Metanoia—a fundamental change of thinking, a transformative change of heart.

So that we can Love.Being.Human. 

So that we feel fully alive. 

So that we get what we really want—not what someone else wants for us. 

Barbara Sher said it this way: “Winning to me means getting what you want. Not what your father and mother wanted for you, not what you think you can realistically get in this world, but what you want—your wish, your fantasy, your dream. You’re a winner when you have a life you love so that you wake up every morning excited about the day ahead and delighted to be doing what you’re doing, even if you’re sometimes a little scared and nervous.”

Much love all ways,

Vivi

xoxoxo