Albert Ellis talks about this a lot in the first book on the reading list, How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything… Yes, Anything! I didn’t really understand how to apply this to my OCD until I started Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning.
Often I have found that fueling our fears is a ‘must’ or ‘should’ somewhere but sometimes we struggle seeing that we have turned a want of ours into a ‘must’. We think: how can I be happy, how can I be okay with XYZ; that’s impossible, that’s too hard.
Frankl talks about how in the concentration camps they are stripped of everything from all of their bodily hair to every item they have or person they love. All these things they thought they ‘must’ have to survive. Even things physicians thought were vital were soon to be proved otherwise. They were nearly starved, only allowed one piece of bread and serving of watery soup a day; had very little sleep and sometimes none at all; had very uncomfortable and unimaginable living quarters; were worked to the bone even through much sickness and pain. Yet they still lived.
When some lost hope they soon found that one thing that could never be taken was their suffering. This was theirs alone and no one else could bear it but them and with it they kept meaning to their life and found peace. None of them asked for this none of them did anything to put themselves there but they were put there nonetheless. Forced to see that they truly had no musts.
I thought to myself: why am I any better than they are? All these things I’m scared of because I think it must not happen to me, but why not me? Why is it okay for someone else to commit a crime and go to prison but not me? Why is it okay for someone else to die early but not me? No one asks for these things. Yes, we make choices but even then you don’t ask for your genetic makeup or many environmental and social influences in your life that add up to that choice.
When we put ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ on things, we box ourselves in. Life is always going to throw curve balls and the more we have an image of how things must or should be, the less likely we are to allow these curve balls from coming our way. We constantly try to control things to fit into what we must have and if we can’t, then we end up distraught or bewildered.
For me when I saw this and I could start to see the things I was musterbating on with my fears and themes, I could now start disputing why they weren’t ‘musts’. I could start to see how if others could survive without these things and still live and enjoy life or make peace and find meaning, then so could I. I, in fact, was no better than they were.
I used to think that a want was basically the same thing as a ‘must’ but now I can separate the two. This is also where it’s important to remember that acceptance is not agreement. When I truly take these ‘musts’ and turn them into preferences or desires/wants, then I work towards them but not obsessively. I still get emotions but not bewildered or anxious. It’s no longer a requirement to be happy or be at peace, so if it doesn’t happen not the end if the world.
We need to dispute what is fueling the fear and there will almost always be a ‘must’ behind it somewhere.