Stop “Shoulding” On Yourself

There’s a marvelous comedian, Loretta LaRoche, who always talks about how women are “shoulding” on themselves. And she is so, so right.

There’s a huge amount of pressure on everyone these days.

Because the world is changing so fast, and the ground under our feet feels like it is literally liquifying with the chaos of disease, war, climate destruction, inflation, and (at least in the US) political terrorism, we are pushing ourselves harder, faster, and more cruelly — until we collapse. There is so much fear that we do not allow ourselves a moment to breathe, and we beat ourselves up to make sure we don’t stop running a Red Queen’s Race.

But Life cannot be a sprint. It’s a marathon. And in marathons, the runners pace themselves.

Listen to how you speak to yourself.

Should

Must

Need to

Something “makes you” do or feel something

It is as if the world is so harsh and demanding we feel that if we let up the self-induced pressure for the smallest second, we will be overwhelmed. But it’s actually the opposite.

Think of a martial artist. They don’t flail about, they don’t just throw everything they have at an opponent. They know to wait, to judge, to feel where the energies are blowing at a given instant. They are content to raise their senses to catch the perfect instant to spin, to kick, to use their skills to defeat their opponent with the most economical energy possible. And once their opponent is down, they do not let anger take over to continue to rain chaos and pain on the challenger.

They are done, and they move on.

Your challenge for the next little while is to truly listen to yourself before you speak, and deliberately disengage from all the pressure words that pepper your speech. This is a time of pause.

Gently engage with yourself to hear how you speak, how you shape your world. Put yourself on pause for a lot of that, and discover what you truly want to say or do.

Your power is absolutely in the present moment. But it is ONLY there if you allow yourself to BE in that moment, listening carefully, so that you can choose your course of action deliberately, clearly, and without doubt. You will be in balance. And you will not allow yourself to succumb to anyone else’s must-should-have to pressure on you. You will CHOOSE, for yourself, in the moment, your course of action.

And that, my friends, is the ultimate in personal power.