Don’t “Should” on Yourself
K so before we go into what to do if “thought swapping” doesn’t work for you, today let’s look closer at what your thoughts might be. Both that are causing the guilt and also ideas of how to generate a more useful emotion.
One of the biggest problem thoughts that causes mom guilt is “Should”. That small but pesky word wreaks havoc on our mental stability, especially as moms. We have sooooo many “shoulds” that we adopt either from our upbringing, friends, culture, society, or self imposed.
We should get our kids to bed at a certain time. They should be potty trained, they should eat this and not that. they shouldn’t have too much screen time. We shouldn’t yell. We should be patient. We should bathe our kids however often and they should be well behaved at the grocery store. The shoulds really can go on and on. And they do. In our heads all day long. Imagine our poor beat up selves after getting a thrashing like that all day everyday. Nothing we do is good enough. We should be doing more. and less. and better. It’s absolutely exhausting. We probably had life pretty well figured out before we had kids and then all of a sudden we were doing it all wrong. And beating ourselves up for it all along the way.
Does any of this sound familiar? All month we’ll be talking about how to transform these thoughts but for now just really become aware that they are there. So many of us have been thinking them for so long that we don’t even know that they are driving most of the time. They’ve been delegated to the subconscious brain so we need to consciously bring them up to our awareness to get power over them.
What could you think and feel instead? Start with self compassion driving thoughts. Give yourself grace and love. This is a hard gig and no one has got it “right”. We will discuss a lot of new thoughts as the month goes on but here is a quick hack. Just and “and that’s ok” to the end of whatever you are thinking. “I just lost my cool, and that’s ok”. You probably won’t believe it at first but at least try it on and eventually we’ll wiggle the old thoughts loose enough that the new ones will stick better. It is ok that you lost your cool, Momma! You are doing your best and beating yourself up will never help you be better, it just keeps you stuck. Accept where you are and then you can progress to where you want to be. It really only works that way. So try that today and we’ll keep going tomorrow.
If you want to “jump ahead” get the whole video series here.
You’re doing great! This is a life time pursuit and just that you are trying is a huge step in the right direction and I commend you!!
