EP7 // 3 Ways to Shush the Shoulds

EPISODE 7

Stop should-ing on yourself. Seriously!  Here are three quick & easy hacks to elevate your energy, lighten your mood, and be kind to yourself, even on low energy days.  They are a little goofy, but I promise they work.

Takeaways:

• Make a commitment to NOT 'should on' yourself today.
• Underneath every should is a very valid feeling & need.
• Your needs are divine.
• When you say, “I should,” what you are really saying is, “I/this situation/whatever is not enough.”
• You are enough!
• Regardless of what is going on with your body, you always have a choice where to place your awareness.  And where awareness goes, energy flows.
• Love is the most healing power!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hey Beautiful, and welcome to Finally Effing Happy, a podcasting community for kick-ass, can-do women living with chronic illness. I am happiness coach and self care strategist Shannon Klenk. And I will share with you some of my personal journey to joy with chronic illness while hosting some amazing guest speakers, sharing tons of happiness hacks and self care strategies so you too can live in joy and happiness despite whatever chronic illness you may be living with day to day.

I am absolutely thrilled that you are here for today's episode. Today's a quick happiness hack on the word, should you heard me right? Should s-h-o-u-l-d we should all try and eradicate the word should from our vocabulary. See how I did that? I was shoulding on my shoulds. I am known to say stop shoulding on yourself. Truly stop shoulding on yourself just for today. Make a promise, a commitment to yourself. I'm not going to should on myself today.

All right. So much easier said than done. Here are three quick little happiness hacks on how to stop shoulding on yourself. The first one is to really get to the underlying beautiful divine need of that should. The second one is a I am enough practice and the third one is a love meditation. And the love meditation is quick, I promise you. So first, every time you say I should, I should exercise more, I should eat better, I should call my mom more often, I should whatever fill in the blank.

OK, you are telling yourself a story that if I engaged in that activity, there is a feeling that I would gain from that activity. And underneath that feeling is some really valid, I refer to them as divine, need. So for example. I should exercise more often, so I believe that if I were to exercise more often, the feeling I would get from that, the feeling that I get when I exercise is like strong. Like I can do this, I can do my life .

Why do I want that feeling? I want that feeling because when I'm feeling strong, I can contribute more. And when I can contribute more, I feel connected. I feel connected to you. I feel connected to the earth. I feel connected to my life. I feel connected to something bigger than me. And when I feel something connected to something bigger than me, I have this sense of calm. This there's a purpose to all of this.

And so all of a sudden my I should exercise more has become about this bigger need to feel strength. And from that strength, I get contribution and connection. And so is there a way right now in this moment in my life with conditions as they are, that I can create greater contribution and connection, and then I usually write those down, I brainstorm, even if it's like crazy, brainstorm two or three ideas and see if there's a way for me to start engaging in those activities right now.

And then what happens is that as those underlying needs get met, the shoulds sort of magically start to disappear all by themselves. Now, I want to acknowledge that sometimes the underlying need that I have isn't going to get met. And because either I'm physically not feeling well or I'm physically not strong enough or the ideas that I have for meeting that need are so crazy and outlandish that it's just impossible in my life with the current conditions. And in those cases, I take those underlying needs  and I bless them in my heart.

In my soul, I say thank you. And then I either put them in my God box or I write them in my journal or I do a tapping meditation around them. But somehow I bless those needs and release them honoring that I have them, but letting them go just for today. So that's happiness hack number one, identifying the underlying feeling in need that I'm trying to achieve in that should. 2) every time I say I should, I am essentially saying I'm not enough, I'm not enough.

What I'm doing is not enough. Who I am is not enough. Like I'm not enough. I'm a big fan of Mirror Work and this is where I go to my mirror and I look myself eyeball to eyeball. And I challenge you to do this right now. And I start by looking in the mirror. You can start by looking in the mirror and saying, I release all the negative messages from the past and I live in this present moment.

I release all my negative messages from the past. Whatever I say to myself now, I say with love. Keep looking at yourself in your eyes, in your mirror. Or you can do this in your cell phone video. I do it sometimes there, too, and say. I am enough, I am enough, I do enough. I work hard enough. I am willing to receive enough. I make enough good choices for me. I love enough.

