A Mason's Work

[00:00] And yesterday we talked about a sequence of events where, and I'll give you the quick refresher, where somebody was celebrating something that they had achieved that was amazing.
[00:11] And I had this kind of stepwise response through an initial very strong reaction, which probably was some level of, well, we'll get into it.
[00:25] And so when we walked through the reaction, it was an initial strong reaction with then a sort of a transmutation of that reaction to something like an attack.
[00:38] And then from there, something like a gratitude that I could use to commiserate with a colleague.
[00:44] Uh, this kind of stepwise kind of emotional language and intellectual language is what happens to me upon occasion.
[00:56] And I say to me, I think this happens to a lot of people, but, um, I'm happy to be wrong here.
[01:00] This, this sounds like it would be amazing if no one else felt these ways.
[01:04] But, uh, as you're busy trying to sort of deconstruct a sequence of events like that, um, it's real easy to stop at the end and kind of be like, oh, well, I'm feeling gratitude now.
[01:16] And that's great.
[01:17] But what I want you to look for in a sequence of emotional responses like that is the feeling or the mental vocabulary of the word should.
[01:29] And you heard it yesterday in yesterday's episode, I said, I should feel grateful for what I have.
[01:37] It's one of the most common words in the English language and one of the least examined.
[01:42] We say it probably dozens of times a day without even registering it.
[01:47] I should get to that.
[01:48] I should be further along.
[01:50] I should be grateful for what I have.
[01:51] In other, in other episodes, we've talked about this as the what if.
[01:56] Should sounds like a conscience.
[01:57] It sounds like, um, you know, a moral standard of behavior or maturity.
[02:03] And sometimes it is right.
[02:05] But there are specific versions that function differently.
[02:09] And once you learn to hear it, you can't unhear it.
[02:12] And here's how you tell them apart.
[02:13] A genuine should.
[02:15] When you say I should do something, it's directional.
[02:18] It points to a behavior.
[02:19] It points to an action.
[02:21] Uh, I should call my dad.
[02:23] I should help clean up the park.
[02:26] There's a clear action, a clear relationship, an immediate next step.
[02:30] It has weight and direction.
[02:34] There's another kind of should that's kind of like, uh, a hedge or a break against behavior.
[02:44] It doesn't point anywhere.
[02:47] It just kind of falls flat.
[02:50] I should be grateful for what I have.
[02:53] I should feel differently about this.
[02:57] You notice the difference.
[02:59] This is the one we're after.
[03:03] This, I should feel a certain way.
[03:07] The full grammar of it goes like this.
[03:11] Every suppressing should that you say becomes, uh, this, this phrase.
[03:20] Okay.
[03:20] And the phrase goes like this.
[03:21] I should feel grateful.
[03:23] And here's the second word that always follows a should.
[03:27] But I should feel grateful.
[03:31] But, and that immediately, of course, you know the answer, right?
[03:35] Because I'm not, but I'm not.
[03:36] I should feel this way, but I don't.
[03:39] And then from there, there is the rationalization process.
[03:43] It's a because.
[03:45] I should feel great, but I don't because.
[03:50] And this is the place where we begin the process of trying to figure out what is going on with
[03:59] ourselves.
[04:00] Every time you're presented with a series of words like this in your head or feelings of
[04:04] emotions, um, this is essentially the beginning of a process that we use to suppress ourselves,
[04:11] to repress our own feelings and change the way we are.
[04:16] Oftentimes it sounds like an observation.
[04:20] It sounds like a rational thing.
[04:22] I should feel happy, but I don't because this is not the way this is not for me,
[04:27] or this is not what's going on.
[04:29] Other times it becomes something even more subversive.
[04:35] And we're going to get into this over the course of the next couple of episodes.
[04:38] This kind of thinking is an outrageously difficult thing to deprogram because it is the foundation
[04:46] of limiting beliefs.
[04:49] This kind of should script doesn't just run in your head.
[04:54] It gets performed.
[04:55] You take this should on the road.
[04:59] You take it to the, you know, sitting up front of the coffee shop or sitting out with your
[05:05] friends when you're at the water cooler or having a beer and you publicly start to take
[05:10] on this kind of virtue signaling.
[05:13] I should feel this way.
[05:14] And I, you get the confirmation.
[05:17] Yes, you absolutely should feel that way, which acts as a surrogate for actually feeling
[05:21] that way.
[05:21] It doesn't really matter what happens with the emotions.
[05:27] What happens is the tension that we've kind of skipped over that little bit of discomfort
[05:35] that we translated into an attack, then a recoil and a translation, and then an award,
[05:44] right?
[05:45] Some sort of attention seeking or some sort of commiserating or what have you.
[05:49] So this mechanic begins a series of processes over time that kind of build on each other
[05:57] and what they really serve to do more than anything else is they serve to keep you stuck.
[06:05] So between now and tomorrow, just listen in your head for that word should.
[06:11] Maybe you'll feel it as a visceral recoil.
[06:15] I should.
[06:15] You don't have to do anything with it yet.
[06:17] We're going to catch and work on that tomorrow.
[06:20] We're going to talk about this a little bit more.
[06:21] But once you start hearing that, once you hear how often your mind and your body responds
[06:28] to the word should, there is an instinct in that present moment to act.
[06:36] And when we lose it, we repress it and we tend to lose it forever.
[06:42] Let's talk about it more tomorrow.
[06:43] Let's talk about it.