Teachers Who Overuse The Words 'Need, Must and Should' Rob You of Sovereignty

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Transcript

One of the core themes that I hope comes through the essence of this podcast over time is that the stories that we are attuning to are quite literally shaping us and they're shaping us on every level of our being.

Everything from our actual posture to our physiology to the possibilities and the probabilities in our day-to-day life.

All of that is being cohered to a variety of stories and it's impossible to be a teacher to transmit anything to anyone without having some kind of deeper story or cosmology that the teaching is anchored into.

So whenever somebody is teaching something and that doesn't matter if it's in the context of a YouTube video showing you how to do a particular exercise like a set of push-ups or it's the teachings that are coming from your parents about how to live life the quote-unquote right way

or if it's literally a book that you have picked up and that it's presenting to you a series of information or steps.

All of those are anchored in a type of story.

The Encyclopedia Britannica is anchored in a very rationalistic, linear, fact-checking story.

Whereas, let's say, a book on mythology, which might also teach you about history, might be anchored in a very different story.

The person who's teaching you a series of push-ups, they're coming from it from a certain vantage point, their experience with movement, what they think movement should or should not be, what they love to do, what they don't love to do.

And they're also teaching it to you how they have learned it.

and their experience with it.

All of that is coming into a simple teaching.

So whenever someone is teaching, they are teaching from a story.

And the essence of what I really want to talk about today is fundamentally the overuse of a particular type of word.

And it is a word that often creates a sense of either urgency, shame or

Authority.

And those words are need, must and should.

And there are multiple layers to this because this shows up in the way we speak to ourselves, the dialogues that we have inside our own minds about how we're living and how to live.

And also it shows up especially, which is what I really want to touch on in this podcast, in the way that people teach you.

And whenever I encounter a teacher who overuses the words need, must and should, generally speaking, it's a red flag for me.

because that person is fundamentally trying to transmit to you a value structure that they possess or they're trying to manipulate you to do what they think you should.

Now,

There are a lot of people who are out there using these words and I do not think that there is a manipulative intent behind it.

They are simply reflecting to you their own cosmology.

And in their cosmology they have adopted values from either traditions or people

that they have taken on as their own.

You can bet that when someone is saying the words need, must and should, outside of a very particular context, which we will discuss, that in general they have absorbed other people's values.

They're not values that are emerging from the soul.

in a very organic way.

They're not spontaneously arising.

They're something that they learned from somebody else or from some tradition.

Or they're trying to live according to some standard or ideal that they have set, that then they're going to judge who and what they are against.

And when they do that and then they teach from that place, they're trying to get you to cohere to that set of values.

They are basically trying to transmit a value structure to you.

And this is important because values fundamentally determine what you do with your life.

Values are what you think is important and worth acting upon.

And the value structures that we align our lives with shape our life.

And a huge part of this is that a value is a story.

Now, some of these stories come from external phenomenon, like we've already discussed.

Traditions, people, teachings, ideals.

And some of them emerge from the soul, the soul's story.

And the soul's story is not one that you will usually hear

Speaking in a language related to need, must and should, again outside of a particular context, and we will discuss that again in a minute, but I'm trying to give you some background first.

Most of the time the soul story will actually speak in love, or gratitude, or inspiration, or enthusiasm.

It will spontaneously move towards that which is aligned with its story.

And with that said, with understanding that generally speaking the soul will orientate towards a story in a very different way than that of an external authority that has been imposed upon the soul.

Then I want to invite you to consider how often you encounter teachings these days that are framed in must, need or should type of language.

Really, you go through YouTube and suddenly you encounter people saying you need to do these five exercises every day or your life's gonna implode or this is what you have to do if you want to get XYZ or this is what you should be doing every single day.

I really personally get turned off by that language because it is coming from a place where they're trying to convert me to their way of seeing things as opposed to inviting me to consider a different vantage point.

or they're trying to manipulate me with a set of words that elicits a survival response.

And this is where some of these words are actually valid.

That is when we're talking about something that's literally needed for survival.

And people who overuse these words are often stuck in certain types of survival responses because these words elicit survival responses.

They generally will at some level make the person more adrenalized or create associations to actions from an adrenalized perspective because when you need something that means that if you don't have it you are going to die.

When you must do something, that means that if you don't do it, something is going to break in a very serious way.

When you should do something, that usually means that you're being pressurized by some external authority.

And let me tell you something, the only time that an external authority actually has a say in what you do that is valid,

is when your survival is in question.

So, if a soldier puts a gun to your head, well, then maybe you should do something.

If you have to do something in order to remain a part of a group that will ensure your survival, then maybe then you should do something.

But outside of that context, those words are not real.

They are being used in a fashion that is in line with what we've already said.

It's either a manipulative tactic or it's one where they're trying to convert you to a certain way of seeing something.

which may not actually be their fault.

It's very likely for that for a lot of these people they were converted to another way of seeing something and that the people who were teaching them were not inviting them to find something that was truly in line with a spontaneously emerging inspiration or enthusiasm or love

for a particular set of actions and the appropriateness of doing the same thing in other people, but more so the appropriateness of following a particular set of teachings or principles or ideals for the sake of doing so because there is something either ethically or morally or idealistically wrong with not doing so.

And a lot of people find themselves in that.

Now, that doesn't mean that I never use these words, need, must or should when teaching.

Generally speaking, I reserve them for when something truly needs to happen, when something is linked to a survival response in truth or when I pre-qualify it with a set of conditions.

So, for example, I let out a video a few weeks ago on YouTube entitled, When Health Must Become a Number One Priority.

I pre-qualified that with when something must be happening and then I gave those parameters.

If a person is really ill and or they have been sick for a long time and they want to truly from an innate place a soul driven place shift their health towards vibrancy

and they want to do that with all of their might.

Well, in that particular situation, in order to get from A to B, generally speaking, it's the case that health must be a number one priority.

And this is the way that we can use these words responsibly.

I would not say that health must be a number one priority for all people all of the time.

I think that would be a deeply disempowering way of looking at health and robbing people of their sovereignty to choose what they want to spend this life that they have on.

Because maybe that's not the case for everybody, but it is the case for some people.

And that's why I created that video.

But more so what I attempt to do and what I encourage people to do who are teachers or even for themselves with their own self-taught is to encourage, is to invite, is to spontaneously generate enthusiasm in people, to inspire people, to move people without trying to get them to see things the way that you do for the sake of it being so.

And if you are using the words need, must and should in the context of your own self-talk, then it's very likely that you have adopted some sort of external ideal set or a value structure that is not truly innately inspired from within.

In which case, I would invite you to explore that.

because this is your life so to speak and maybe the question of why we are doing that could be helpful to you.

And so now to tie everything together with a little bit of a neutralizing paradox for you.

Let's say it like this, what we need to do is to stop using the word need outside the context of actual needs.

What we must do is what our own soul inherently and innately wants to do and what we should do is stop telling people what they should do.

So, I leave you with that because the overall element here, the overall story arc that we are living is showing up in these words.

Is it a story arc aligned with love, inspiration, gratitude, awe, appreciation?

Or is it one where we're just kind of following what other people tell us to do because they have?

And that in our own teachings to others, we're just perpetuating that cycle.