Handing it back.

Pick an ordinary moment, not your hardest memory. If anything feels like too much, stop and look around the room. You can come back to it.

The script

1. Settle. Sit somewhere you won't be interrupted, with your feet on the floor. Read each part slowly, out loud if you can, and pause where it says pause.
2. Pick an ordinary moment from this week. A meeting, a message you answered, a minute in the kitchen. Where are you, who is there, and what are your hands doing? (Pause.)
3. Catch the sentence. In that moment, a should, a have to, a need to or a must arrived. Say it out loud, the way it sounded. (Pause.)
4. Notice how it arrived. Fast, with a flinch, and not wanting to be questioned? That is usually a sign it came from somewhere else. (Pause.)
5. Ask whose rulebook it is. Let a voice, a face or a place come, whichever arrives first: a parent's rulebook, a grandparent's, a school's, an old job's. "I can't place it" is an answer too. (Pause.)
6. Thank it. Say: "Thank you. I picked this up when I needed it, and it helped me then." Some of that rulebook is yours and worth keeping. (Pause.)
7. Keep it, rewrite it or hand it back. Ask: would I choose this today? Yes: keep it. Partly: rewrite it. No: picture it passing across a table to where it came from, and say "This is yours. I am handing it back." (Pause.)
8. Say what you choose now. Finish this line out loud, and write it down: "What I choose now is ..." Choose from your heart how you want to act.
9. Come back to the room. Take a slow breath and notice what feels different. It may feel strange, and that is ok.