The Dreaded SHOULD List

I would like all of us to live as fully as we can. The only time I really feel awful is when people have not lived a life that expressed themselves. They lived with all their "shoulds" and "oughts" and their blaming and placating and all the rest of it, and I think, "How sad.

Virginia Satir (1916 - 1988)

 

I came across this quote this evening, and thought ... yes, how sad.  The reality of a life lived according to the SHOULD list is sad. I'm guilty, how about you?

What are the things that creep into your life that place a SHOULD across the path of doing all that you wish to do, and being all you wish to be?  Where do all these SHOULDs come from?

I look back at the mountain of SHOULD, and at the base of it, I see the first little pebbles ... people pleasing ... fear of rejection ... running from the need to stand alone and stand strong ... wanting to be "normal" ... the list is long.  Then, upon that foundation  grew the long list of things that I SHOULD do in order to maintain a fragile peace around me.  Strange the sacrifices I will make to my heart's peace in order to orchestrate the false peace around me.

Have you shouted "NO MORE"?  I have.  Yet, it is a journey to growing back into the uniqueness I was born with.

The highest thing on my SHOULD list ... 

 

I should be able to do it all, better! 

 

Go ahead, say it ... psycho!  But it does seem to be the mantra to which I bow.  What's your greatest SHOULD? 

Let's go out on a limb and vow, together, to put aside our SHOULDs, just for today.

 

 

 

More wisdom from Virginia Satir ...

"I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay."

 

To that, I add ... Thank you, God, for making me just as I am!