Aliases of the word Shouldn’t

I have talked before about that evil word should and its partner in crime shouldn’t. If you have read my book ‘Heightening Your Happiness’ you will know that I suggest banning those words from your thoughts and your speech. Many people have now become quite good at noticing their ‘shoulds’ and not acting on them. Shoulds have aliases such as ‘I must’, ‘I have to’ etc, but did you realise that shouldn’ts have aliases too.

If you aren’t aware of this you won’t realise that you are living your life according to your shouldn’ts. For instance one of my clients used the phrase “I allowed myself” a number of times during our session. “I allowed myself to have a holiday” or “I allowed myself to buy a new car”. The problem was that there weren’t very many things she did allow herself. Without realising it until we worked together (because our list of shouldn’ts or not allowed are mainly in the subconscious mind) she had quite strict rules about what was and wasn’t okay. Her mother had worked very hard, putting herself last and doing things for other people. My client picked up the belief therefore that she must fill all of her time and be busy, otherwise she had no value. Her father gave her the unconscious message that she didn’t deserve anything. Those beliefs stayed with her and if she didn’t believe she deserved to have time for herself of course she wouldn’t ‘allow’ herself to have it.

The trick to living the life we want to live; the life that will make us happy, is to do what we want and not what we feel we should or shouldn’t do. Take some time to become aware of the aliases you might have for your shouldn’ts. If you don’t recognise them you can’t change them. Do yours masquerade as ‘alloweds’ or as something else? Maybe they show up as thoughts like ‘it’s not okay’. The first step to changing is being aware. Start noticing your thoughts today.