How many times a day do you say to yourself "I should...."? What I'm talking about is all those times the voice in your head says "I should have done....", or "I should have said....", or "I should be....". Now just maybe this is not a regular conversation you have with yourself, but if you are like me, then until you think about it you may not realise exactly how many times these thoughts go through your head. And when they go through your head, what does it do to you? Does it make you feel inadequate, or less than you think you should be? Does it result in you feeling anxious or stressed at all? So why do we do this to ourselves, because let's face it, we are doing it to ourselves.
Who are you comparing yourself to when you think you should have done something better? Who do you think is judging you and your actions each day? I'm not talking on a spiritual level here, because that's a different conversation entirely. It doesn't really matter what the source is, whether it stems from a need to please our parents and have their approval, or a need to feel that you are as good a mum/wife/friend as other people you know, or think you know. I have my reasons for thinking the way that I do, but here's the thing, we have no idea what other people are really thinking of us. We do not live in their homes and we are not inside their heads, so even though we may take a guess at or make assumptions about what other people may think of us, then unless they have said something straight to our face and in complete honesty, we just don't know. So why waste time and energy on worrying about what anyone else may or may not think about you, because in all likelihood it will not be accurate.
Did you know there is a name for these thoughts? They are called automatic negative thoughts. They pop into your head before you have time to stop them, and they happen a lot without you realising how often unless you make yourself aware of them. That's all well and good knowing they have a name, but how do you stop them? How do you stop the self criticism and judgement? How often has someone said to you "don't be so hard on yourself", and how often have you thought that it's easier said than done and not really paid any attention to the advice? I know I have. Last year someone told me to have self compassion. This changed things for me. It was saying the same thing as "don't be so hard on yourself", but it was different somehow. It went deeper and made more sense. It clicked with me when nothing else had. The next step is to challenge our automatic negative thoughts. Ask why you are having those thoughts. What could you do to change those thoughts and how can you change the outcome? This can be exhausting at first because you find yourself questioning everything you do because until now you hadn't realised how many of these thoughts you have on a daily basis. But I can assure you that it gets easier and quicker once you get into the swing of it. The answers come more easily. Stop yourself when you can hear the "what ifs" and "I shoulds" creeping in and change it to a positive.
If a friend came to you and told you how bad they were feeling about themselves, what would you say to them? I'm sure you would be supportive and try and remind them of all the positive things they have done. All the things they are good at, or how much progress they had made with something. Have you ever thought of doing that for yourself? You can you know. Be your own therapist. Tell yourself the things you would tell your friend. It works.
I used to worry endlessly and spend many hours replaying in my mind things that I had done or said and coming up with what I wished had happened instead of what did happen. But I don't do that any more. I have learnt that if a situation doesn't go the way that I hoped or wanted, then I quickly review it and decide to do it differently next time, and that's the end of the conversation I have with myself. I have also learnt that if something doesn't go right, then it's not always my fault and that other people also have their own issues and don't always behave in a way that makes it easy for me to achieve what I want to achieve. Learning this was also a pretty big step for me as up until recently I always assumed that everything that went wrong was down to me because it must have been my fault that someone else behaved the way they did. It must have been what I said or my tone of voice, but actually, some people just don't listen properly no matter what you do.
Here's another thing that has helped me over the last year. Everyone is an individual and you have to respect that and let them be who they are. Now, you may be saying "I know that, it's obvious, I learnt that years ago". Well I'm admitting that I don't think I really did learn that before now. Not to the point where I can now look at other peoples' behaviour and genuinely think that I don't know why they behave the way they do or say the things they do or why they live their life in a particular way, and I don't need to know why because I don't know what has shaped them, I just need to be happy with my behaviour towards them.
I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and we ended up talking about whether we felt like a grown up yet. I told them that although I don't feel like a grown up, I do finally feel different than I used to do. I started to say something, and they thought they knew what I was going to say and ended my sentence for me. I then told them what I had actually been going to say. This conversation was another reminder to me that whenever we think we know what is going on in someone else's head, then really we don't.
So why am I waffling on about all this stuff in my blog today? To be honest, I don't really know. I just felt I had to after a few conversations I had had with people recently. None of this stuff is original thought. I haven't come to these conclusions myself. I had to be taught these things because I had got to a stage where I really needed to learn them. Up until recently I had not really paid any attention to things like this because I figured I was a fairly intelligent person so I should be able to work things out for myself. But if you look at that last sentence, this was part of the problem. Notice the use of the term I should. This was me judging myself for not being able to sort out my own issues. I had to learn that it is possible to change the voices in my head and it wasn't all down to me to do it, because someone else had more answers than me and they could help me.
Do I get it right all the time now? No, of course not. I am still a work in progress; a masterpiece that is not yet finished; a symphony that is still being written.
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