Which thoughts cause us problems?

Been kidnapped much today?
Chances are you have, several times without knowing or realizing.
I’m not talking about terrorists with weapons and explosives, dreadful tho that is.
It’s much more sinister and damaging than that. The kidnapping that I’m talking about goes on inside us, or more specifically, in a certain type of our thinking.

The Notorious Should Gang
These thoughts I call the Notorious Should Gang (NSG from now on).
We spot them by the words they use. Words such as ‘should’, ‘ought’, ‘must’, ‘have to’, ‘got to’.
They employ 4 main weapons to kidnap and keep us their prisoner.

• fault
• blame
• guilt
• shame

Core Belief
The prison this creates feeds a core belief that many cultures have: that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. So ‘being at fault’ i.e. ‘being faulty like damaged goods’ means it’s easy for us to believe that we’ve done something wrong and that we’re to blame. Or if not us, then someone else is.

Guilt
The next step on this path is to feel guilty. This is not actually a simple feeling like ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ but a mixture of feelings and thoughts like ‘I’ve done something bad’. This generates those uncomfortable feelings and bodily sensations.

Toxic
And then the most toxic of weapons in the NSG armory: shame.
Such a small word, isn’t it? Yet such a savage wound it creates if we fall further into the prison that asks us to believe that now, ‘we are badness itself’.

Their Weapons
These weapons rob us of our freedom to connect with our feelings which allow us to open the door to our longings and deep desires. When we do this, we are then able to create ways that meet our needs and everyone else’s and so breaks free of the prison the NSG tries to keep us in.
This inner connection reveals our true power and autonomy, something the NSG and its master, the ego, hates us to realize.

The Remedy
Try replacing the words ‘it’s my fault’ with ‘I made a mistake and I feel ‘x’ about it’? (‘x’ is whatever feelings are alive in you).
And ‘I’m to blame’ with ‘I am responsible and want to make amends’?
Instead of ‘I feel guilty’, how about ‘I regret what I did or said and want to make amends’?
Instead of ‘I am ashamed’, what about thinking or saying ‘I feel deeply upset or cross with myself about what I did or said’ and, guess what? ‘I want to put things right/make amends’.

Try these replacements and ask yourself how different it feels, especially in your body.
Trust me, apply these alternative thoughts and words and you’ll free yourself from that prison you’ve got used to putting yourself in.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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