The Power of the Should
Should. It is such a powerful word. The statement 'don't should all over yourself' is pervasive in the self-help/therapy community. Yet these shoulds come out all the time. I should clean the house. I should be playing with my daughter. I shouldn't watch TV. I shouldn't eat this pizza. I should be a better listener. I should be more social. I should be less social. I should work out more and on and on and on. Ad infinitum, these shoulds invade our psyche.
The problem with shoulds is that they disguise themselves as helpful when they are merely forcing us to do something outside of ourselves. They force us to be externally controlled. Usually, the voice of the should is from someone we know from our past, a parent, a teacher, a personal trainer, or a therapist. The voice of a should rarely is our own. Also, these shoulds tend to snowball. From one should, "I should work out." comes a giant slalom of hammering that ends up with me being the world's unhealthiest woman, who is homebound and miserable.
So the secret is to break down the should. The first step is to start bringing awareness to how much you say the word should. For me, it tends to break into my psyche more when I am feeling tired, insecure, and disconnected from myself. In short, the shoulds come out to play when I am running on auto-pilot. When I catch myself acting out a should, I notice I am half-hearted, not as engaged in the activity because I am doing it out of external control. When I engage in a should activity, I usually end up feeling resentful and bitter. So if we can catch ourselves in a should before it starts snowballing, we can start to develop other ideas for how to handle the should.
For example, you are busy with a deadline at work, and you realize it is your night to make dinner. You tell yourself you SHOULD go home and make a healthy dinner, but really, you want to pick up pizza and call it a night. Maybe it would be the 3rd night in a row that your family has eaten take-out. They really SHOULD have a healthy meal. Your mom cooked you a healthy meal every night of the week. You are such a bad mom, and now we are off to the races, hammer, hammer, hammer. All from one little should, one little meal that you are too tired to cook and suddenly you are the world's worst human being. First off, be aware you are shoulding--you know what you should do, but what do you want to do, you want to order pizza, but your kids deserve a healthy meal. So you start thinking of compromises.
You can:
get a pizza and make a healthy vegetable to go with it.
pick up take-out that is healthier than a pizza.
leave work early and cook a good dinner because, in reality, it would be nice to cook a meal for a change and you have a new recipe.
just order the pizza and recognize that tomorrow is another day, and maybe your kids didn't get the healthiest meal today, but tomorrow you will pack them a healthy lunch.
In my mind, there are three negatives to SHOULDs:
They put us in black and white thinking and remove any alternatives.
They force us to be controlled by something outside of ourselves.
They snowball and can become evil tools for us to hammer ourselves.
So, the next time you catch yourself 'shoulding':
1. Remind yourself that it is coming from something external.
2. Give yourself some options around the should.
3. Ground yourself and decide which option makes the most sense for your current circumstances.
4. Let it go. (I admit this one is the hardest part.) But the more you practice it, the happier you will be.