Stop shoulding all over yourself
A lesson in letting feelings pass
After some great giggles with friends at a book launch downtown on a recent blustery night, I was gratefully dropped at my doorstep by a car full of friends I had missed spending time with. The event was a manifestation of dreams that Sex and the City-loving, late 1990s Nadine would be so floored by. Authors that are friends, book signings, agents, tarot readers, and an open bar!
But as I bounded up the steps to the door, my heart momentarily caught in my throat. Grief greeted me at the threshold. I was about to walk into an empty house—something most moms my age would give their best handbag for. But there was a flash of a sliding doors moment. I briefly saw a version of my life, a dimension where someone would greet me when I opened the door.
There’d be a “Mom’s home!” and someone to kiss. And a barely warm plate of food with optimistic aluminum foil on top. A chest to lie on after everyone was tucked into their rooms. All the disparate joys in my life, all in one place. Everything, everywhere, all at once.
I took a breath to centre myself. “You already had a version of that life,” I reminded myself as I trudged down the basement stairs to take the trash bins to the curb, still in my “good” dress, bought on sale at Banana Republic maybe five years ago. There’s not really money for new good dresses at the moment, the truth of being a single parent in a big expensive city, even with a good salary and two side hustles. (Coach Nadine chimes in to say, “You’re simply choosing not to prioritize dresses right now. You’ve chosen to give the dress money to the kids’ tutor.”)
“I am OK,” I remind myself when this feeling emerges. I am more than OK. I have more than a lot of folks struggling out there. Get it together, Nadine! There’s no need to play that reel in your mind like you’re Tom Cruise in Minority Report. No one has died. In THIS dimension, they are all just in different places: the kids with their dad up the road, Rasheed at his home doing his thing. Everyone is warm and loved where they are. “You get a WHOLE house of quiet! It’s your house! Quit whining! Turn that frown upside down, you entitled little bitch!” Except that voice sounds much kinder these days as I learn to invite more softness into my life.
I am not entitled to any of it, of course. I know this intellectually. And yet a lifetime of being advertised to makes me subconsciously believe that it “should” be here for me. The gremlin in my head tries to convince me I’m a failure. That I “should” be able to take my family to a sunny destination in the winter. That there “should” be people waiting to greet me when I walk in after a night out. And even though nothing in me right now takes for granted the myriad blessings and privileges I’m lucky to embody, there’s that sabotage-y part of my brain that tries to convince me that I want more. That somehow, all the good that surrounds me is not enough.
That I am not enough.
That I am not enough wife to stay married. That I’m not “mom enough” to deal with my kids full-time without burning out. That I can’t push for my big dreams hard enough because I’m impulsive and lazy and a person who prioritizes pleasure over hard work. The shoulds are rooted in fairy tales, in other people’s expectations of what makes a good life or a good person, and they are way too damn narrow for the many expressions of life we each take shape in.
The “shoulds” are not true — not unless I want them to be. So much of “shoulds” are about stories and expectations others put upon us or plant in our heads. I’ve learned the tools to change the channel on that shitty station. I know that if I keep playing these soundbites and engaging with these thoughts, I’ll be stuck in victim or martyr modes, and nothing will shift. But the answer is not simply pushing them away. We try that with our uncomfortable feelings all the time, be it scrolling, drinking, or saying yes to too many things. How’s that working out for you?
How to acknowledge your feelings without over-engaging
So I go back to the basics. I practice allowing the feelings to appear, greet them, and then allow them to pass. You know when you’re walking down the street, and you see someone familiar? You’re medium on this person—like it’s nice to recognize a face, but you’re not thrilled to see them, so you don’t want to stand there making small talk for eternity. You might:
Pretend you don’t see them and pass by while looking at your phone. But then they see you and get in your face to get your attention, and you’re fucked.
Decide you’re not going to be rude and say hi, only to suddenly find yourself saying, “Do you have time for a drink?” before you can shove those words back in your mouth!
Acknowledge the person, but keep a clear boundary in mind for a short “How’s your family?” before a “Gotta run!”
Give a nod, smile and say, “Oh hey!” as you continue walking to your destination.
Feelings are kinda like that. Once you notice them, you have to greet them, or they get loud and up in your grill. They want to be acknowledged. But you get to decide how much energy and attention they get. If you begin to get curious about your feelings, when and why they show up, you begin to collect data on them and learn what actions to take to get them to shift and move out of the way. (Like for me, if I play “MOVE” by Beyoncé, I can’t stay in a low energy/vibration).
Emotions are data. We are somehow trained to judge them as good or bad, but the truth is, they are simply energy moving through our bodies, often showing up predictively based on what we’ve hard-coded from past similar experiences. Sometimes that energy gets trapped somewhere, and we need to pay some attention to understand how to get it to move through the tunnel.
For example, when a certain former “bad boss” occasionally used to “dress me down” in meetings, I started to pay attention to the feelings of shame and embarrassment that showed up. I came to realize that my dread (which showed up as a pit feeling in my stomach and a nervous fluttering in my chest) at any conversation with him had so much to do about my relationship with my father. I began to call the feeling “Dad is mad” and do the work to understand and heal that younger part of myself that was no longer in physical danger. It was deep, painful work, but it helped me see that I was not “bad” and that the feelings were not “bad.” They simply showed up to help me figure out a piece of my personal puzzle that kept me stuck in certain behaviours and dynamics.
Realizing that I didn’t have to stay stuck in the lower vibrational feelings, I began to understand I had more power over my “I hate working here” situation than I had previously given myself. The issue wasn’t me — it was environmental, systemic. I was no longer thriving in that environment, and I could start thinking about what environments I do thrive in and start moving towards that and feeling better about my days. But I had to acknowledge and explore the feelings that were showing up first and face my self-doubt head-on.
Another way to tend to one’s feelings is to assess how they’ve guided you to date and how you’ve shown up for them until now. By ending a marriage that was running on fumes and making me turn on myself, I gave myself so much autonomy. By leaving a career that took too much energy to stay in, I liberated my days to be more aligned with what I know I want long term. I have done so much work to heal my inner child so that I can be a more present parent and a daughter who can give back to her aging parents with love instead of resentment. I have a beautiful, ever-evolving, romantic love in my life that heals me, helps me to love myself, and to keep pushing forward, even when the going gets tough.
“Shoulds” lurked at every turn above. Walking away from lives I’d invested decades in was not easy—until it was.
“I should be grateful to have a career in media.”
“I should stay unhappily married for the kids.”
”I should forgive my parents for all the pain they caused me.”
And now when I catch the “shoulds,” I take a moment to acknowledge them and then ask myself, “Do I actually want this, or is it someone else’s opinion or story of how my life, body, role, etc., should be?” In the case of my parents, I wanted to heal our past in the present and create a new future for us. But I didn’t want to do the work of getting to forgiveness and compassion for any other reason than the fact that living in resentment and old stories was keeping me stuck and preventing me from becoming the kind of daughter I wanted to be (and model for my children).
I am blessed with a balance of people, events, obligations, and things that suit me and the kind of person I want to be. I did that! With my own mind and choices. And I’m continually working to improve it for myself and the people I love. Sometimes I fail spectacularly, but to quote Nelson Mandela: “I win, or I learn. I never lose.”
So stop “shoulding” all over yourself. Pay attention to learn to discern what truly matters to you and what is simply a story that you can discard or edit. And slowly, you will build a foundation of self-trust — a firm knowing that you’ll figure it out — that you never imagined possible.