Don't Should on Yourself

Transcript

Jim: 0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of Decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Kovalt.

Pjae: 0:11

And my name is Rev. Dr. P. J. Stanley, and we are so glad to be here today. Welcome, and thanks for being here.

Jim: 0:17

Yeah, today's episode is called Don't Shud on Yourself. We have to be careful about our pronunciation. We have to

Pjae: 0:25

be very, very careful. Very careful.

Jim: 0:28

Or not. Yeah, exactly. Not that we really care. But this is something that gets said a lot. I mean, this podcast is, at least in a major part, about aspects of New Thought Spirituality, and it's something that gets said a lot in that context, is why we're talking about it. So what exactly does that?

Pjae: 0:49

Yeah. It, you know, and it's, I think everyone, you know, if you all that are listening and, and, you know, us, us here, when we think about it, that word, it just, it invokes feelings of shame, like someone else knows more than we do or they think they do. And that whole telling somebody what they should do set, or even telling yourself that, sets yourself up for either not liking yourself. Because you're telling yourself, oh, you're not doing, you're not doing a good job. You should have done this, you should have done that. Or, setting it up that someone outside of you is an authority on what your life should, should, here we go. And it's so easy for that word to slide out. What your life is supposed to look like. Your life, and the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because We and I have a woman that I listen to a great deal. I mean, I love what she says and she always says you Individually are the highest authority about what is supposed to is or is not happening in your life So no one including yourself shooting on you is correct about What your life can look like because it's all up to you and we know that as we're growing and Evolving our life is changing and what we thought was going to work for us and what did work for us in At one point in our lives. It's not going to continue to work because we are growing and evolving and so to say that you should be what you were before which a lot of people like to do because that's their comfort level of Knowing you in a way that they knew you before so this is just about just Being careful About our word usage, because our words are so powerful. And that's why I wanted to talk about it today.

Jim: 2:26

And, and sometimes, I mean that's something like it's about, you know, major level things, but it can be just daily, like, microaggressions. We just, I know. I'm constantly doing that. It's like. Oh, I should have said that. I, I should have.

Pjae: 2:43

Yes. We just did a setting this up. I just said something about I should have, I don't even know what, I can't, it just came so quickly, I can't even recall what I said about myself. But something I did here today. Oh, you should have done that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: 2:57

Yeah. It can be even simple things, but they still have the same effect.

Pjae: 3:01

They really do. They really do. And it's such a, it's not even subtle, but the way that we keep saying it and letting, letting it slip out is subtle. So we don't even catch it that we're doing it. So this is just one of those times, one of those podcasts where I want to share with you some things that we, one might want to think about catching. Because it really shifts how we feel about ourselves and what we're allowing other people, how we're allowing other people to or even just taking on what someone else says and how that makes us feel. We can, we can, we can change that. That doesn't have to make us feel any way unless we say that it does. So we get to, we get to, we get to change that. And I wanted to bring that up and make us aware of that.

Jim: 3:43

So. How do we go about changing that? Other than just saying, Oh, I shouldn't have said should.

Pjae: 3:51

Exactly. And so part of any, any change that's going to happen, any evolution that happens in your life is about noticing it. To begin with, that it's even happening. And then, another thing that the woman that I like to talk to, I love what she has to say, noticing what you're noticing. So sometimes we notice something, but we let it slide by. We don't stop and say, wait a minute. So I noticed that and, and, and what do I want to do about that? So noticing what you're noticing, it means to stop and say, no, that's not true about me. I no longer want to use those words. One of the things that we do a lot individuals, I'm not, there, there's no one in particular that I'm thinking of, but we shame ourselves in the way our bodies look, the way our clothes look. And. It's very important that we catch ourselves saying whatever negative things we're saying to ourselves and go back to the, to the source. Where did that thinking come from? Is that even true? So a lot of times we'll say things about it and we don't even know that it's true or not. It may have been true at one point. It may never have been true. It's just something that someone else has said. Generally an authority figure. Someone we've given the authority to that has said things like, Oh girl, you know, you should know better. Well, how? Well, no better than what?

Jim: 5:11

Hello.

Pjae: 5:12

Yeah.

