The Weight Of "SHOULD": Releasing the pressure to be who you think you're supposed to be

How often do you tell yourself, "I should be doing more," "I should feel differently,"  or "I should have figured this out by now"?

The word should can seem harmless, but over time, it can become a constant source of pressure, that can create guilt, shame, and the feeling that who we are right now is somehow not enough.

In this episode of The Grounding Room, we will explore where the word should might be coming from, and what "shoulding" yourself to death might be doing to your nervous system.  Rather than telling yourself to stop saying "should", this episode invites you into a somatic experience of pausing, noticing, and consciously choosing a different response.

Because sometimes the question isn't 

"What should I be doing?"

Maybe it's

"What do I need right now?"

"What feels right for me?"

"What would I choose if I wasn't trying to live up to someone else's expectations?"

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Transcript

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Do you ever find yourself playing the mental gymnastics of what you should be doing? Or do you beat yourself up over the choices you make because you should be doing something else? If this sounds like you, then my hope is that this episode will help you reframe the way you speak to yourself, soften the pressure that comes along with the word should, and discover what becomes possible when you replace self-judgment with curiosity and compassion. The practices I chose today were specific for the shame and guilt that go along with what you should be doing. And my hope is that you'll try these exercises when you find yourself frustrated with the pressures of the word should, whether they're in your own mind or other people telling you what you should and should not be doing. So grab a cup of coffee or a tea and let's get into it. And then I'm gonna give you alternative ways to use the word should. If you can and you're not driving, grab a piece of paper and a pen for today. We're not gonna do a lot of writing, but we are gonna need it for one of our exercises. My hope is that this episode finds its way to every listener that puts unrealistic expectations on themselves, unwarranted pressure on themselves, and every listener who uses the word should. So hang in there with me today and let's make a change. The word should is often less about motivation and more about learned safety through perfection, productivity, or meeting expectations, most likely not even set by ourselves. So I'm gonna encourage you to notice how the word should shows up in your life, how the word should shows up in your body, and see if we can gently shift you from shoulding yourself to death and moving you towards choice. Before we even begin, I want you to place a hand on your heart, take a deep breath in, and release. I want you to think of one sentence you've been telling yourself lately. I should, dot dot dot, and don't finish it just yet. Just notice what happens in your body when you start the sentence I should. Anything that comes up here, maybe your jaw clenches, maybe your posture drops, maybe your breathing becomes shallow. Your body is telling a story before your mind even has time to catch up. Now grab the piece of paper and write down one should you've been telling yourself recently, and then put it aside. We'll get back to this later. Is it five? Is it twenty? Is it a hundred? Imagine for a moment if you said those same things to a friend. How often do you think they would hang out with you? If you used the same you shoulds all over them the same way you do yourself. I'm not saying any of this to shame you. I say it to awaken some self-compassion in you. I should have done more. I should be farther along in this project. I should call my mom more. I should go to the gym. I should meditate. I should know better. I should be a better friend. I should avoid sugar. I should have thought before I spoke. I should have spoken up. I should take the kids there. I should vacuum right now. I should go to therapy. I should be married by now. I should travel more. I should read more. I should make time for whatever. Oftentimes the word should isn't actually our own voice speaking to us. The voice inside our head that says we should is usually a teacher, a parent, a coach, a spouse, our religion, our boss, our culture, social media. And sometimes it's even an older version of ourself who believed that being perfect was the safest way to be loved. And over time, the voices in our head, the ones that demand that we should, become so familiar that we actually mistake them for our own voices. Okay, now pick up the paper that you wrote your sentence on. And then pause. Before you believe what you wrote, ask your body one thing. What happens inside my body when I tell myself this? Not what happens in your mind, but what happens in your body. Now let's give your nervous system some time to respond. Place one hand at the base of your neck and the top of your chest. Inhale as deeply as you can. And then on the exhale, hum. I want you to do this so that you can feel the vibration in your throat and in your chest, even maybe your lips. Again, let's inhale deeply into the diaphragm and then allow your body to feel the vibration more than hear the sound. Humming is a gentle way to stimulate the vagus nerve. The vibration can support the body's shift towards a calmer, more connected state. Now let's invite in a little bit of movement. We're gonna do an exercise from Stanley Rosenberg's book, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve. And here's how you do it: you're gonna interlace your fingers together and place your hands at the base of your skull behind your back, almost as though you're supporting your head and neck. You're gonna continue to look forward with your head, but with your eyes, look strongly to the left. You're gonna do this until you feel a release. This may look like a yawn, a pop, a sigh, a random breath. And now do the same for the right side. Look strongly up and to the right. And now keeping your posture straight, you're gonna lean your head to the left, ear to shoulder. Just make sure you don't lift your shoulder to ear, and then move only your eyes to the right, waiting for a release. Lean your head toward the left shoulder and look up to the right. Okay, now let's just go back to normal. I had you do these exercises so that when we look at this statement, our nervous system is already calm. So let's return our attention back to the statement that we wrote. And I would like to offer something a little different. Instead of changing the thought, let's change the words. So pay attention to how different these statements sound and feel in your body. Instead of I should exercise, try, I'd like to move my body. Instead of I should clean the house, I am choosing to tidy one small area. I should be over this because my healing has its own rhythm. I should forgive them because I'd like to see where forgiveness feels possible today. I should be stronger because I have already survived so much. I should be more productive because I will do what feels manageable today. I should say yes because I have a choice. Do I really want to say yes? I should be happy because I can feel whatever is present. I should never have said that because it's okay if someone is disappointed with my