Letting Go of "Should"

I am always reflective at this time of year as we wind down to the holiday season and begin to look forward to January, the month of new beginnings, fresh starts, and resolutions to be better than we have been. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the motivations in my life, and I have realized that much of what I do...and what I have done for almost 50 years,,,has been based on the notion of "should."  On its surface, "should" seems harmless enough.  I should get up earlier so I have time to get things done at home before I head out to work. I should watch something more educational than "Real Housewives." I should really clear the chocolate out of my house.  Certainly I would be a better person if I always adhered to the "shoulds" of my life.

However, there are two problems with "should."  The first is, "should" is always predicated on a judgment.  And it is not always our own judgment.  Many times "should" comes from that little voice in our head, that critic who sits on our shoulders, who always reminds us we are not "enough." "You should lose weight because you are not thin enough." "You should get your nose fixed because you would be more attractive." "You should get a different job because you don't make enough money." "You should wear a helmet because you need to be safer."

Even though that inner critic is part of me, she has been formed not from my own judgments necessarily, but from those around me.  Live long enough with a critical person, and you indeed take on a constant state of being less than...and always measuring yourself up against someone else's standards.  Anyone who has lived in this situation knows that always striving to please another leads to stress, anxiety and an ever diminishing sense of self.  In our quest for acceptance, be it from a parent, partner, child or even society as a whole, we are always in a state of never measuring up, of never being enough.

And that leads to the second problem with "should." As long as we choose to exist in a place of inadequacy based on some outside standard, we contribute to our own lack of self worth.  We are culpable in our own misery, whether we realize it or not.  And instead of existing in the present and sitting with what is, of being content with who and what we are, we are constantly looking for what could be. This is very different than setting our personal goals for growth and self-fulfillment and working toward them.  This is about always judging ourselves by someone else's standards, and as a result, always coming up short. This is about allowing someone or something else to determine our own worth.

So, I am now closely examining all "shoulds" in my life.  Every time that little critic on my shoulder reminds me that I "should" be something other than who and what I am at this very moment, I will listen closely to determine whose voice, whose judgment, that really is. Is it my mother, the person I spent most of my life trying to please? Is it the partners or "friends" I have had over the years who needed to diminish me in order to elevate themselves? Is it the media I am surrounded by that tells me how I should look, how much I should weigh and what I should buy?  And if that "should" is not authentic to who I am right and how I choose to grow based on my own observations and analyses ("I should use my words more carefully because I do not want to cause pain to people I love."), I will recognize it for what it is, and leave it in the past where it belongs.

Today, I am enough. 

Finding a New Rhythm

 
I am a creature of habit.  I have known this about myself from the weekly anticipation of Saturday morning cartoons as a child, to the "live by the bell" schedule that most teachers adopt.  I take comfort in knowing where I am going to be when and what I will be doing...usually.  However, over the years, I have found myself filling every empty slot in my day with...something.  And I have been acutely aware that for the majority of my life, I have zoomed through my days like a whirling dervish, spinning so fast I can barely see where I am going (that may explain all of my "accidents"), straining to finish just one more thing, one more task, one more email, one more whatever before I allow myself to stop moving.  And even then, my brain hadn't gotten the memo because my monkey mind was still busy racing up and down trees and swinging along from this vine to that, rehashing the day or the week wondering what I could have done differently and rehearsing for all of the things coming up.  I spent quite a few years on anti-anxiety meds just so I could turn the volume down and sleep at night.  In case you didn't know, this is a symptom of childhood trauma, the constant moving and doing to avoid the awfulness at home.  It was my way to cope.  And as a result, I have achieved a great deal and been very successful at almost everything I have ever done, and since I was my own worst critic, I would never settle for anything less than perfect. I am sure you see the self-destructive spiral here.  The achievement fed my ego and drove me to do even more, the doing more put me in a position of "let's give it to Mikey" in all of my jobs, and I was happy to earn more positive recognition because it fed something in me that was empty and had been for all my life.

But the world was going by without me. I was a human doing and not a human being, and I didn't know how to get off that damned hamster wheel.  And then my mother died.  It took a few years, but I finally realized that it didn't matter how much I did or how much I accomplished or how many degrees I had or how much money I earned...it would never be enough.  I was looking for love in all the wrong places, and I had no power to make my mother be anything other than who she was...a flawed and miserably unhappy human being who wasn't capable of nurturing another person.

When I turned 50 this May and had my epiphany, I realized that I had been perpetuating the same pattern over and over and over again, in different aspects of my life, in different jobs, with different authority figures that took on that surrogate parent role.  I had created my own prison. And even though I had the key (or the ruby slippers), I never made the choice to use it because I was comfortable in my habit of over-doing, having operated that way for so long.  I spent a great deal of time complaining about never having time for the things I wanted to do when in reality, I was doing EXACTLY what I wanted to do because I needed to hang on to that coping mechanism, that habit that made me feel safe.

