Archive for category: Anxiety

Many of us seek guidance in our every day lives. While we would sometimes prefer that tough decisions be made for us by others, few of us ever enjoy being told what to do.

Take a moment and think about the last time somebody told you what you should do.

• “You should do more around the house.”
• “You should go to the gym.”
• “You should be more organized.”

Do you remember how you responded?

There may be some truth in these kinds of “should” statements. We might even agree with them! And yet, it generally doesn’t feel very good to hear them from someone else. Being told what we should do can leave us feeling more judged and rebellious, and less motivated to make change.

And yet, how often do we say these sorts of things to ourselves? How often do we tell ourselves what we should be doing, and then feel confused and frustrated about why we aren’t doing it?

When we tell ourselves we should do something and then don’t, we feel guilty and ashamed. Guilt and shame are, not surprisingly, poor motivators.

So…is it possible to make change without feeling like we are telling ourselves what to do?

Here is one process that can help:

1. Spend a few minutes or a few days tracking how many times you tell yourself you “should” do something. You might want to jot your thoughts down on paper or on your phone.
2. Choose one of your “should” thoughts (e.g., “I should be more organized”) to start.
3. Reword the thought in the following way: I would like to _______________ (e.g., “I would like to be more organized”).
4. Check in with yourself to see if this reworded thought is accurate. Would you really like to become more organized? Or is it something you want to want? Is it something somebody else wants for you?
5. If you were you achieve this goal, how would your life be different?
   • What might you gain?
   • What might you lose
6. What are the barriers getting in the way of what you would like to be doing?

As you begin to identify, re-frame, and break down your “should” thoughts, you will gain clarity on the choices you are making that help or hinder what you would like to accomplish. The more clear you become on what you are choosing rather than getting stuck in what you should be choosing, the more you will pave the way to change.

Learning to make changes in our lives without feeling like we are telling ourselves what to do can be a challenging process. Ultimately, there is no should…there is only choice.

Google ‘books on positive thinking’ and you’ll get pages of results. In fact, the ‘power of positive thinking’ is such a strong belief in pop psychology that challenging it can seem heretical. Yet put in another way, if we are feeling sad, scared or, anxious but tell ourselves we just need to think positively to get rid of those feelings, we are denying the reality of our experience and telling ourselves it’s not okay to feel the way we feel.  The more we deny the reality of our experiences and emotions, the more disconnected we become from ourselves.

Feeling difficult emotions or anxiety is certainly not very comfortable, so no wonder there is a desire to push the experience away. Positive thinking seems to promise an escape from this discomfort, if only we can get the positive thinking right! Yet a 2009 study from the University of Waterloo found that for depressed people positive affirmations resulted in many participants feeling worse.

Instead of ignoring our emotions through positive thinking or becoming stuck and overwhelmed by them, there is a middle ground of managing the discomfort of thoughts and emotions, without needing to disconnect from our experience.

One way to do this is to increase your ability to ‘sit with’ uncomfortable sensations, emotions and thoughts without reacting to them. Part of developing this ability involves being curious rather than judgemental towards our experiences.

For example:

• Judgmental: “I shouldn’t be so upset by what she said! I’m such a crybaby!”
• Curious: “wow, I’m feeling really hurt by what she said, I wonder what is going on for me that I’m having this sort of reaction?”

Do you notice yourself having different reactions to the two examples?

Ways of learning to manage difficult thoughts and emotions:

• Practices such as meditation, yoga or tai chi
• Mindfulness practices such as focused breathing
• Books such as Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

What has your experience been with positive thinking?