Stop the Guilt Loop: Replace “I Should” with “I Want”

Chapters

• 0:00 Live Start And Today’s Theme
• 0:27 The Weight Of “Should” In Daily Life
• 2:37 Humor, Cold Voices, And Self-Judgment
• 4:13 “There’s Nothing Wrong With You”
• 6:40 Shoulds, Resistance, And Vitamins
• 9:15 Parts Work And The Inner Rebel
• 12:54 Parenting Scripts And Early Programming
• 16:40 Comparison, Social Media, And The Should Monster
• 19:16 Reframing Should: Want, Will, Choose
• 22:12 Guilt As A Signal Of Judgment
• 24:35 Finding The “But” And Real Constraints
• 27:35 Morning Shoulds, Sleep Cycles, And Choice
• 30:25 Habits, Self-Forgiveness, And Practical Plans

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:11

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Good morning. Going live at 7 a.m. Somewhere at 7 p.m. If you happen to be somewhere at 7 p.m., we hope you're gonna come and join us.

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Yeah, yeah. So today we are talking about the idea of the word should and how it influences our lives. I wonder when we start saying that to ourselves.

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

Well, you know, here I am with my DJ voice because I've got a cold. And a cold is a great example of shoulds.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

Too many shoulds, confusion, uh cacophony of shoulds.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

I don't know what I should be doing, should be doing. I'm disorganized, I'm in disarray, I am confused. We've really shook things up this week by doing podcasts first thing in the morning and really shifting the last week and this week from our the business we've been doing for five years to the business that we're doing now, and uh trying to make real commitments to get things done.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

And trying to find time to do that. Yesterday was a bit of a day off, not a day off, but it was like the it's the weather's turning, the snow, they finally predicted snow for our beautiful area.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

So I knew at that point I'd better get the boat out of the water and get the dock out of the water and get things closed up for winter. I better I should. And so I started shooting myself as soon as I heard about the snow. And then I called my buddy, and he's so fantastic, he came and helped me. Yeah. And and there's still stuff to be done. The boat isn't covered properly yet, so I should get on to doing that. And at the same time, I should go to the gym today. And at the same time, I should be, you know, doing some recordings today, and I'm full of shoulds today.

SPEAKER_01: 2:03

And it's Friday.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05

And it's Friday.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

You should be just laying around.

SPEAKER_00: 2:10

Exactly. It's Friday, it's the end of the week. What the hell? You know? Yeah. I should be relaxed.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:17

Yeah. So I'm shitting the heck out of myself.

SPEAKER_01: 2:19

Shutting, not shitting me.

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

I said shoulding. And you you made it. Now we've got to put a post on saying that we've got a dirty, dirty podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

This is explicit. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 2:36

Anyway, I think that that's um part of the reason I have a cold. So I uh I took my throat lozenge and I drank my vitamin C before I had my coffee because I should do that before my coffee. And it's amazing how many rules we put on ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

Yeah, like this morning I was uh we were discussing this before heading into this topic this morning. And I I woke up at 4 30 this morning and laying there thinking I should get up and I should start making things and I should start posting things, and I did. Not that you know that was necessary, but I was also shoulding myself should should saying should to myself in the with the idea that I should be talking more on this podcast. And yeah, I was I was sort of beating myself up because I I have we have different minds, different ways of communication, and I think that was just unhelpful to be thinking about that. But it did, you know, in a way, it gave me some ideas of asking Les. You know, when we come up with a topic, how do you go about thinking where we start or you know, different ways of thinking about it, moving through it? I know I'm good at stories, I know I'm good at sort of reframes sometimes. But yeah, I was just thinking about that this morning, and Les was very helpful in saying that I shouldn't be thinking or wait, shouldn't be thinking about that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:12

