The voice you hear in your head saying “You should” isn’t yours.
It doesn’t come from you, it’s a replay of someone else’s message.
You heard that message often long ago, and it became part of how you treat yourself.
Which is why you’re such a jerk to yourself sometimes. Because that replay doesn’t care about you.
Eviction
Kick that voice out. Why let it hang around without paying rent and treating you bad?
Whenever you hear the voice in your head say “You…”, remember it’s not your voice.
It’s a program someone else left running in your head.
Get rid of it. Let it go.
Confront It
One way to help evict the program is to understand how you got it.
Think back to the first time someone “should-ed” on you for that thing.
Walk through the experience. Remember what you were doing, what they said as accurately as you can, and how you felt.
Check in with yourself back then and in this moment to see if both versions of you believe that was “good advice” and still is “good advice.”
It won’t be – it’s virtually certain that you were being “taught” something you didn’t know or understand at that point in your life.
Whoever left that program running in your head was upset or anxious at what happened, and they used Lay Blame to transfer their anxiety to you.
Persistent
Unfortunately, it stuck around. It persisted, in a way that hasn’t helped you.
Embrace that even if whatever the program thinks you “should” do is something you desire to do, there’s a way to have that thing without the shame.
Shame is always a coping mechanism, a way to let yourself off the hook for not being fully present and powerful. It’s “yeah, I suck, so of course I didn’t succeed.”
Or it’s part of someone else’s Lay Blame that you internalize.
Let that shit go. There’s no space for Shame in your powerful life.
You can do this. I can help.