I am loved. Enough. Because. I am enough. And taking a deep breath. And so whatever the should is around, you can drop it into this, I am enough work with your mirror, so that's happiness hack number two.

We're going to take a really quick break because there are two things going on at Finally Effing Happy that I really want to share with you. The first one is that every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, I go live in my Facebook group to help you with your self care goals for the week. We take 10 minutes. Pick two or three very specific goals for the week. Write them down, share them with each other and inspire and energize our week ahead.

So come join me in the Facebook group at bit.ly/FinallyEffingHappyGroup if you would love to have a free self care accountability coach. The second thing is that I'm offering five 20 minute one on one discovery sessions with me. I am so passionate about helping you take better care of you so that you can have the most epic life you can possibly have.

But one of the things I know about us living with chronic conditions is that each of our condition is a little bit unique. And so I would love to start hearing directly from you. What do you need help with the most? And we can come up with one or two quick strategies to help you with that care.

You can schedule one of those discovery sessions at http://bit.ly/discoverysessionwithshannon and all of the links will be in the show notes. So let's get back to those happiness hacks and find out how to shush those shoulds.

Happiness hacker number three is a really quick love meditation. Love is the most healing power. I always have a choice about where I am choosing to put my awareness. I may not have a choice about how much energy I have in my body today. I may not have a choice about how much pain I have in my body today. I certainly do not have a choice about how many white blood cells or platelets I have. And maybe you have diabetes and you're tracking your blood sugar levels and  you don't have a choice about how much blood sugar you can create or not create or release or not release.

Like there are some things I don't have a choice about, but I always have a choice about where I'm going to put my awareness and where awareness goes, energy flows. And so I always have a choice about whether or not I want to place my awareness on the most powerful healing source in the world. And that is love. So. Sometimes when we think about meditation, we think it has to be this long, drawn out thing where I make concentrated time to sit on my meditation pillow or chair, and if you have that time, that's awesome.

But if you don't, this little meditation works as well. So you take your should you hold it in your mind's eye and your heart and your spirit, whatever it is, and you just place it in the palm of your hands like you were holding a baby bird and you hold that baby bird. Now, I do this sometimes when I'm cooking dinner or driving in the car so you can do it all in your imagination. If you need to take a quick, deep breath in.

Take a second breath if you need to. And I want you to imagine at the center of your being is this swirl of love, it may be a seed, it may be as big as your heart, however big that initial image is for you, but just the swirl of love. Now, take that love from that seed in your heart and let it begin to flow. Filling your body with healing energy. Every time you inhale the flow pulses and strengthens through your circulatory system, through your nervous system, your immune system.

As it flows through your body. Filling all of you with the healing energy of love right out through your fingertips, the top of your head, your toes. Let that love flow around the room that you're in, around your home or your car or your kitchen or wherever you are listening to this until you are in an enormous circle of healing, energetic, flowing love. You can see the love coming from you and then returning to you.

Love is the most powerful healing force there is. Let it wash through your body. You are love. And so it is. So this quick happiness hack love meditation, if you don't have time to take 15 or 20 minutes for a more formal meditation can fuel your soul, fuel your day, dissipate your shoulds at any time. One last tidbit, sometimes I can should on my shoulds, I can even should on my love meditation, I should put my awareness on more positive things.

But even then, I can begin at the beginning. What feelings am I hoping to gain if I were to spend more time on positive affirmations, what need and my hoping to achieve standing in the mirror, I am enough. And then again, envisioning me circled in love. I hope you have a beautiful day, be well and be kind to you today. Hey, beautiful, as always, if you have found anything in this podcast episode, useful, helpful, inspiring, please do me a favor.

Drop a comment in Apple podcasts so that more women can find us or even better, take a screenshot and tag me sharing it on Instagram or Facebook and I'll tag you back. You can follow me on Instagram at FinallyEffing Happy. Or if you want to hang out some more, come join me and my free and private Facebook group at bit.ly/FinallyEffingHappyGroup. And don't forget, I go live every Sunday at 8t p.m eastern. in my Facebook group to be your free self care accountability coach.

It only takes about ten minutes to bring some energy and enthusiasm to your week. And last but not least, if you'd like to spend 20 minutes with me for free, you can schedule a free 20 minute discovery session with me at between bit.ly/discoverysessionwithshannon until we connect next B well, and be kind to you, too.