choice of words. Now take a moment and change your own should statement. And if you need help, try using the beginning of these phrases instead of I should. You can try I choose, I hope, I wonder, I could, I'm practicing, I am learning, I am ready, I am able to, I need, I deserve. I'll give you a minute here, for the next few days, I'm gonna encourage you to become curious and notice when you think or say the word should. If you catch yourself, ask yourself these two questions. Is this my voice saying I should, or someone else's? And what would I say to somebody that I cared about if they said the same thing to themselves? We're not gonna change the act of saying I should overnight, but when we become curious about why we're saying I should, or how often we're saying I should, maybe we can slowly begin to transition into something gentler. I'd like to share my own personal experience with the word should. And once my mind was open to this, I can't stop seeing it everywhere. And then I'll give you a simple way that I meet that word and help avoid feeling awful when I say things like I should have. So I run a business. And in running a business, I have a lot of conversations with people, whether it's um a contractor or a customer, it might be a sales rep or one of my employees. I have to have hard conversations sometimes, and it's super uncomfortable still to this day for me. And most of the time when I talk, I talk with confidence and I'm very comfortable talking. But something that I notice became a habit for me is that I tend to go home after having these hard conversations and I ruminate on it. I ruminate on what I should have said differently. I question my dialogue. Sometimes I question my intelligence and I come up with better ways that I should have said things, and then I regret it that I couldn't come up with it in the moment. And I know this may sound a bit silly, but now when these thoughts are consuming me, I found an awesome way to get through them. I've shared with you in other podcasts that I go on a walk every day. And so when I feel like I'm struggling with the words I said either the day before or earlier that day, I walk down to a stream and sometimes a reservoir near my house, and I find a leaf. And I live in the woods, so this is nice and easy for me. But I imagine putting the thoughts of what I should have said onto the leaf, and then I release it. I watch the leaf float down the water. I don't have to chase it, I don't have to argue with it, and I don't have to believe that what my mind is telling me is true. I just watch the leaf. There goes another should. The stream keeps moving, the leaf keeps moving, and I keep moving. This exercise has helped me in more ways than one. And again, as silly as it is, it actually works. Most of us learned that the should in our mind kept us safe. I should work harder means no one can criticize me. I should stay quiet and small means no one will reject me. I should keep doing more means we may feel worthy. And for me, the I should have said something different means they won't think I'm stupid. And before we go today, I'm gonna leave you with an EFT exercise. EFT stands for emotional freedom technique, and your only job is to tap on the area where I tell you to, and then listen to the words that I'm saying. You can repeat them if that feels good, and if not, that's okay too. This is a really powerful exercise for releasing the pressure. I'm gonna have you begin by slowly tapping the side of your hand, and while you're doing that, listen to my words. Even though I have all of these shoulds running through my head, I should do more, I should be more, I should feel better, I should be over this. And I've been carrying these expectations for a long time. I acknowledge that this is where I am now, even though part of me believes I should be somewhere else. I am willing to meet myself where I actually am, even though I've been putting pressure on myself. I wonder what it would feel like to give myself a little less pressure. Tap the eyebrow. All of these shoulds tap the side of the eye. I should be doing more. Under the eye. I should be further along. Tap under the nose. I should have figured this out by now. The chin. I should feel differently. The collarbone. I have been carrying so many expectations. Under the arm where the bra strap grows. Maybe my body is tired of trying to meet them all. Tap the top of the head. I don't have to solve everything right now. The eyebrow. What if I don't have to should myself into healing? Side of the eye? What if healing doesn't have a deadline under the eye? What if where I am right now is information, not failure. Under the nose. I can listen instead of criticize. Tap the chin. I can notice what I need. Tap the collarbone. I can move at the pace my body can actually handle. Under the arm. I don't have to earn rest. Top of the head. I give myself permission to be human. Eyebrow. Instead of I should, I can say I notice. I notice I'm having a hard day. Under the eye. I notice I wish I were further along. Under the nose. I notice I need something. The chin. Instead of forcing myself, I can ask myself what I need. Collarbone. I can choose. Under the arm. I can allow top of the head. I can take the next step when I'm ready. And finally, rest your hand at your heart. Take a moment to notice yourself. You don't have to become a different person in the next five minutes, and you don't need to fix your life. You don't need to be further along, you don't need to be over it, and you don't need to do more. You're allowed to be exactly where you are while still moving towards where you want to be. This works with things like anxiety, anger, grief, shame, overwhelm, or what we talked about today, a should thought. When you gently tap your fingers on several points, these are traditionally associated with acupuncture and acupressure points. While tapping, you usually use a phrase that acknowledges what you're experiencing rather than trying to force it away. And I chose this technique for today because I want you to know that you don't have to stop saying I should. I just want you to recognize the pressure that I should put on you and make the adjustment to take the pressure away. People find EFT super helpful as a way to bring attention to an emotional experience while simultaneously engaging the body through rhythmic touch. And the research done on EFT suggests that it may help with symptoms such as anxiety and stress. There will be many other opportunities for us to do EFT tapping. And I absolutely love it as an exercise and a tool to use when I'm feeling anxious or overwhelmed. And it's something that you can come back to whenever you want. So even if you want to skip the whole podcast and just go to the EFT, when you're feeling overwhelmed with the pressure of all the things you should be doing every day, use it, play with it, and see if it does calm your body even just a little bit. So as always, thank you so much for joining me today on this podcast. I want to leave you with a gentle reminder that you don't have to keep the expectations to be perfect on your shoulders for the rest of your life. It's okay to just be here today in whatever imperfect way that shows up. I'm grateful that you showed up today. I can't wait to talk to you guys next week, and uh hopefully everybody has a fabulous week, and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much. Bye.