Every Monday features a tip, activity, inspiring quote or some other tidbit that helps boost your body image, whether directly or indirectly — and hopefully kick-starts the week on a positive note!
Got a tip for improving body image? Email me at mtartakovsky at gmail dot com, and I’ll be happy to feature it. I’d love to hear from you!
I love author Shauna Niequist’s blog. Recently, she penned this post on should statements, which I think most of us — umm, probably all of us — can relate to.
How many times does the word “should” escape your lips or swirl inside your head? Do various “shoulds” drive your behavior? Or dictate how you feel about yourself?
I should look a certain way. I should weigh a certain weight. I should say yes to this request.
I should count my calories. I should skip dessert. Look at my thighs.
I should be losing more weight.
I should exercise harder. I should be more efficient.
I should focus on my family instead of myself. I should have fuller hair.
I should wear a smaller size.
I should talk about my big stomach, because my friends are talking about theirs.
We often have a litany of shoulds, and we might not even realize it. We’re so convinced that’s how life must be. That’s how we should be.
But, as Shauna writes, should never brings happiness. Should also never brings a positive body image.
Should just takes us further and further away from the truth. Your truth.
Should keeps us trapped in someone else’s world. Playing by someone else’s rules and standards.
According to Shauna:
For me, the first step was admitting what was true, at first, only to myself. We all have these weird rules about what we should love and what should make us happy and how things should work. Should is a warning sign, frankly. When you’re using the word should more and more often, it’s a sign that you’re living further and further from your truest, best self, a sign that you’re living for some other set of parameters or affirmations that you think will bring you happiness.
This is what I know: SHOULD never brings happiness.
I felt like I should be so happy because I was doing the things I thought I wanted to do. When Mac was a baby, I felt like I should never complain about how tired I was because I had longed for him so badly. When he didn’t sleep through the night for almost a year, I bit my tongue and didn’t complain because I should have been so happy. I didn’t let myself say I was tired and the math wasn’t working and I was losing my ability to love and taste and experience my life, because that felt like failure, like a stronger woman would have been able to manage it all.
Make a list of your should statements. Start with one statement that doesn’t feel so big (or one that does).
What or who perpetuates this statement? Can you let it go? Maybe part of it? What do you really want?
I know that’s a lot of questions. But should statements can seem like gospel. They can seem solid, stubborn, unshakeable.
But the real truth is that it’s OK to challenge them. To question their validity and ponder their effect on our lives.
If should statements aren’t serving us, if they’re not leading to a more satisfying, healthier life, then maybe we can relinquish them. Or at least open ourselves to the idea that they may not be 100 percent true.
What shoulds can you consider relinquishing?