Oh Lord. I think what I said, yeah, you said something different than what I said is what I've come to I've come to say it to myself a lot more, and I've come to say it to others, and I certainly say it when I'm working with clients, and it's a simple phrase that evokes different reactions all the time. But the phrase is there's nothing wrong with you, you're normal. And you know, we're talking about should, and one of the ideas is that should implies judgment, it it that something's more important than another, something is necessary while other things are not. Should is and it's almost an edict, isn't it? Like like from some higher power, this is what should happen. I just think that there's an element of judgment and self-judgment in there, but it's really resistance when you think about it. But anyway, so the idea is there's nothing wrong with you, you're normal. And that's the way I try to keep my clients and as a result, people in my life and myself away from judgment, away from judging yourself. As soon as you start sh I shouldn't, I should, as soon as you start doing that to yourself, you're implying that you're not doing what you should do, and you're implying that you're not doing the right thing, and you're implying that you're not acting in a way that you know is better and best, and you know, and we get into shoulds and supposed to's. And all of that, I believe, has a negative effect on the way you see yourself. If if you are shoulding yourself regularly, right? Yeah, you you're being really tough on yourself, and you're also missing the point. And the point is that you're really resistant, right? I should take my vitamins. Well, no, obviously, I'm resistant to taking my vitamins because I don't think of it every day, and I don't do it every day. And maybe there's a reason I don't like it. And maybe, yeah, we can be hypnotists and go back to that moment that mom made you eat some vitamin that tasted horrible, and you just associated that your whole life, that vitamins are yucky.

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

They have to be the flinstones or those. So it's no go.

SPEAKER_00: 6:27

Yeah, to me, even then, they tasted that. Yeah, the point is that the point is that we have these resistances to things. And that's really, really normal. We come about all of the habits, mental habits, thought habits, behavioral habits, all the ones that we come up that we come out of life with that are not helpful. We come about them honestly. And judging ourselves or judging the circumstances is not a helpful step. It really kind of locks in a negative emotion. Right? Taking that, I I call it the unnecessary next step. I prefer my health when I take my vitamins every day. Should I take my vitamins? No. I want to take my vitamin. Yeah, I will take my vitamin, I choose to take my vitamin. Yeah, it's okay to say I forgot to take my vitamins, I'd better take them now, right? But to be saying to yourself when you're sitting with a bag full of chips in front of the TV at eight o'clock, I should be taking more vitamins. It's probably an interesting scenario. And speaks a lot more to a lot more things you you might want to address.

SPEAKER_01: 7:48

Wait, are you calling me out for last name?

SPEAKER_00: 7:52

It's yeah, I think I think the solution lies in recognizing it as resistance. But I think the problem lies in the judgment nature of it.

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

Yeah, yeah. And I I think the that should part. It's almost like if we think about hypnosis, there we do parts work, right? And it's almost like there's a part that's a should part, and then there's the part that is resistant against it. And anytime we say should, it's it's exacerbating the resistant part.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

Well, think about the difference. How do you feel? No, notice the difference. How do you feel when you come up with something and you say to yourself, I should. So think about something that you'd say I should to yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 8:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:39

Now, what if somebody said to you, you should?

SPEAKER_01: 8:43

Yeah, no way. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

Well, it's just it's the difference. It's the if I'm if I'm thinking I just stick with silly things like taking vitamins, I should be taking my vitamins, right?

SPEAKER_02: 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

And I'm saying that to myself, which means I'm aware. It means that I I probably want to somewhere inside me. It means that I have the intention to, that doesn't seem to come to life. It it means that I I kind of made a mistake, but it's not a reason to be too hard on myself. But the instant you say to me, you should be taking vitamins, yeah, that resistance part of me gets really activated.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

Yeah, it's almost like a parent, like someone in authority as a child, right? And then we stamp our feet on the ground and say, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:30

We're being hard on parents this week, I guess. Yeah, I guess I think what's important is not we're not focused on parents. What we're focused on is how these thought systems and how these thought forms come about inside our subconscious. And it comes from an understanding that we are an open book when we're young, that we deeply love, appreciate, admire our parents. Pretty much at that point, when you're of those those ages, you're completely reliant on your parent. Yeah, that if your parent was to just leave the room sometimes, you'd go into a state of panic. That that's the way we look at parents. And so everything they say and do becomes our standard.