And now...I have stopped. And it is hard.  It is honestly like breaking an addiction, and I am sure a 12-step program for over-achievers is out there somewhere.  But quitting my job has been like going cold turkey.  My new part-time job was just as crazy at first (and I knew it would be), but now I see stretches of time that are not scheduled.  I have no "house" projects since I finished my 13-year rehab this summer.  I have no work projects that are sucking the life out of me.  For the first time in so long I can't remember, I am riding the wave instead of being tumbled in the surf.  I am observing the world around me and living in the moment more and more often.  I am finding a new rhythm for my life that is not run by alarm clocks and meeting schedules, but is more organic.  Here are some examples...

• I don't use my alarm clock unless I have to be somewhere early in the morning.  I go to bed when I am tired, read for a while and sleep all night, waking in the morning usually about 7:30.
• I taste my daily cup of coffee.  I don't drink much coffee anymore, and I really savor the one cup I have in the morning. And sometimes, I also have a lovely afternoon cup of tea. With milk and sugar.
• I let my body tell me what it wants.  Food?  Exercise? Bubble bath? I have been disconnected from my body for so long, that I have to listen very carefully and honor what I hear.  I am no longer driven to get myself off to bootcamp at the crack of dawn or be sure to eat by 6:00 p.m.
• I am really experiencing the change of the seasons.  I spend time outdoors smelling the scent of fall drifting in and watching the clouds boil up as a front comes through.  I am paying attention.
• I am cooking and baking again. I love food...growing it, cooking it, eating it, and especially sharing it with people I love.  I have missed cooking.
• I am picking up projects only when I feel like doing them, and I am not pushing myself to work through to finish.  A little here, a little there.
• I am finally reading through the magazines that have been piling up for almost a year.  Because I am making time to read.
• I am spending time with myself...just being.  I am trying to take time each day to sit in quiet or listen to a meditation CD.  This is truly one of the hardest things for me to do, but after having an amazing 90-minute energy work session with a very talented Reiki master today, I know the benefits vastly outweigh my discomfort with stillness.
• I am spending down time with my husband and my dogs.  Even if we are just sitting around the same area doing different things there is a sense of contact that had been missing while I was running on my wheel.
• And...I am not planning ahead much.  I am moving along a week at a time.  That is a nice doable chunk for me.
• Finally...I am considering an art piece or two, and maybe the piece that needs to be written to finally exorcise some of those demons.  Not making a production schedule, but just pondering for the moment, letting the next steps unfold as they will.

Time really does feel different.  And I hope that I can continue to be more present, continue to actually notice the changing light in the sky, and continue to listen to that little voice inside.  I am hopeful.

When Opportunity Comes Knocking

The past few months have been a series of ups and downs.  The ups were finishing a major rehab that has been a 13-year process, really making the time and effort to reconnect with the people I love, and watching my garden flourish in spite of the unending heat and drought.  The downs have been the stress involved with completing multiple projects on a short time frame, the realization that our RV at the lake has become more of a burden than a place of relaxation and it's time to move on, and the worry about our daughter and next grandchild who is soon to join the world in less than ideal circumstances.  Oh, and breaking my foot.  Again.  Only a year and a half after I broke my leg. Which was a bit more than a year or so after I broke my foot the last time.

I don't do "helpless" well, and having to navigate, once again, on crutches...and ask for help doing even the smallest of tasks...put me back into a dark place for a while.  But I had a choice, something I have recently realized, to either fight against my circumstances making myself and everyone around me miserable in the process or to accept what has happened and try to make the best of the situation.  I pouted for a day or so, and then turned it around.

The truth of the matter is, I am a "doer."  I have, from an early age, been constantly busy and constantly driven to achieve.  In a large part, this has been my method of coping with an awful childhood, and as a coping mechanism, it has served me quite well.  I have accomplished a great deal in my fifty years.  I have enough degrees for everyone else in my family. I have had success in my career. I have created warm and welcoming homes.  I have learned how to play instruments, lay tile, make pies, sail, read Tarot cards and so many other things that I mostly lose track (although belly dancing lessons are in the near future).  I imagine that my diverse interests stem in part from my tricky Gemini cusp, but mostly it has been my innate insatiable hunger for knowledge and experience.

However, being physically limited has forced me into first gear again.  Forced me to stop "doing" and spend some time "being."  And the truth is, I don't do "being" very well, either.  But that little voice whispering in my ear is saying, "Michele, it is time to slow down, take stock and recharge your batteries."  Usually, I just ignore that little voice because, of course, I have far too much to do.  This time, though, I listened.

For me, slowing down means catching up on my reading.  It means spending time by myself in my house, not feeling like there is something that needs to be done right now.  It means going to bed before the sun goes down and sleeping through until morning. And it means making room for different energy to fill that "doing" space.  Just being.  Now there's a concept.