Stop “Shoulding”

 

 

 

“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” – Joyce Meyer

All our good intentions, all our missed opportunities, every regret for everything we tend to regret are all hollow, missed, and gone are the chances to ever make them a reality , so why do we hang on to them with our “woulda, coulda, shoulda”s?  We are heroes, brave warriors, survivors and we can be “overcomers and thrivers”.  Why do we sink into the misery of “shouldas” anyways?  Think of all your “shouldas”.  I  “should” can be an excuse for “I don’t want to”, “can’t”, “might”.  And, usually, we pretty much know we “won’t”.

Never mind that we often think someone else “should” and we cannot control them so why do we do that?  We set unattainable goals for ourselves and others, perhaps, by using the “should”.  This makes them miserable and us miserable.  Many of us grew up with parents that had us feel like we had to always do “better”, that we were “not enough”, and so we spend our lives with many “should” and “should haves, and we automatically put “should” and “should haves” on others.  Media and society exacerbates this all since they are full of things we should do and have, We are being manipulated into thinking that we do not have enough.  We are a society of wanting more than we have, being more than we are, and we are driven to do more, have more, feel like we are never ‘cutting it”.  How ever do we stop these feelings that we are left with?

Somehow we need to stop comparing ourselves with others.  We need to try to stop whipping ourselves at not being what we are constantly being told is “better”.  We are a greedy lot, we are and never satisfied.  We are full of angst at trying to gain someone, something, else’s illusive goals. We are, in the deep recesses of our consciousness, full of despair, anger, disappointment.  We are frustrated at ourselves and with others.   We are driven people who do not enjoy what we do have, and can be great maws of need.  We cannot relax.  We forget what gifts we are to the world because of our uniqueness.  We cannot relax and enjoy life because there is always something more to do or have.  Some of us completely give up the competition.  And, there are ways to learn to accept ourselves and our lives, to honor who we have become, and to understand that we are “okay” and exactly where we should be at this given time and place and space.

We learn that our intentions are good and those intentions are enough to have us find the will to progress in this life without feeling like we need more and more and more to be validated.  We can learn to follow the directions of our soul and let our soul tell us how magical, how wonderful, how uniquely awesome we are for making it this far.  We can validate ourselves for our bravery and courage and what it has taken for us to be here at all.  We can learn to be grateful.  We can chose to live our own way, unchained from all the drama and agony and live an ecstatic life of simply being who we are and having what we have.  We can be grateful not comp[etitive.  We can find joy and happiness and a sense of accomplishment without other people, places, and things being the focus of our sense of who and what we should be in other’s eyes.  We are enough.  Plain and simple.  We have enough because allt hat counts is how we nurture and care for ur soul who wants none of the woulda, coulda, shouldas.  It simply wants us to be us and to follow the path it leads us through as we wander through this valley of many discontents.   Drop the should and pick up the will. 

Blessed Be.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.10.22

  3 small paintings following the class l where you choose a photo and make three different expressions of that photo.