Why we need to drop the word “Should” from our vocabulary
When we start a sentence with “you should” or “I should” it is, most often, filled with the best of intentions. We honestly believe that if they did or if we did what is at the end of a “should” statement, our lives would improve and we would somehow be happier.
“You should exercise every day. That will help you deal with stress and you will feel better.” “I should eat more vegetables, I will feel better.” “I should take a course about leadership so I can be a better leader at work.”
We live in a world filled with “should’s” and “shouldn’t’s”. There are just so many to keep track of. The worst part is, the feeling we have when we don’t do “the should”. We feel like we failed. We feel like we are too weak, too stupid and have no willpower to do all the things we “should”.
Thoughts become words that we speak out loud (or in our heads) and turn into actions and thus create our life. As soon as we feel shame or not good enough because we have not done the never ending “should” list, we lose our power and lower our vibration. Thoughts are vibrations and attract other thoughts at a similar vibration. The word “should” has a low vibration and pulls us down. Emotions have vibrations too and the low vibration of the word “should” creates low vibration feelings and more low vibration thoughts and more low vibration feelings. This can often lock us into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts and behaviours, which ultimately has an impact on our mental health.
So how do we eliminate this negative and powerful word from our vocabulary?
Louise L. Hay has an exercise in her book called ‘You can Heal Your Life’ that invites the reader to write down their list of “should’s”. I have seen people write many pages of should statements. This part alone is eye opening. The next powerful step is to write “If I really wanted to I could…” beside each statement. This turns the statement into a choice.
A real choice. Do I want to? Do I really want to?
It allows us to look at and decide if we wish to spend our precious time and energy on it and, more importantly why we want to. Changing the language around this gives us all of our power back and takes it from the nebulous “they,” culture. We allow this pressure from the “should’s” of our society to take all of our power and all of our choice. By changing our language we gain our power back, shift our vibration and impact our overall health, including our mental health in a significant way.
Words are important. Words are generative.
“Should” pulls us out of alignment, and has us believing we are not good enough instead of perfect, whole and complete just as we are.
Annyse Balkwill, Owner/Consultant, The LuminUS Group
