I Should ...
When you say a should to yourself, you are essentially telling yourself that who you are or were being in that moment is not valid.
“Stop should-ing yourself.” Might be a phrase you’ve heard somewhere in recent years? 'Shoulds' could sound like “I should know this by now.” Or “I should lose weight.” Or “I should stop doing that.”
When you say a should to yourself, you are essentially telling yourself that who you are or were being in that moment is not valid. Let me explain...
A poster hung in our kitchen when I was a teenager and it said “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt. We can only be who we are and make choices based on what we have and what we know in any given moment.
“I should” is a pretty authoritarian voice. It carries a lot of judgement. I think it drives a huge amount of the guilt we can feel as parents to not measuring up - to who or what I don't know!?
'Shoulds' set us up to be incongruent with ourselves. Incongruent is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as not suitable or not fitting well with something else. When we 'should' ourselves, we are essentially making ourselves not fit well with ourselves; our knowledge, skills, resources and energy available to us in the moment.And this is the key that can lead to more healthy reflections about our actions/mistakes/choices - in the moment did I do the best I could with what I had?
Self-reflection without Self-judgement
We can reflect on our actions in healthy ways, without the judging shoulds. It could sound a bit more like this: At the time this is the choice I made, but I wonder if I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently?
Next time you tell yourself “I should have…” , take a pause. Are you beating yourself up for making a choice in a moment? Shoulds drive the guilt we can sometimes live under as parents, we second-guess everything we’ve done as we get bombarded by things we 'should' have bought, read, done with/for our children. Separate out the noise (marketing, influencers and others who do not have your best interests at heart), from your own true learning, reflection and growth. It's not a bad thing to learn from mistakes and misshaps, but the judgy voice is likely no help.
Are there good shoulds?
I have been wondering to myself if there is an appropriate time to use a 'should' on myself. I think, and this is simply my opinion, that a should could be used when giving yourself permission to choose something. Such as "Hey, it's date night! Should we go out to dinner or a movie or both?" (No, it's Janu-worry, we should farm the kids out and eat at home!!😁 )
What do you think? Is there an appropriate context to use a 'should' on yourself?
Other people put lots of shoulds on us too, more on that next time!
