Teachers Who Overuse The Words 'Need, Must and Should' Rob You of Sovereignty

Stories as Shaping Forces

One of the core themes that I hope comes through the essence of this podcast over time is that the stories that we are attuning to are quite literally shaping us. They’re shaping us on every level of our being, from our actual posture, to our physiology, to the possibilities and probabilities in our day-to-day life.

All of that is being cohered to a variety of stories.

It’s impossible to be a teacher, to transmit anything to anyone, without having some kind of deeper story or cosmology that the teaching is anchored into.

So whenever somebody is teaching something, and that doesn’t matter if it’s in the context of a YouTube video showing you how to do a particular exercise like a set of push-ups, or teachings coming from your parents about how to live life the so-called right way, or if it’s literally a book that you’ve picked up presenting a series of information or steps, all of those are anchored in a type of story.

The Encyclopedia Britannica is anchored in a very rationalistic, linear, fact-checking story. A book on mythology, which might also teach you about history, is anchored in a very different story.

The person teaching you a series of push-ups is coming from a certain vantage point. Their experience with movement. What they think movement should or should not be. What they love to do. What they don’t love to do. They are teaching it to you the way they learned it, through their own experience with it.

All of that comes into even the simplest teaching.

Whenever someone is teaching, they are teaching from a story.

Need, Must, and Should

The essence of what I really want to talk about today is fundamentally the overuse of a particular type of word. It is a word that often creates a sense of urgency, shame, or authority.

Those words are need, must, and should.

There are multiple layers to this.

This shows up in the way we speak to ourselves, the dialogues we have inside our own minds about how we’re living and how to live. It also shows up, especially, in the way that people teach.

Whenever I encounter a teacher who overuses the words need, must, and should, it’s generally a red flag for me.

Because that person is fundamentally trying to transmit a value structure that they possess, or they’re trying to manipulate you to do what they think you should do.

Now, I don’t think that there is always a manipulative intent behind this. Often people are simply reflecting their own cosmology. In that cosmology, they’ve adopted values from traditions or from people they’ve taken on as authorities.

When someone is saying need, must, and should outside of a very particular context, which we’ll discuss, it’s usually the case that they have absorbed other people’s values. These are not values emerging organically from the soul. They’re not spontaneously arising.

They’re learned from somebody else, or from a tradition, or from an ideal or standard that they’ve set, and then they judge themselves against that standard.

When they teach from that place, they try to get you to cohere to that value structure.

They are transmitting values.

And this matters because values fundamentally determine what you do with your life. Values are what you think is important and worth acting upon. The value structures that we align our lives with shape our lives.

A value is a story.

Soul Story and External Authority

Some stories come from external phenomena, traditions, people, teachings, ideals. Some emerge from the soul, from the soul’s story.

The soul’s story is not one that usually speaks in the language of need, must, and should, outside of very specific contexts.

Most of the time, the soul speaks in love, gratitude, inspiration, enthusiasm. It spontaneously moves toward what is aligned with its story.

With that in mind, I want to invite you to consider how often you encounter teachings framed in must, need, or should language.

You scroll through YouTube and encounter messages like you need to do these five exercises every day or your life will implode. This is what you have to do if you want X, Y, or Z. This is what you should be doing every single day.

Personally, I get turned off by that language. It feels less like an invitation into a different vantage point and more like an attempt to convert or manipulate through words that elicit a survival response.

Survival Language and Its Limits

This is where these words can sometimes be valid.

They are valid when something is genuinely needed for survival.

People who overuse these words are often stuck in certain survival responses themselves, because these words elicit survival responses. They create adrenalized states. They frame action from urgency.

When you need something, it implies that without it you will die. When you must do something, it implies that if you don’t, something will break in a serious way. When you should do something, it implies pressure from an external authority.

The only time an external authority has a legitimate say over your actions is when your survival is actually at stake.

If a soldier puts a gun to your head, then maybe you should do something. If you must do something to remain part of a group that ensures your survival, then maybe you should do something.

Outside of that context, these words are not real in the way they’re being used.

They function either as manipulation or as attempts to convert you to a way of seeing the world, often unconsciously.

Many people were themselves converted to a value structure that did not invite spontaneous inspiration or enthusiasm, but instead framed compliance as morally or ethically necessary.

A lot of people find themselves teaching from that place.

Responsible Use of These Words

This doesn’t mean that I never use the words need, must, or should when teaching.

I reserve them for moments when something truly needs to happen, when something is genuinely tied to survival, or when I pre-qualify their use with specific conditions.

For example, I released a video titled When Health Must Become a Number One Priority. That title was pre-qualified.

If someone is seriously ill, or has been sick for a long time, and they truly want, from an innate and soul-driven place, to shift their health toward vibrancy, then in that specific situation, health generally must become a number one priority to move from A to B.

I would not say that health must be a number one priority for all people all of the time. That would be deeply disempowering. It would rob people of their sovereignty to choose how they want to spend their life.

It is true for some people, not for everyone.

Invitation Rather Than Coercion

What I attempt to do, and what I encourage teachers to do, is to invite, to encourage, to generate enthusiasm, to inspire, to move people, without trying to get them to see things your way for the sake of it.

If you’re using need, must, and should in your own self-talk, it’s very likely that you’ve adopted an external ideal or value structure that is not innately inspired from within.

In that case, I would invite you to explore that.

This is your life.

Asking why you’re doing that might be helpful.

A Neutralizing Paradox

To tie this together, here’s a neutralizing paradox.

What we need to do is stop using the word need outside the context of actual needs.

What we must do is what our own soul inherently and innately wants to do.

And what we should do is stop telling people what they should do.

I’ll leave you with that.

Because the overall story arc we’re living shows up in these words.

Is it aligned with love, inspiration, gratitude, awe, appreciation?

Or is it a story of following what others tell us to do, and then perpetuating that same cycle in our own teaching?