Spirituality on the Go with Brian Plachta
Discover inner peace amid life’s chaos with Spirituality on the Go. Join author and spiritual mentor Brian Plachta each week for uplifting, bite-sized episodes packed with practical tools to nurture your soul. Learn how to embrace the divine flow of love, joy, and calm—anytime, anywhere. Let these fun and easy-to-apply insights inspire you to find balance and lasting happiness in your busy life. Subscribe now and carry peace with you wherever you go!
Spirituality on the Go with Brian Plachta
Episode 21: Stop Shoulding Yourself—Choosing What’s Most Life-Giving
Send me a text. What spoke to you in this episode?
Tired of the constant pressure of "shoulds"? In this short reflection, Brian explores how replacing judgmental self-talk with a simple, heart-centered question—"What’s the most life-giving thing I can do right now?"—can shift your mindset and deepen your spiritual practice. Drawing from personal experience and wisdom shared in Finding Flow, he invites us to let go of guilt and reconnect with the Divine through more intentional choices.
Get into the Divine Flow by purchasing your copy of Finding Flow: Spiritual Practices to Reclaim Inner Peace, Balance, and Wholeness.
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Introduction: The Problem with 'Shoulds'
Do you ever find yourself shooting yourself? I should cut the grass. I should clean my garage out. I should lose 10 pounds. I should be a better person. You know, those shoulds are a negative way of, of approaching life where we're always judging ourselves. We're filled with, uh, conflicting, uh, you know, choices that we have to make and it can get really.
A Better Approach: From 'Should' to Life-Giving Choices
Difficult and and negative in our minds. Years ago, one of my spiritual teachers taught me to take the shoulds in our lives to stop shoulding ourselves and instead, when we find ourselves with that should question those choices we have to make, ask ourselves a more positive question, which would be.
Connecting with Our Inner Wisdom
What's the most life-giving thing I can do for myself and for others right now by shifting the should into a positive question of what would be life-giving for myself and others. Right now we connect with our umbilical cord of love within us. We connect with our heart space. We really allow ourselves to connect with God and really discerning, yeah, what would be the best thing to do right now?
Personal Example: Choosing Retreat over Spring Cleaning
That's, that's really a spirituality desire that I talk about in chapter 16 of, of my book Finding Flow. This week I should be home doing, uh, uh, spring cleaning at my house. Uh, but instead, uh, having learned what's the most life-giving thing for me to do for myself and others, I'm on retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemane in the hills of Kentucky and.
While I should be home, taking care of cleaning out the garage and doing all those house chores, I know the life's most life-giving thing for me is being here on retreat just for a week as I connect with my inner self, as I connect with God in a deeper way. And hopefully when I return home to my loved ones, I'll be a even better person.
Practical Application and Conclusion
I'll be more life giving for myself and others. So this week, I would just suggest to you as a a finding flow tip. Is recognize when you're shoulding yourself and
