Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Must

By  | 

It can be transformative for people to bring all their shoulds, ought to’s, musts, and have to’s into conscious awareness, deciding for themselves whether these inflexible beliefs and values really fit who they are and who they want to become. Usually should values have been instilled into people since they were very young. These embedded values show up in the flow of conversation all the time. People make a statement in passing about their lives or personalities, without even thinking about it, holding this belief to be an objective fact in no need of critical observation, when in actuality it is a subjectively held belief instilled from without that not everyone else, or sometimes even anyone else, shares.

I need to smile more, I should really be a better listener, I ought to take life more seriously, I have to be better than everyone else at whatever I do. Says who? As the rational emotive psychologist Albert Ellis would ask, “Where is it written that you need to do any of these things?” Other people are not driven by your same set of should values yet they remain living, breathing, working, and growing. You won’t suddenly disappear if you tweak some of your beliefs.

The mindful path is to decide upon a way of being, upon beliefs, thoughts, words, and actions that will help you grow into the fullest possible version of who you are. Human growth is a lifelong journey that only ends in death. We focus on our successes and build upon them. We know that as long as we are trying our best at whatever we undertake we can be proud of ourselves, regardless of the outcome. We spend our time and energy becoming the most authentic versions of ourselves, constantly growing, instead of the inflexible versions everyone else has told us to be. When we loosen the hold that should values have on us, spaces open up to help us choose more fulfilling paths that make us feel good on the inside. We don’t get down on ourselves for not living up to some external ideal, we get up on ourselves for growing towards our internal ideal.

Related posts:

  1. Control And Openness I was thinking about the insanity making paradox that if you are controlling, constantly trying to make every encounter fit into your preconceived notions, people probably won’t like you very much, and if you’re flexible to the point where you don’t really have an opinion, where just about anything goes, people probably won’t like you […]...
  2. The Meaning Of Conflict Most of us operate under the basic assumption that when people offer up their viewpoints they’re seeking our agreement. That’s because when most of us offer up our own viewpoints that’s exactly what we’re doing, we’re seeking agreement. Dissension can be negatively reinforcing. At the unspoken existential level agreement from our fellows equals validation and […]...
  3. Be Who You Are A problem for many who are working on improving their lives is that they have the process of change backwards. They believe they arrived at their current predicament because of their natures, of who they are deep down, and that salvation lies in being able to tweak their personalities, worldviews, values, and beliefs in order […]...
  4. The Personal Is The Political If you’re like most of us you’ve probably told yourself “I’m just not a political person.” It’s a good blanket rationalization to let us off the hook from all the hard work that goes into taking an educated stand on political issues and bringing wanted conditions about. Better to let others who are really into […]...
  5. Follow Your Internal Compass So many people think they are following their conscience when what they are really following is external authority that has been internalized over the years. This is really pseudo-conscience; instead of making life choices based on what your Self needs to thrive your life choices are based on what the society you find yourself living […]...
  6. Close-Minded What’s the main psychological benefit derived from being close-minded? Certainty. If you immediately discount any and all inputs that differ from your particular way of seeing the world you retain a powerful buffer against existential anxiety. Sure, your particular way of seeing the world will be hopelessly biased, your one-sided arguments will frustrate those with […]...
  7. Stop Shoulding All Over Yourself There are few words more toxic for a person’s happiness, sense of efficacy, and overall mental health than ‘should’. Mike O’Connor, a psychologist I respect a great deal used to tell patients they were shoulding all over themselves when they spent the therapy hour listing all the musts, have to’s, and shoulds in their lives. […]...
  8. Relax Your Inflexible Standards If you want to be a lot happier in the short-term and have more success in the long-term relax your inflexible standards. The faulty thinking pattern we are talking about here is seeing the world in terms of words like ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘ought to’ and ‘have to’. When you think this way you invariably end […]...
  9. Super Ego If you observe parents in our society trying to do a good job parenting very young children you might notice that they constantly remind their kids to say please when they’re asking for something. These kids are at the ideal age for the instillation of norms and values, they accept just about everything from their […]...
  10. Happiness And Freedom Without the felt sense of freedom or at the least the active striving towards it happiness is impossible. But a strange shift has happened in our modern world, which is that with anonymous authority largely taking the place of authoritarian control most of us consciously consider ourselves to be free while in actuality we’re unfree. […]...
  11. Habit Energy People who are doing pretty well in their lives might look down on those who are struggling, wondering how they could make such poor choices when the correct ones seem so obvious. What they don’t realize is that most of these ‘choices’ aren’t really choices at all, but habit energies that have been instilled in […]...
  12. Paralyzing Fear Of Failure Paralyzing fear of failure, the kind that keeps you from even attempting the endeavor in question, is the result of an underlying faulty thinking pattern. By challenging the validity of this faulty thinking pattern you’ll probably be able to summon up the courage to move forward with a pursuit despite the inherent possibility of coming […]...
  13. Talk To Your Kids About Getting Mugged A lot of kids want Jordans. They are a type of basketball shoe honoring the legendary Michael Jordan and they are really expensive. I’m told lots of parents have heard stories about kids being mugged for them and naturally fear for their childrens’ safety. Stories also circulate about kids who refuse to hand them over […]...
  14. Internal Police Officer We live by all these unspoken rules and values, telling ourselves what we should and shouldn’t do without even really considering where these ideas came from. If they were universally valid then everyone would think, talk, and act the same way but obviously they don’t. It’s bad enough to have to deal with the external […]...
  15. Family Values Imagine for a moment that you were accidentally switched at birth. A French couple had been living and working in the United States for a while and were now waiting for their baby to be born before moving back to Paris. You were taken across the Atlantic and raised in France. Think about some of […]...
  16. Trying To Recreate The Magic Most of us have gone back to a place where we had a transcendent experience in the hopes of recreating the magic, but we end up feeling disappointed with the result and almost kind of empty. The location might be exactly the same but it doesn’t feel the same. What we’re left with is a […]...
  17. Beliefs And Faith The irony is that when people desperately want their beliefs to be true they’re unlikely to take on a skeptical attitude, to do anything that could even approximate rigorous testing. But we should be more skeptical when we need something to be true than when we have no vested interest since when we need it to be […]...
  18. Depression And Meaninglessness A telltale sign that depression is on the immediate horizon is when people start to feel like their endeavors are pointless. They won’t show any visible signs that anything’s wrong but inside they feel like they’re going through the motions, they kind of have to start forcing themselves to do and say and think and […]...
  19. Inflexible Positivity I was recently having a conversation with someone who wants to focus on positivity in her life, and at one point in our talk she brought up some negative feelings, then quickly startled and said, “I really should be positive though.” But then we both laughed. Believing we always have to be positive, placing a […]...
  20. Authenticity And Values Life problems are rationalized on various plausible grounds in order to escape conscious awareness of the painful truth behind what’s actually causing them, which can simply be boiled down to living a life that feels inauthentic. We would define authenticity as having the courage to isolate and unfold one’s unique potentialities and using the values […]...
Related Items