This is Sten Hanson from the My Thought Coach podcast. Thanks for listening.

Today I want to tell you the secret of having an amazing family gathering.

And it's not what you think it is.

So listen up.

Even if you think they're always amazing, I promise they can get better.

There's this word, it's the word should. And this word should can

destroy relationships, especially relationships that matter. So if you care about people I want you to really

listen in. Think about this. If you've ever heard yourself say any of these things in your mind during a family

gathering she should know that we don't like that kind of food they should be more

considerate.

They shouldn't talk about things they don't know anything about.

They should help clean up.

They should know that we don't eat meat. They should know that we don't drink milk.

Whatever it is, I want you to imagine a world or what could happen in your life if there simply was no should.

So there's this thing that some people like to call the manual and basically it's a set of instructions that we have for other people

in our life about how we would like them to behave so that we can feel good. And the biggest problem with manuals is that the other person has to

change or stop doing or start doing something in order for us to feel better. And the problem with the word

should is that often we don't realize that should leaves us really powerless.

We think that someone should or not do something. leaves us really powerless.

We think that someone should or not do something,

we hand over the power of how we feel to the other person.

So if you're in pain right now in your life because of something that someone else has done or hasn't done or said or hasn't said, this manual idea may free you completely from that pain.

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