Escaping the tyranny of the “shoulds”

As I write, I should be sitting in a cosy stone cottage in front of a wood-burning stove, having just returned from an invigorating walk with a lovely friend in the beautiful Black Mountains of Wales.

Instead, I am at home in Amersham, still in bed, gazing out of the window at a uniformly grey sky that is interrupted only by a brutally pollarded tree.

Welcome to my winter “holiday”.

Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of invigorating walks in the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside, right on my doorstep.

It’s just that I was so looking forward to a change of scenery and a proper rest. (Irony/synchronicity alert: I just received an email from British Airways, subject line: “Looking for a change of scenery?”)

Instead, I am in my habitual environment, and my head is full of “shoulds”, including the one in my first sentence.

I should be in Wales.

I should be getting dressed.

I should be going for a walk.

I should be looking at my tax return.

I should be doing some yoga.

I should be finishing that coaching exercise.

I should be writing a blog…

Ah.

That last “should” broke through.

So, what should I write about? Maybe I’ll write about “should”.

In etymological terms, should evolved from sceolde, which meant “ought to” or “must” as well as “owe”, and later shifted in sense so that it referred to the future as well as an obligation.

I’m focusing here on the ought to/obligation meaning of the word, because that’s what I’m feeling now, weighed down by “shoulds”.

Why do I feel obliged to do any of these things? A misplaced sense of duty? To what and to whom?

Let’s say that I have an Inner Taskmaster who is never happy with me “sitting around doing nothing”, which is precisely the aim of a holiday – even one taken at home during lockdown.

As a coach, I have the tools to work with this Inner Taskmaster, to figure out what he (yes, it’s a “he”) really wants, and maybe give him a different job, just for this week. But, during a “holiday”, that in itself feels like hard work.

Hoodwinked by the Idealised Self

Instead, I ended up disappearing down a Google rabbit hole, investigating the impact of “shoulds”.

I discovered that there is such a thing as “the tyranny of the shoulds”, a concept created by the German psychotherapist Karen Horney.

She thought of these “shoulds” as the unrealistic demands we place on ourselves in order to become what she called the Idealised Self – an image of perfection that can never be attained, which inhibits the Authentic Self (our fundamental core of aliveness) from flourishing.

The Idealised Self also blocks our ability to use what she called “constructive forces” (our unique strengths, skills and talents) in order to reach our potential.

Horney wrote: “Because we cannot live up to our shoulds, our feelings of weakness, worthlessness, helplessness and inadequacy are intensified.”

Therefore, because it’s impossible to live up to the demands of the Idealised Self, we “develop a despised image of ourselves that is just as unrealistic as its idealised counterpart”.

Oh God… how depressing! My Inner Taskmaster is in service of an ideal that’s impossible to achieve, thereby making me despise myself when I don’t respond to the “shoulds”.

These “shoulds” are sneaky, and often sound like our true self, but they are not. They are petty tyrants with nagging voices.

If a list of “shoulds” start creeping into your mental to-do list, be mindful of which part of you is speaking.

You should be listening to your Authentic Self, not that Idealised Imposter.

Now I’m back where I started, hiding under the duvet and realising that the only thing I should be is… on holiday.