Are you a Musterbator??

I have been reading "Shift Happens" by Robert Holden. It is a fantastic book filled with great insight and inspiration. Anyway, he talks about perfectionists being terrible musterbators. It made me smile. I used to be a perfectionist and I know when faced with certain situations, I still am. I'm not ashamed of it, as it has helped me get through some pretty tough times. But how have I found some peace with all the self-imposed conditions of the "musts", "oughts", and "shoulds"?? I'm still not quite sure, but it has been a journey filled with bumps and bruises as there are when navigating this process called "life". And of course I still find myself "musting", "oughting" and "shoulding", as that has been so ingrained in my psyche.

In my work of over 11 years with emotionally disturbed teens, I have learned quite a bit about myself. I have come face to face with my own shadows and my own unfinished business that I have had to deal with to more effectively work with them. I am truly grateful and have been blessed to have worked with such wonderful teachers. No matter how old or in what form, our teachers appear to us when we are ready. :-) But ready or not, they appeared to me and helped me become ready and open. I was very idealistic when I began my work with them -- I was going to save each one and get them ready to take on the challenges of young adulthood. My learning curve was a slow one as I "musted" and "shoulded" my way through quite a bit. But they taught me time and again that there is no place for "musts" and "shoulds" when navigating through the complexities of life. My "musts" and "shoulds" were slowly transformed and nurtured into learning "to be" with where they are in their developmental process -- to be present to them in that way was more healing than accomplishing my own agenda of trying to get them to where I saw them to be or where I thought they ought to be. And I have learned that when I am present to them in this way, a shift happens and they are mobilized to courageously take on the next step.

The current juncture in my life's journey has been very interesting. After having to let go of so much lately, I feel so much less in control of things. But what is striking is that when I am feeling grounded and centered, everything IS okay and there is a sense of ease to surrendering to "what is". And there is so much clarity as to what really is under my control to change and what is NOT. What is also apparent to me, is that in moments where I impose the "musts" and "shoulds" of what I ought to be doing in order to take control of the situation, there is so much turbulence in my mind and tension intensifies in my body at the cellular level. As a result, I get easily agitated, irritated, unhappy, exasperated, annoyed, impatient, offended, anxious, and the list goes on. On a physical level, my jaws, neck, shoulders, back and calves get extremely tight, my breath fades into the background and I find myself sighing a lot (a huge sign of inefficient breathing), I get headaches, my eyes become heavy, I get vertigo symptoms, I get nauseous, and in general I am no longer aware of how I am holding and inhabiting (or lack thereof) my body. On a mental and energetic level I become very spacey, have a hard time focusing, become easily forgetful, mentally "lazy", feel "disconnected" (to others and in my own body), want to isolate, have low and stagnated energy, and basically want to "check out". Wow... it was helpful to write out all that I experience when I am not grounded. I just had a thought about the question I posed earlier about how I have found some peace with all the self-imposed "musts" and "shoulds". This is an insight that I am now just aware of... I think I have found peace because I got so sick of the cost of putting so much pressure on myself and because I have experienced the benefit of how peaceful it is when I can let all that go and reside in the present moment. It has taken a lot of hard work, but the efforts all have been more than worthwhile -- it has been life transforming. To sustain the groundedness takes work, but what I feel as a result of meditating and practicing yoga 4 days/week is not something that I would ever trade in to feel the alternative...no matter how much on certain days I feel too tired to practice. That is not to say that I don't feel the alternative anymore, I still do -- quite a bit. But nowadays, I reside there for a shorter period of time and that I feel is some progress. And it's such a trip to become aware of the awareness -- mindsight is what Dr. Daniel Siegel calls it. I am hoping that at some point "mindsight" will become ingrained in my psyche as the "musts" and "shoulds" have. Just like breaking an addiction takes one day at a time, developing mindsight and foregoing the "musts" and "shoulds" will in turn take one day at a time and I am committed to being kind to myself in the process.

It's sad to me that we have been conditioned and have learned as a small child that we have to "should" and "ought" and "must" our way through life. So is it necessary for us to learn to become musterbators to survive this "cold" world and later on in life unlearn that learning? And what can we make of the idea that Cheri Huber writes about when she says that there is nothing wrong with us? What would happen if we learned from early on that there IS nothing wrong with us and that we are beautiful and perfect just the way we are? Because inherently, can there be something wrong with us? Our situations can make it so that "something is wrong with us", but if we operate from this "wrong" perspective can we truly heal ourselves and make things "right"? Should we just accept that we have to become musterbators and that there is something wrong with us to "survive" or can our lives feel more complete by learning to harness the power of essence (that we are perfect the way we are), which does not preclude us from the illusion that as a result of essence life is not filled with suffering.... suffering is either magnified or alleviated by the way in which we respond to it -- the relationship we develop with it. But I think this might be for another post. Until next time... peace, love, and light.