The "Should Parade"
Yesterday was one of those "this is the first day of the rest of my life" kind of days. I put on the Wayne Dyer "Meditation for Manifesting" CD on the stereo and promptly walked into the bedroom. I started hanging curtains and I started to think "I should iron these". I walked back into the living area to get the ladder and hear Wayne chatting away. It realized I put it on because my friend recently recommended that I should listen to it.
Back to hanging curtains where I continued to play in my mind a litany of "shoulds". I decided to design a little experiment and list out every "should" and "should not" that occurs to me over the next two days. Fully distracted, I take out a sheet of paper and realize I need a LOT more paper. I retrieve a notebook and dutifully start to scribe everything that comes to me.
It suddenly occurred to me the lesson in this. By intentionally putting myself into the "should" exercise, I deeply understood how "shoulds" take me away from the present moment. I cannot be fully present when I am living in a "should".
Wow! I get it! How many times am I distracted by creating my "to do" list because I think that I want to write it down so I can forget about it and go back to the moment? I am trying to remember a time when I really did go back and live in the present moment. Ah yes, usually when I was in a boring meeting. Lots of to do list activity used to happen there.
I went back into the bedroom and for the first time really started to see the room. When I created it a few weeks ago, I had an intention to create a feeling of comfortable warmth, openess and light. In that moment and for the next 30 minutes, I was fully in the experience and full of wonderful joy!
To your wonderful moments....
All the best! Love, Mj
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4 comments:
How excellent! I am personally looking forward to your year-long journey to see all that transpires from it. All the best to you as you embark on this new and exciting adventure. :)
My therapist says that "should" must be banned from the English language. I thought about that idea for awhile, and couldn't come up with any sentence where "should" could not be successfully replaced in a sentence while not changing the original meaning of the sentence; in fact, the statement was generally strengthed with "should" removed. Try it.
you are on a quest -- the quest for... No telling. Peace? Beauty? Silence? or something that none of us could ever guess you will find.
I wish you good hunting and the presence to appreciate every moment.
Linda Alepin
Brian - thanks for the suggestion. I should try it :-)
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