SPEAKER_02: 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:18

Now, yeah, just with a a gentleness towards parents. This is, you know, I think a useful thing to realize. It's hard to be a better parent than you receive. It's hard to understand parenting beyond the understanding you got from your parents. It's hard to change your parenting from the parenting that you receive. This is all very subconsciously programmed and habitual. And I would guess that you heard the phrase, you should from your parents millions of times, always said to you with a concern for your well-being, right? Even often followed by do what I say, not what I do.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

Oh, I didn't hear it that way. Do what I say or else.

SPEAKER_00: 11:09

My parents use that one a few times. Do what I say, not what I do. And and these are all the methodologies for programming. And so be gentle with yourself. It's really hard. I mean, you got to go out of your way to learn about parenting. And even those quote unquote experts in parenting, I'm I'm quite confident their children will have something else to say. But you got to go out of your way to really learn about parenting because it's a very subconscious thing. And you're you're in a you know, you're in a state of, I'm gonna use the word chaos. I think I as a parent. I remember those days when I just felt like I just got to get through the next hour and I don't know how to do it. And I'm just gonna address whatever pops its head up. And um, I wasn't in great control of my own mind. I wasn't in great control of my own behavior. And so deliberate parenting and deliberate living was kind of out of the question. And so I've got a great deal of sympathy and understanding and forgiveness, and more importantly, just non-judgment. These kinds of comments that say, you know, your parents did this and your parents said that are not meant for us to judge your parents. They're meant for you to understand how it became part of your vocabulary, how it became part of your behavior, and that you came about it innocently. So don't judge yourself over this. Judgment is just not helpful. Yeah it's it's not getting you any closer to a solution. It's just like the word should.

SPEAKER_01: 12:48

There's the word that comes to me is epidemic. I'm not sure if that's the right word, but it's just in my head. And maybe because I I see it with people close to me, family members, friends, of thinking I should be somewhere else in my life right now, right? I'm this age, I should be further ahead. That to me is I went through that at a certain stage, but I think I want to for us to talk about it a little bit, because maybe people listening to this are in those areas of their life where they feel like that. I I think I'm not sure about this, but I think that it's with a certain age group. And that age group grew up in a time where it was very normal for kids during your 20s, house, you know, all the stuff that comes along with it, job rolling through your 20s. And then so their parents had that, and now they're sort of stuck feeling like they should be like that, right? They should have done that. I see this more with men than women, but I think it might be good to talk about. What is your what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_00: 13:54

Do you see it with well I think oh yeah. I see it with with my kids, I see it with my friends, you know. It it's not unique, I think, to a particular age. Pardon me. I think we do that, you know, when we're when we're in our teens. I should know what I want to do with my life. I think we do that when we if we get the experience of post-secondary. I should be in a program that's better or it's gonna get me somewhere.

SPEAKER_02: 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:22

And then we we get out there and then we should I should have a better job.

SPEAKER_02: 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

I should have found something in my field, I should have studied something different, right? Or some people, I should be married by now, and others saying I shouldn't have got married so young.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

I see most of those cross-all age groups, right?

SPEAKER_00: 14:42

And and all the way up to retirement. I should have saved more money, I should have done things differently. I never should have retired as at the age I did. I should have stayed working, I should have all kinds of things. I should have got out of that job a long time ago. I think that it's not unique to an age. I think that people falsely believe that there might have been a better path for them.

SPEAKER_02: 15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:04

And I don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_02: 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:06

I don't see one path in life as better than another. I've seen people who have done very well in their career and their marriages fall apart and they have problems with their kids. I've seen people do very poorly in their career and have really great home lives. I see people who are really financially ahead, but they've got severe alcohol and drug problems.

SPEAKER_02: 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

I've seen people who work all the time, constantly squirreling money away, and they never feel like they have enough. Um I'm not I'm not sure that the problem. Well, let's step back from that. And this is this is what I think. I think we live comparatively. I think we spend a lot of time looking at others and having, you know, I think I think social media exacerbates this. We have a misperception about other people's lives, right? I think that no matter what's in our social media, the person in there has gone out of their way to put on a face, put on a look, find themselves a script. Some of them even get teleprompters to control what they say. They've set up a background. They live in a in a home like the rest of us that on any given day looks like, you know, uh bombing off. A bomb went off. A storm came through. But there's a little corner in the house where the lights are pointed and the cameras pointed that looks like, you know, a set out of a movie, something out of, you know, uh Pinterest.

