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Are You Supposed to Read This?

slayadragon

Senior Member
Messages
1,122
Location
twitpic.com/photos/SlayaDragon
Here is an essay by CFS patient, toxic mold avoider and life coach Maggie Laura McReynolds.

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Are You Supposed to Read This?

By Maggie Laura McReynolds


What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be.~ Anonymous

I was supposed to be 5'8" (oops, the pediatrician was looking at the boys' growth chart).

I was supposed to have two or three children (infertility = just one son).

I was supposed to be healthy (chronic illness and disability since age 29).

I was supposed to be married forever (separated after 25 years).

High school is supposed to comprise the best years of your life. Everybody is supposed to like pizza. Friends are supposed to support you, no matter what. Your birthday is supposed to be special. Christmases are supposed to be white.

So how are all those pictures in your head matching up with reality? And what are you making the inevitable clash mean?

Here's an invitation: suppose you made no suppositions for 2012?

Wow. That would be, like, wrong, wouldn't it? I mean, it might turn out that having goals and dreams while letting go of attachment to specific outcomes might bring you something even bigger than you could have imagined. It might mean that holding the intention of living a life of meaning and joy without getting hooked by a specific way that's "supposed" to look would bring you peace and an openness to finding gifts in whatever the moment brings your way.

It might mean changing the way you look at and live life forever. Whoa, huh?

I'm perfect at 5'5". My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. My health challenges have shaped me into exactly who I am. My marriage was a strong, beautiful, decades-long gift, and the fact that it ended doesn't change what came before.

Here's the deal: none of it--and none of us--are "supposed" to be anything. We are who we are, it is what it is. The rest of it? The supposed-tos, the should, the have-tos, the ought-tos, all those bossy imperatives? Guilt, anxiety, and let-down. Ick, ick, and ick.

As this year draws to a close and I turn my gaze towards the next, I have been actively booting "supposed to" pictures out of my head and out of my life. It's amazing how much room they took up! Without them, I have the space for surprise, for wonder, for seeing the beauty not in what I thought things would be like, but in how they actually are.


http://www.facebook.com/lifeworkscoaching

http://lifeworkscoaching.com
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
It's thoughtful and brings awareness.
it's a great reminder of not relying on expectations.
It's easier to live life that way.

I still think though that setting goals for ourselves gives us direction.
 

u&iraok

Senior Member
Messages
427
Location
U.S.
I knew I was getting it when I accepted my curly hair. I always hated it and wished for straight hair and spent too much time trying to straighten it. Then, after years of hate, I began to see the good things about curly hair and I now like my hair (love would be going too far, we still have to be real, now, come on). Of course, a good hairdresser doesn't hurt.