I’ve decided I’m deleting ‘should’ from my vocabulary.
It’s Lockdown 2.0 and although I feel a bit more emotionally resilient this time round, and no longer in shock, the lockdown measures calls on us to dig deep and practice some more radical kindness to ourselves. I’ve definitely felt like I ‘should’ be handling things better, or ‘should’ be doing more, or ‘should’ be not letting things get to me as much, but we’re still going through a weird year. None of this is over yet, so why ‘should’ our emotional rollercoaster be over? We’re still very much riding it all out.
Are we saying we should do something because we genuinely would like to (which is obviously totally fine) or are we saying ‘should’ as a stick to beat ourselves up with?
I should attend this pointless Zoom call. I should respond to that message even though they were rude to me. I should eat less chocolate. Now, I give myself permission to do none of these things.
In fact, I will delete the rude person’s message while eating chocolate.
In Liz Gilbert’s workshops she encourages people to write themselves ‘a permission slip from the principle’s office’. Apparently our human brains respond well to traditional things like permission slips. So why not write yourself one for this lockdown (on lettered paper if you so wish) and tell yourself: permission granted.
I give myself permission to get through this lockdown by eating crisps, watching films from the 90s, and being a bit slower on email. You?
