It’s time again for another
COGNITIVE DISTORTION. Those kind of thoughts that simply make us feel worse
about ourself and are not based on any kind of facts. See the index list on the
right side of this page for the other ones. Today is
#8
Should Statements
This has got to be one of my “favourites”,
or should I say rather “pet peeves”, and I’m willing to bet that most of us do
this. I think “should” and “shouldn’t” are some of the dirtiest words in the
English language. They are of no benefit to us, as far as I can see, except to
make us feel guilty and bad about ourselves. Even if we do the thing we think
we should do, we often end up feeling
resentful and possibly eventually rebel which then might lead us straight
towards apathy and feeling very unmotivated.
When we fall short of our “shoulds”
we feel a sense of self-loathing, terrible guilt and shame. So what good does
that do us? It does not make us do the thing we think we should do anyway. And when we place those “shoulds” on others we
get angry, frustrated, and/or resentful towards them. We end up feeling bitter
and self-righteous.
So why do we do this to ourselves? I
think that it’s another one of those things we learned at a young age. Do you
remember an adult telling you, you should do something and if you didn’t you
were bad? I certainly do. Did it ever make me want to do what I was supposed to
do? No. I guess our parents and teachers thought that the only way we would do
certain things was to force us in some way. But what if they had sat down with
us and explained why it was good to do something? What if they had taken the
time to explain that sometimes we don’t feel like doing something that needs to
be done? That sometimes that’s just fine. Sometimes it’s not that important.
Why didn’t they say that sometimes
we have to wait a bit and then do it? Sometimes we don’t have the energy to do
something. Sometimes we need something else more. Why didn’t they teach us how
to look at things, examine them and see what the consequences were if we didn’t
do that thing? Maybe those consequences weren’t such a big deal really. And
maybe the fact that we didn’t do that thing didn’t mean we had anything
to be ashamed of. We just had to accept that right now we really didn’t feel
like doing that thing. And that was okay.
The most important thing they forgot
to tell us was that we were not a bad person, that we did not have to feel
guilty or ashamed for not doing something. They could have told us that we did
need to look at the consequences or result of something not getting done and
see if it was absolutely necessary to push ourself. But, you know, I don’t
think our parents or teachers had those answers either. I think they had
learned how to feel guilty and they passed that onto us. But now we have a
chance to stop that kind of thinking, to not beat ourselves up anymore. I
strongly believe that self-criticism is one of the leading causes of
depression.
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