Are You Shoulding All Over Yourself?

Most of us carry a mental list of “shoulds”:

I should be cooking more at home. 

I should be reading my bible more. 

I should be spending more time with my husband. 

I should be praying more consistently. 

I should be more involved at my kids’ school. 

While these are good things, the word “should” implies that we’ve most likely allowed an external source to impose on our internal worth. In other words, it is us trying to live up to whatever “they” placed on us and when we inevitably fall short, our sense of self-worth diminishes. 

Our loyalty to “shoulds” gives many of us a sense of virtue and responsibility, yet it is worth noting that the word virtuous comes from the Latin root meaning bravery and strength. How did it devolve into meaning morally good and pure? No wonder we feel so much pressure under its weight! What was meant to call forth bravery became a measuring stick for our inadequacies. It’s exhausting trying to keep up, isn't it? 

At some point in our striving, God invites us to shift our thinking. The real question is: 

How willing are you to step into your soulful self? 

Now THAT takes bravery and strength. 

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel that there are hidden cameras tucked away in the corners of my life. They are being viewed by a panel of Peeping Toms and Tinas evaluating my every move. They give disapproving tsks when I fail and mild applause when I am a good girl.  Who are these people, anyways? The reality is “they” don’t exist. Oh sure, there are real life Toms and Tinas in our Big Girl lives who don’t respond to us the way we want them to respond, but they don’t have any real power over us. 

If we are being honest, those little judgers and affirmers are parts of ourselves. They are little versions of us birthed out of situations and settings that convinced us that we needed others to approve and disapprove of us. Sure, they served us for a season because we were so small and tender, like green shoots pushing up from the soil that required a wooden stake to train and support us for a little while. We grew up and didn’t see how sturdy we had become. Yet, we kept leaning on what once held us up, not realizing we had long since outgrown it.  

My panel of evaluators want me to think that I am still little and weak. Their prying eyes motivate me to get things done because I am industrious that way and find myself suddenly shoulding all over myself. And just to carry my clever pun a little further–I know how to get SHOULD done around here. I lived most of my adult life that way and trust me, it felt really shouldy after a while.(Okay..I’m done) 

It left me burnt out, depleted, and confused. 

I remember the frustration I felt when my therapist didn’t get how many people relied on me for their well-being. I had several ministries, complicated extended family dynamics and overall, I was just a solid Christian woman pouring myself out for others. I don’t think she got how wonderful I was. Everything she suggested seemed so selfish; it felt like it went against my Christian upbringing and that it would make my peeping Toms and Tinas very upset. And yet, I kept showing up to my appointments with her; one curious step at a time. 

I finally get the whole “love your neighbor as you love yourself” bit. I just thought we were all a bunch of selfish, shouldy jerks who would only understand how to love others if we compared it to how much we already love ourselves. “Me, me, me!” All my life I grew up hearing how selfish we humans are. I am not saying there isn’t truth to this, but it will never motivate me to have self-compassion if I am listening to the panel of judges in my mind. I think many of us don’t know how to love ourselves well nor do we know just how loved we are by God. This seems pretty basic but it's still lost on us, I’m afraid. 

So it’s easier to fall back on what has been laid out for us:

Step 1: I should do this,

Step 2: I should do that…

I am a slow learner and it took me falling into the pit many times before I learned to go down a different street altogether. I had to learn to ask myself, “How do I want to feel?”, “How does this honor who God created me to be? “How will this grow me?”

This is a little harder than a simple list because it requires us to tap into our own Inner Teacher who can be a bit more cryptic. This teacher asks that we continue to gather strength and bravery and that might rattle the Toms and Tinas and we just HAVE TO LEARN TO BE OKAY WITH THAT. 

This is very true for me right now in this season as I try to write as honestly as I am called to write without scaring most readers away (all 6 of you). I have to trust that it will invite those of you who are ready to walk down a different street. Those of you who are willing to pull up the stakes and forge a path that relies on your soulful self. Those of you who have had enough of the shoulds.