I’m sixteen years old. I’m alone in my dim bedroom. On one wall is a mirror. From where I sit, I can see a reflection of my upper torso and my face. Intensely I gaze across the room at myself, turning my face and shoulders this way and that. There, I think. Right there. I see it, I’m catching a glimpse. I’m…beautiful! Oh my God! I AM beautiful!

Elation surges up in me. When I leave that dim bedroom to move around the house with my family, when I leave the house to roam around the world where the other humans can lay their eyes on me, I feel the warm simmer of that same elation. I feel irresistible, sexual, glamorous, mysterious. Others gaze at me, envious and admiring. My heart swells with hope and the world is full of promise.

But then, the next day, or maybe even that same day, I’m walking along a sidewalk with my mother, and I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window. And I am, quite suddenly, not-beautiful.

I don’t look at all like the images in the magazines. I’m not delicate and gaunt and otherworldly. My nose, my hair, my cheeks, my walk, the shape of my ass, the curve of my back – my God, they’re all wrong! Now, when others look at me, their expressions convey the opposite of attraction and admiration. They don't even want to look at me, I'm so hideous. 

With this, I slingshot from exultation to deep sadness, a sense of loss and lack. Why, oh why couldn’t I have been born beautiful? What can I do to get myself back to that deep delight I’d felt in those hours where I felt beautiful? Is there a product I can buy, an article of clothing I can wear, a way I can arrange my facial expression or cut my hair that will return me to my beautiful-me manifestation? It felt so good. And why wouldn’t I want to feel like that?

Twenty-four years later, I sometimes catch myself doing the same thing, despite the fact that I know better, I really do. Cameras, mirrors and reflective shop windows frighten me. They hold the power to ruin my day or my week when they show me my crow’s feet, wrinkled forehead, stained teeth, awkward smile and receding gums.

Still, when I make an effort, when I put myself together just so, and when the light’s right and I stand far enough away from the mirror, I can get that feeling. This can happen when someone takes a picture of me that matches my image of what I ought to look like. Ahhh. I AM beautiful.

Sometimes I can hold on to that and walk out the door with it. But now, in my 41^st year, this all has started to feel tenuous. And that, I’m now seeing, is a good thing.

In his book, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Bantam, 2000), psychologist and yoga teacher Stephen Cope writes:

To some extent, most of us are unconsciously driven by our ego-ideal. The ego-ideal is simply a set of ideas in the mind about how we should look, feel, behave, think. This collection of ideas and mental images is created out of fragments of highly charged experiences with important love objects in our lives, and out of the messages we receive in our interactions with the world as we grow. It remains mostly out of our awareness…[but creates] the foundation of our scripts for life…The feelings we are most apt to have when living under the sway of [this] mental image are…feelings of pride, euphoria and elation…when the world seems to be confirming my self-image. The bad news is that their opposites—dysphoria, emptiness, and panic—show up when the environment does not confirm us…Euphoria and elation are, in fact, as psychologist Stephen Johnson says, the “booby prizes” of life.

Like most people, I don’t only go through this holding-up of the ideal self to the reality with my appearance. I do it with my achievements, my parenting, my activities, my relationships, even my thoughts. Image and reality wage a constant war in my mind, and that’s the way it has always been – I’ve almost never chosen to question it. And that's because those moments where image and reality meld feel so delicious.

Those moments have, until now, seemed worth it. But with Cope's insight, I see how they've kept me trapped in a cycle of striving, fear and doubt.When would the wheels fall off? A client would praise my work and I'd feel that familiar thrill. Then, another client would take issue with my work, and I'd feel as though all my hopes and dreams had been torpedoed. 

What a relief to accept that the manic sense of joy I’ve felt in moments where my reality seems to live up to my unconscious “shoulds” is not actually something to reach for. Sure, that manic joy feels fantastic, but it's always a hair's-breadth from flipping into its opposite. Not only do we become attached to the image, we end up also becoming attached to the feeling we get when we think we're living up to it. And then, we're even farther from true happiness and contentment - where we can be present with the body and in the breath, where leaves and birds and books and food and exercise and a cozy bed and the love of another being and [fill in something simple that you wouldn't want to live without] are all we need.

Letting go of "shoulds" and being present makes me a better parent, a better worker, a better friend, and a better participant in efforts to help instead of harm. 

What's a "should" that runs you? Where did it come from? When do you notice it? How does it control your behavior? Your relationships? Are you ready to let go of it? When you do, what's left?