Shoulds

Sep 6, 2008Archive

Do you have these little monsters in your head? The Shoulds? Oh, I must have a plethora of them, vying for attention, screaming, screeching, wailing, throttling. All at once, they clamor:

  1. You should put notes in your kids’ lunch boxes.
  2. You should run every single day.
  3. You should pray with your husband more.
  4. You should give more undivided attention to the people in your life.
  5. You should get the compost bin back in shape.
  6. You should do more of those visual, small-art projects you touted this week.
  7. You should go through all those files. 
  8. You should catch up on your business books.
  9. You should join the PTA.
  10. You should eat more vegetables.

Alas, these aren’t the ten commandments, but they sure feel like it. And this is giving you one nanosecond of my crazy Should-filled brain. How is one to cope?

I know the answer is minute-by-minute communion with the Holy Spirit. After all, He will guide me. He will show me. The trick for me is:
  1. Be in a position to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying.
  2. Have the wherewithal to obey.
  3. Leave the consequences of the obedience in His hands.
  4. Then NOT berate myself with the other Shoulds yelling in my brain.

Easier said than done, though. I run through life feeling less than, all those Shoulds berating me for my lack of doing them. 

So the question is: IF you have SHOULDS in your brain, what do you do about them? And if you don’t, what did you do to make them quiet down? 

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