Jim: 5:12

And sometimes, I mean, I know Certainly things people have said to me, probably quite casually, you know, they didn't mean it to be, but for some reason it sticks, you know, it lodges itself in your little brain and there you

Pjae: 5:29

are. And there you are years later with that little prickly thing still in your, in your head and in your ear. And the question becomes, they may very well have said it casually with no meaning at all. And yet it stuck for you. Which means it has meaning for you. These are the things that we begin to notice, what we're noticing, in terms of why. Because the only power we have, and this is the greatest thing that we talk about in New Thought. The only power, and the greatest power we have is our, our choices that we make. And that we decide. What matters to us, that is a beautiful thing. And so we begin to notice that someone said something and it hurt us or it bothered us in some way, or it brought something up. Now, if that is an opportunity for us to grow, to notice what we're noticing and say, why did that bother me? Where does that come from? This is the only way that you, that you educate yourself in terms of who you are now. And who you want to become. And what we talk about in New Thought, in this particular Harmony Spiritual Center, is to be it is to be purposeful about your life. So because of these little things that are, that are just happening, that you're saying to yourself that came from someplace else, but that's also creating your future. It's creating your future self. So, it's important that we notice it, and that we question ourselves about it. Is that mine? Did I, do I believe that? Why am I, why am I talking to myself that way?

Jim: 6:55

Yes, yeah, and it's, it's, I mean you can't, you can't go back and change the past. No. point blaming whoever said that to you. Really can't. Assuming it was someone else, but you can. Investigate why you're so attached to it. That

Pjae: 7:12

right there. I love that word attachment. I think it's gonna be a podcast. Look attachment. Why are you attached to it? That is a great question. And somehow we've given whoever, however that got attached whoever said it, we gave them some authority in our lives for some reason. And, and they might have had some actual authority at some point in our lives. And they may not have. We just may have wanted something from them and just we like them and just Everything that came out of their mouth. We thought were pearls

Jim: 7:37

even if they said something negative to us Yeah, or even not that I mean it could be someone you you hardly know might have said Oh, you know, you should never wear the color whatever. Yeah, and then,

Pjae: 7:48

yeah, now you're rocked, and you're like, what's wrong with this color?

Jim: 7:50

Yeah.

Pjae: 7:51

What do you mean? What does it look like on me? And now you're going down this rabbit hole. Yeah,

Jim: 7:57

Or, or in a positive way, they might have said you should only wear.

Pjae: 8:00

Right, right. Red or whatever. Right, right.

Jim: 8:04

And without necessarily, they may not have been some, some style authority or whatever. Right. For some whatever reason.

Pjae: 8:12

Right. I can tell you that I'm, and you know, I don't have to tell you, but I'm just going to say what's obvious between the two of us is that I'm quite opinionated. I have, it's a shock, but yes, so I have a lot of opinions, but my opinions aren't I, and I don't know that other people think this way about themselves as well. I'm just saying what I see. I'm not saying this is how you should be or you need to change anything. I'm just mentioning what I see. But the power of that, if, if, if for whatever reason someone has given you authority in their lives because you're a good friend or because you're their spiritual leader or any number of reasons. Then they have to be very careful about what I'm saying to people because of they may take it on, but that's my responsibility because I want to be a loving person. So that's part of my journey as a loving person to be clear and careful. And, and I'm not, I'm not going to always catch it, but to be open to allowing people to tell me when I've hurt them, when I've said something that's bothered them. I hope that that's A concept that I'm getting out there when I speak to people, please feel free to share. It won't, it honestly won't hurt my feelings because I'm not responsible for your thoughts. I'm only responsible for what I said, you know, what I said and I, and I'll take that. I'll take that on. But then we work on, well, why did what I say mean anything to you? And we can go, you know, we can work on that. But yeah, so it's a, it's, you know, we're, we're just in this, in this universe where there's a whole dance of things that go on and all we can do. And which is what I'm talking about right now, is to take responsibility for how we feel about things. And we have a huge way, a huge power in our lives to say, I don't, I don't want to own that anymore. I, I'm tired of being pricked, you know, I'm tired of my heart getting pricked by people who may or may not even know that they pricked my heart. So why do they have power?

Jim: 10:07

Right. Right. Why

Pjae: 10:09

do they have power?

Jim: 10:10

And, and sometimes those, those shoulds or should nots or whatever may be just a cumulative thing from like the environment you were brought up in or whatever. And those are maybe the hardest ones. They are so hard. You know, because you're not necessarily even aware of them. No.

