“Should” and Compassion

Reading from my journal from June 2010 I see how I create misery for myself by a convoluted and distorted thinking process, and my inability to trust my own goodness. My heart just went out to me, lots of compassion for this person who creates her own misery and doesn’t know how to stop it. And she works so hard to heal. There, there, dear. I put my arms around her and we cry on each other’s shoulders.
The entry that brought up these feelings is from June 26, 2010. My father’s birthday. I talk about how thinking that I “should” do something really wrecks it. Like “I should fill the hummingbird feeder.” But the truth is it’s not a ”should.” Who /what is telling me I “should”? I WANT to fill the feeder, because I enjoy the hummingbirds, but I don’t have the energy. When I have the energy I just do it and don’t get into conflict about it. I think if it’s something I really want to do, and I really don’t have the energy, instead of bringing compassion to myself for being in this painful place of wanting to do something and not having the energy, I make myself wrong for not having energy, and pull out “should” to force/manipulate myself to do the things. Well of course that makes me feel bad. This also makes me think of Mother’s “don’t care” by which she meant “you don’t care about me so you won’t do the things I want you to do.” Mother never understood that it was possible to care about someone and yet have good reasons for not doing something they want you to. I remember telling Dana he “didn’t care about me” when he wouldn’t do something for me. He got angry and said “I do so care about you, I just can’t (or don’t want to) do the item.” This made me see that there was a big distinction here. I still do it to myself, I still make myself wrong for not doing something for someone I care about. (It happens automatically, I don’t consciously do it, and have to deduce from my feelings that I’m making myself wrong.) But there was another time when I wanted to do something and didn’t have the energy, and Dana said “You don’t really want to.” That was painfully invalidating for me and helped keep the dynamic going. I think I wasn’t able to begin to drop it until I was diagnosed with low thyroid (something it took an alternate practitioner to find.) Now when my energy is low, I can remind myself that I’m dealing with depression and immobilizing fear rooted in PTSD, and my thyroid is underactive, and I can forgive myself.
Alternate practitioner Kurt Vreeland