Be Careful or You’ll Should Yourself
I am often the biggest source of my own stress. I feel obligated for some reason to have various achievements, abilities, skills, etc. I’m not sure if it is society, the people I associate myself with or just my own harshness that makes me feel like this need to do and achieve. Sometimes its pressure to do something big – such as I should be working on my PhD and sometimes its something as trivial as I should clean my car. I feel like all day I’m telling myself I should do this and I should do that only to make myself feel guilty for not doing it. Of course, with my history this is most common all things related to food and exercise. I’m usually saying I should have worked out harder or I shouldn’t have eaten that.
I’m just wondering who made the rules and why did I decide I have to follow them?
Here is a list of things that I don’t do (or I do that I shouldn’t) and I’m going to let myself be ok with it:
- I do not dress to the nines. Actually, I rarely get dressed up at all unless I have some sort of presentation at work. Most of the time I’m found in some sort of stretchy pants, a t-shirt, no make-up and hair thrown back – Hince, the new title of the blog Healthy Hot Mess.
- On the subject of fashion – I use the same purse for every outfit.
- I don’t wash my face every night (what’s the point if I don’t wear make-up).
- I have cereal for dinner at least once a week.
- I don’t enjoy cooking. Mainly I just hate to clean afterwards.
- I eat processed foods. I enjoy eating process foods. I especially enjoy marshmallows and cool whip.
- I don’t separate my darks and lights in the laundry.
- I don’t follow politics. or international affairs or the economy and other big news stuff.
- I don’t invest and rarely know the balance in my checking or savings accounts.
- I don’t always understand art.
- I rarely enjoy or participate in small talk.
- I don’t own a smart phone and really don’t want too. I don’t want to be that connected.
- I am technologically challenged.
- Many times I just plop myself down on the couch in front of the tv even when laundry needs to be done, groceries shopped for, floors cleaned and lots of other stuff. Sometimes it takes a week or more before I get around to it.
I’m going to try my best to make peace with just being me and doing things that are fulfilling and meaningful to me instead of being some ideal super woman I have created in my head. She’s not nearly as fun.
I think coming to grips with our “shoulds” and where they come from (and yes, we are our own worst enemies sometimes!) is definitely a big step in our process of self-acceptance and personal growth. Good luck on your journey…I’m on a similar one myself!
kelliwillard
January 25, 2011