SPEAKER_02: 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:33

And I think that we get a false perception of what life's about. You know, I grew up in the generation that used to, yeah, you know, the line was this isn't the Brady bunch. Right?

SPEAKER_02: 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:46

A blended family where everybody loved each other and got along, and they had a housekeeper too, which was, you know, and they had this gorgeous house that they all seemed to find. Everybody had their own bedroom, and you know we we looked at that as a kind of a standard that was just totally unrealistic, not even close to the way human beings live, you know. They had six kids. I grew up in a house of six kids. It sure didn't look like that. But I can tell you that we loved each other in our own difficult ways at different times in our lives, and here we are now, all those years later, and the love remains. But we have this tendency to idle, idolize things and compare ourselves to others and simplify life, looking at single dimensions of life and saying this is the most important thing. And you're allowed to do that, you're allowed to prioritize your life any way you want. And if your priority is coffee in the morning, well, God bless you, go for it, right? At least you can say that part of your life is going really well. Anyway, I guess what my point is is that we have unrealistic views of others, we compare ourselves to those views, and then we judge and condemn ourselves based on our own dissatisfactions with the conditions of our lives. And then we paint them with the should brush.

SPEAKER_01: 18:10

Yeah, or as our friend Brian likes to say, the should monster.

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:13

I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 18:15

Should monster comes to town. Yeah. And when the should monster comes to town, they tend to hang around for a little while.

SPEAKER_02: 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:21

It usually takes a significant number of shoulds before we even notice that we're shoulding ourselves, which is judging ourselves, which is condemning ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 18:32

Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00: 18:32

Has anything shown up in the chat? Is anybody listening to us?

SPEAKER_01: 18:36

Yep, Barb is listening. She says, Oh, dang, sorry I wasn't there to help with the boat. Don't shed yourself, Barb.

unknown: 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:47

So I guess, you know, being aware that it's resistance, being aware that it's judgment, being aware that it's inaccurate comparison. The question becomes, you know, how do I overcome this habit that I have acquired of thinking of myself as not doing what I should do?

SPEAKER_01: 19:09

Yeah, exactly. So she's asking, number one, so how do we say it differently? And should can motivate and encourage, but is it always bad?

SPEAKER_00: 19:19

I think if you took should out of your vocabulary and replaced it with more deliberate intention, I should take my vitamins, I will take my vitamins. I want to take my vitamins, I'm going to take my vitamin. I choose to take my vitamins. Now, again, it's a habit. It's a habit. And thought habits are really hard to change because they exist down in your subconscious, right? And they they've been acquired in an honest way. I'm I'm drawn to an old book that I read a long, long time ago. The guy's name was Nathaniel Brathwaite, I think. Let me double check that. Nathaniel Braden. Sorry. Brandon. Nathaniel Br Brandon, B-R-A-N-D-E-N. Old book. It's called The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_00: 20:02

And the Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, he he uses a methodology of stems. So part of the exercises in his books are that you write stems of sentences. I'm going to, and then you finish the sentence. I'm going to do this today, and you finish the sentence. So essentially it's practice. It's practice of saying things differently to yourself. Well, the first pillar of self-esteem is living consciously. So it's it's about that kind of deliberate choice following through. And the whole book adds up to when I deliberately do what I say I want to do, I feel better about myself. When I deliberately conduct myself in the ways that I think are good, I feel better about myself. When I consistently think about myself in loving, accepting terms, I feel better about myself. When I speak up for myself in situations where I want what I want and I don't want to give that up, I feel better about myself. I feel, and I've always thought of self-esteem being that basic feeling that no matter what happens, I'll be okay. I am capable of living life in this world and accomplishing what I want to accomplish. Anyway, so I think part of overcoming I shoulds is if you made a long list of I shoulds and then changed them to I want to. When you change that to I want to or I'm going to, now you're triggering resistance, right? Now you know that it isn't self-judgment anymore because you've said, I want to do this. I I I I choose to do this. Excuse me. When you say that to yourself, then your more natural resistance to the idea will come up. And now you have a better chance of examining what it is that's stopping you, what it is that is causing you to, you know, dodge away from this, avoid it, not engage it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:08

