Posts Tagged "shoulds"
Removing Judgment—A Simple Exercise
This really happened: SAY WHAT YOU SEE (SWYS): “You are biting my shirt.” (I didn’t like that.) CAN DO: “That’s not OK with me. Must be something else you can bite. Hmm. Here, you can bite this!” I offered the child the hem of his own shirt. He looked at me, grinned, then bit his own shirt. He walked around with his shirt in his mouth for a few minutes,...
Read MoreWhere “Shoulds” Come From (and how to send them back)
Are your “shoulds” really yours? When a “should” comes from you, you nod when you speak it, feel validated when you hear it, and are often willing to fight to defend it, as in, “I should be able to do what I love!” By contrast, “shoulds” that are not yours create feelings of pressure and self-doubt, as in “I should be doing more.” So...
Read MoreFlipping Failure to Success
Sometimes our fears and breakthroughs are two sides of the same coin. One I flipped was fear of failure. As a child, I often followed a pattern of sticking to things I already knew or was sure I could master. That was me being a perfectionist — “Do it right or not at all.” I couldn’t allow myself to fail. The fear lived in my mind like a stern commandment: “You...
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