Pjae: 10:30

No. No. And so part of it, part of becoming aware is when, is when you do. When you say, I don't. I don't want to take that on. I don't want to keep having that. And you can make a decision about it. But yeah, notice what you're noticing. That's, that's the becoming aware of these things that, that this is not me. This is not what I want to be, say, do, have happen to me or take on because someone else has done that. So these are all the things we get to think about. I'm not talking about walking around all the time thinking about what should I do about this or what should I, it's not about that. It's just about when something does come up to know that you have the power. To investigate for yourself what that means and what you want to do about it. That is all.

Jim: 11:10

Right. And, and, deciding you don't want to keep it, or whatever. Yes. May be something that you have to decide more than once.

Pjae: 11:20

Exactly. Exactly, because if you just talked about it, it could be something that's been accumulative amounts of things that have gone on. So it's not going to go away easy. It's not going down.

Jim: 11:31

You can't just say, no, I'm

Pjae: 11:32

done. I'm done. Stop it. No, it's going to say, sure you are. Let's see about that. Yeah.

Jim: 11:42

Yeah.

Pjae: 11:43

Yeah. And so, yeah. And part of the, the, the thing that I want to know is that, If I tell someone, even my children, people that I feel like it's my job to try to guide them through their lives, but I don't, at this point in their lives, I, they, they know enough about who they want to be. They're at an age where I feel like they can make their own decisions. I don't want to do anything, because I still am their parent. So have some kind of a parent authority figure. Over them and I check in with my daughter because we and I she and I talk a lot I check in with my daughter a lot and ask her am I talking with you as an adult or am I talking to like a parent Because if I am just you know, just say mom No, I've got this don't you're talking to me like you're my mom and I need you to talk to me like I'm an adult Okay, let's do that So I check in regularly because I don't she doesn't want to hurt my feelings and she still hasn't got that It's hard to hurt my feelings It's so hard

Jim: 12:45

And I see here, I mean, we've basically said this, but still one of the main things about that whole should thing is that it's disempowering.

Pjae: 12:54

It just is. It just is. It's like, it's as if. Someone else knows better than you about what you should be doing. And where does that even come from? Like, what did they, how do they know? So they have a whole list of things that they've grown up with that they're now trying to put off on you and everyone else. Again, not being someone who has thought about what they're saying and why is. What they believe and how they've been raised something you want somebody else to do and act like why do you need that comfort level for everyone to act like the way that you were raised,

Jim: 13:28

right?

Pjae: 13:29

That's part of what that is. And so it is disempowering.

Jim: 13:31

And sometimes even like with those little things, like I was saying earlier, like they Oh, I should have said this instead of that. Yes, yes. Frequently, that's also coming from some outside opinion of How you should be behaving, you know, or I should have been more productive today. Oh,

Pjae: 13:52

my stars. That part. Cause there's so, there's a lot of in, in, and I don't know about the rest of it. I'm, I'm, I'm an American citizen. I've been here my whole life. I've traveled a lot, but this is, this is where I am. And so we just have this thing where we're supposed to always be, you know, working hard and getting things done. Well, and I don't know what the new generation, I'm, let me just talk about my generation. We're also working hard. So, you know, I have to actually talk. to myself about sitting down and watching a TV show. Okay, what are you doing? Have you finished this? Have you finished that? Shut up. Actually, tell myself, shut up. I am watching this show. Be quiet. So yeah, yeah, there's all so many, so many rules. We have in our head about how life is supposed to be and how I'm supposed to be. But in the end, you, again, are the highest authority. So if, if you're hearing messages that don't work with who you are right now, that's a time when you can question it and say, is that mine? Is that someone else? And I'm ready to let that go. That's no longer serving me. I can let it go. And that's what we talk about here on Decide on Joy. Make decisions about your life. So that you can have the life that you actually want. We don't know how much time we have. I'm so glad to be here today. But I didn't have to be. Neither did you. So, I don't want to, for me. I don't want to waste any time. I don't want to waste any more time living a life that isn't mine, or hurting other people unintentionally. That's not how I want to live. So, just decide on joy and making these decisions about how you want to be and how you want to show up is important to me. And I want to share it with you and our listening audience, if that's what they'd like to do as well. This is how you do it. Okay. Yeah.

Jim: 15:33

A good place to stop for today, I think. Thank you all for being here and we will see you next time.