I I would even go as far to in those moments when it's sort of when you feel it coming up, asking yourself, why, why don't you want to do this? Right. And I wouldn't even I wouldn't even say, why don't I want to do this? I would say, why don't you want to do this? Because you're you're asking a part of you, right? Almost like it's separate. And in my in our line of work, at least from my experience, it is easier to receive an answer when you have that little bit of separation. Also, on top of that, I think uh to the question, should can motivate and encourage, but is it always bad? I think the turning point for when it becomes sort of, well, bad is when you start to feel guilt, right? It just adds that layer. If I think to myself, if I'm out and, you know, maybe it's my friend's birthday or something, oh, I should go get a present. Oh, I should go get her flowers or something like that. I think should has become sort of a habit thought too, right? If we think about words, yeah. Words that are habits in our mind. You know, I'm not resistant to going to get her a present. In fact, I'm excited to go look around and see what she would like. But I I think the yeah, the turning point is when we are saying these shoulds to ourselves and then it becomes guilt.

SPEAKER_00: 23:27

Well, that's how you know that it's a judgment.

SPEAKER_01: 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

Guilt is the emotional reaction to saying I've done something wrong. Right. Judgment is the imposition of rules. It's the imposition of usually somebody else's rules. It's the imposition of a condemnation because of conditions, situations that you find yourself in. When you say I should, you're aware that there's a benefit. And avoiding that benefit, not accomplishing that benefit, creates the guilt. So I can say to myself all day long, I should take my vitamin. And if I don't, then I know I'm not doing what I should do. I know I'm not doing what I could do. And I move into that guilt emotion, and then that really spirals me down in terms of self-love, self-esteem. Right. So to change that language, you know, to think about, you know, linguistics for a minute, to change that language, and it's different in every language, and it'll be different in the way people use language. You know, we're we come to the table as goofy Canadians, eh? And so we have our language. But the point is, is you've got to find what your language is. Should seem to be pretty universal. You got to find in your language the thing that suggests to you what you might do to improve whatever situation you're in. Yeah. So I I just like going from I should to I want to and see how that feels.

SPEAKER_01: 25:03

Yeah. And if you immediately have the little thought of I don't want to, then that's an opportunity to ask, well, why don't you want to?

SPEAKER_00: 25:11

Well, it starts out as I want to, but but there might be a but, right? I want to buy her a present, yeah, but maybe I don't have the money right. I want to buy her a present, but maybe I don't have time right now. I want to buy her a present, but she might be feel really awkward if I do. I want to, and then there might be a but. And now you're bringing some of that resistance and some of that awareness of why you might not follow through with this thing to your mind. And it might be really legitimate, yeah, right? It might be a real reason. I want to take my vitamins every morning, but I don't seem to have time in the morning. And then the solution's easy. Oh, I could be taking them at night before I go to bed, right? And now it's I will take my vitamins at night before I go to bed. And maybe there's a whole lot less resistance now. Maybe there's a whole lot less fear. I want to take my vitamins in the morning, but I really feel pressed for time. I don't want to be late for work. I don't want to get stuck in traffic. I don't want that feeling of queasiness in my stomach after I drink my coffee, whatever it is. I don't eat, I don't eat until later in the day. And right, you're going to find that there might actually be legitimate reason why you don't do the thing you want to do. And then it doesn't become a should from which you feel guilty. It becomes an awareness of what you want and a plan to make it happen. Again, these are habits which which requires a change in the way you talk to yourself. And you have to stick with that change over and over and over and over. And maybe that the fastest trigger is every time I say I should, I should, I want to pause, right? I should, I want to pause and replace that with I want. And then I I want to, and then maybe, yeah, maybe I don't want. Maybe I shouldn't, right? Maybe, maybe this isn't all that important.

SPEAKER_01: 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

Allow yourself the chance to reconsider the conditions of the should.

