2.3.21 // therapy learnings

Therapy Learnings...
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"You 'should' yourself into a crisis. It's a recurring pattern I've noticed."
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A powerful and painful (because it's true) line my therapist told me last week.
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I should myself into crisis.
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My therapist couldn't be more right. I had just never thought about it in the very simple way she explained it.
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I've known that I tend to be obsessively people-pleasing and that I have a dangerous level of perfectionism that I hold myself to, but I had never thought about how these two traits manifest in my language. Not just how those traits manifest in my vocabulary but how that language triggers me into a fight, flight, freeze spiral.
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"Should.”
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The word "should" (and "shouldn't") is an attempt to motivate myself but is actually a way for me to keep myself in a toxic guilt/shame cycle.
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The guilt/shame cycle is one I'm all too familiar with but never had the ability to articulate.
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When I get in that chaotic spiral, I'm a combination of all of the worst characteristics of "fight, flight, or freeze." My ability to make decisions ceases, I tend to want to run from those closest to me, and I get angry over small things that have nothing to do with my situation. I displace my anger on those moments instead of on the deeper grievance that I've guilted/shamed myself into believing.
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Truly a trifecta of terror.
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And I'm not writing this to "should" myself into changing, but to share that I am changing, at least starting to.
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Unpacking my need to be perfect is going to a lifelong challenge, but changing my language starts today.
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No longer will you see me using should or shouldn't.
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No longer will you see me holding myself to an expectation that doesn't fit me just to people-please or to hold up the illusion that I'm perfect. At least you won't see me doing this in my language.
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But, I'm only human and I'm bound to mess up, but messing up is beautiful and there is no "should" about that. I shouldn't be perfect, I don't want to be perfect, I want to look my perfection compulsion in the face and give it the middle finger.
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And while maybe I'm not there yet, I'm in no rush and I don't need to "should" myself into thinking any other way.