The Spiritual Violence of Shoulds
Every so often my sponsor asks what’s eating my lunch today. This week it’s the Shoulds. Part of it is that I’ve been trying to be more engaged on social media. Why? Because I think I should as an aspiring preacher.
So that was probably my first indication that I was headed down the Should rabbit hole. Scrolling Intstagram for even a few minutes with the best of intentions will quickly flood you with fearsome shoulds.
I should be posting once a day, I should be able to make my eyebrows look like that, I should grow vegetables in an organic self-fertilized raised bed, I should be travelling to more exotic places, I should be learning more about trauma and internal parts work and ADHD and mental illness. Basically, I should be totally different than who I am right now.
But it doesn’t stop there. All of advertising (which is so ubiquitous that even the gas pump talks to me) is about shoulds. You don’t have this thing but you should. You weren’t planning on eating this food but you should. You already have clothes but you should also have these clothes. Your face is aging with wrinkles, but it should really be smooth and shiny as a plum.
And don’t get me started on my internal shoulds. I should get up earlier, or maybe later. She should say this to me. He should write me that email. They should do things differently. That should be more like this. I should be more of this and less of that. It’s endless. Endless! You get the point.
The problem is that shoulds do real spiritual violence. A should, at its core, is about negating what clearly is. In other words, shoulds say that ‘as you are’ is not real, not enough, not the truth. Shoulds give constant little whacks to our energy systems, carve away our self-worth, and steadily degrade our faith in our own goodness.
A should basically says to us that who we actually are right now! today! in this moment! as we are! just isn’t going to work. On a purely spiritual level, shoulds negate the reality of Spirit Herself who only exists as She is, with us and within us in this moment
Spirit doesn’t actually exist in the future, let alone a new and improved future with perfect skin, better clothes, and raised garden beds. In fact, some would argue there’s no such thing as the future at all, but that’s a teaching for another time.
The antidote for all this shoulding is something called havingness. Havingness is the ability to have who you are completely in this moment, with no modifications, no differences, no shoulds.
So for example, right now I give myself permission to have my stiff shoulders, my smile lines, the cold air of this coffee shop, my anxiety about writing this newsletter, my curiosity about the friend who pretended not to see me in that store yesterday, my clumsy attempts to connect with my dear dear dear partner, my fear about making money, my joy at it being July in Colorado, and so much more.
And I give you permission to have all these things too. Have your skin, have your clothes that fit or don’t fit, have your job that pays well or not, have your partner, have yourself in partnership or have yourself solo, have your garden full of weeds or dirt or vegetables or nothing at all, have your hopes and dreams, have your dissapointments and sorrows. Have it all!
There’s no real shoulds in life, let alone spirituality. There’s only what is. That’s not an aspirational statement, FYI. It’s just the nature of reality, as any Buddhist practitioner will tell you. And it’s actually quite wonderful.
We, as humans, get to have a deliciously rich life no matter what’s in it. So that’s my hope for you this week. No more shoulds and all the havingness you can muster.
You are perfectly spiritual, loving, delightful, powerful, and human in your havingness as you are right now and forever - which are the same thing - and all you need to do is have it!