SPEAKER_01: 27:14

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah. I think it's too often that I say it to myself. Also too early in the day to be saying it to myself. I like wake up and the first thing in my mind is should. Oh man. I think we all suffer from that in some way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_00: 27:30

Well, let's use that one because that's uh I think a really common one. I should get up now.

SPEAKER_01: 27:35

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:36

Do I want to get up now? No. That's that's honest resistance. Do I want to get up now? If the answer is no, sometimes we got to be rational about it. Well, if I go back to sleep, I know that if I don't get an hour and a half more sleep, I'm actually going to feel tired.

SPEAKER_02: 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:55

There's that 90-minute sleep cycle, which is problematic for a lot of people. I think a lot of people, you know, we're gonna, I'm, you know, putting together the beginnings of a sleep program for our school. And one of the issues people experience is they say, I sleep, but I wake up tired. Well, when you wake up tired, it's because your alarm goes off in the middle of a sleep cycle. Sleep cycles go from 60 to 90 minutes for the average person. You go into a sleep, you go into a deep state of sleep, you stay in a deep state of sleep, and then you rise out of it somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes in. Everybody's unique, everybody's got their own precise amount of time, but it averages out this way. So you could be aware for yourself of what your sleep cycles are and know that people do quite normally go to sleep at night and wake up multiple times in the night after going through sleep cycles. So, anyway, one of the things you can lie there in bed and you say, Well, you know, I I don't have an hour and a half to sleep more, and I know I'm going to feel not as good as I might. I think I want to get up now to avoid that feeling.

SPEAKER_01: 29:07

Yeah. And that happened. I did think that this morning when I woke up at 4 30. I thought, oh man, if I go back to sleep, I'll I'll sleep till six, and that's way too late for me. So it was a little butt-kickered.

SPEAKER_00: 29:20

Well, I really think that shifting the words I should to I want to. I want, I think you reveal to yourself the opportunity to be reasonable with yourself, be reasoned with yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 29:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

And it'll be easier then to forgive yourself for making the wrong choice. Yeah. Because you made a choice. Yeah. And it didn't work out the way you hoped. And so that's okay. Lesson learned.

SPEAKER_01: 29:45

There's a whole other podcast. Is it actually the wrong choice?

SPEAKER_00: 29:48

Well, we did that yesterday. Suffering. Yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:53

Oh my.

SPEAKER_00: 29:54

So, as always, you know, the podcast is meant to help us reveal to ourselves uh when the These podcasts are good is because we're doing it. We're doing it as we're speaking to you. We're analyzing it for our own benefit, too. Um, it's to see where these thought forms and thought habits come from, to not judge them but try to find solutions to them, to reframe them as best we can, to find replacements for them as best we can, knowing that changing our minds is well, first of all, it's the secret to improving your life.

SPEAKER_01: 30:26

Changing your mind.

SPEAKER_00: 30:27

Changing your mind is the secret to improving your life. Yeah. It's it's the first step in changing your life and improving it, is changing what's going on in your mind. And unfortunately, because we're not all trained in it from the instant that we're children, it's one of those things we're not really good at and we're not paying attention to, right? Because we always focus on our behavior. We focus on what we do and we get mad that we keep doing it. We focus on what we're not doing, and we get mad at ourselves for not doing when it's the conditions of our mind, our subconscious mind, quite specifically, where our behaviors come from.

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:05

So being focused on the thing that creates the situation. It's not my failure to take my vitamins, it's not the vitamins' fault. It's somewhere in my mind there is resistance, and the subsequent judgment of I should is not helping. And when I say I should, I should ask myself, do I want? Can I replace I should with I want? I choose. And if I can, and I do, super duper, your behavior will change. And if you don't want, then you can examine that. There's a reason for it.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

Yeah, yeah. Any other questions before we wrap up today? No questions. Nope.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

As always, hope that we've made you think and ponder and wonder.

SPEAKER_01: 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:53

And examine yourself in a nice, healthy way. There's nothing wrong with it. That's right. Be gentle on yourself. That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 31:59

Okay. Well, have a lovely day, and we'll see you later.