Ladies of a Certain Age ~ for those invisible powerful, dynamic, vital women

A couple of weeks ago, I realized I was “shoulding” on myself.  This mental jabber occurred shortly after I made a major geographic move.  Undoubtedly, it was caused by stress.  It was not at all helpful.

I heard myself saying to me such things as this:  You are exhausted, you should be sleeping all through the night; these boxes should not take so long to unpack; you should know why this wireless Verizon  contraption, a jetpack, is not working; and you should not have locked yourself out of the house at 7 a.m. in the morning. 

When I am “shoulding” on myself, I always feel shame.  It is a powerful feeling, triggered by a habit that is deep in my soul.  Feelings of fear and anxiety often follow. During the past 30 years of so, I’ve learned a lot about this shame.  It comes from growing up in a family where if I did the wrong thing or if I did not do something I was supposed to do, there were always consequences, mostly physical. 

However, the deep level of shame I feel I believe came from admonishments from my mother and a beloved aunt.  Their actions implied or they told me: don’t feel, don’t think, don’t change, don’t grow, don’t dare and for God’s sake, don’t rock the boat.  These statements are the slogans of co-dependent families. It was their attempt to control me and not upset the precarious balance in the family. Lots of self-help authors have made big bucks writing about shame, often the residue of those with addictions, those living with addicted people, or those growing up with people affected by addictions.

Today, for me, the solution is to stop “shoulding” and to start looking at choices. However, I often circumvent this process.

Sometimes I catch myself “shoulding,” feeling the uncomfortable shame, and then immediately justifying my behavior or blaming someone. I feel so smug, so sure of myself.  These behaviors have never been useful, but, at least I don’t have to look at what I did or change how I did something.  Here is an example:  when I locked myself out of the house, I felt shame and then immediately blamed the builder of my house for putting in expensive Schlage locks, costly because they are designed to lock unless you turn the inside mechanism in the knob when you leave. 

Could has power. 

When I think about what I could do I feel empowered.  “Well, I’ll just hide a key outside someplace and this won’t happen again!”  “Well, I could go to the Verizon store and see why I am having so many problems, or – better yet – I could go to Best Buy and talk to a member of the Geek Squad and get unbiased information about this wireless internet tool.”  “Well, I could lighten up some and not expect to have all the boxes unpacked.”

Could can be thorny, though, because I can come up with lots of excuses for not doing something or unreasonable expectations of what I can do.  This reminds me of the tricky word play, “I would if I could; but, I can’t so I won’t!”

Would has control.

I often find the key to good judgment. When I think, “Would I do this?” and then, ask these two questions:  “Could I do this? Should I do this? “

As a lady-of-a-certain-age, the answers to these two questions sometimes are disheartening.  Physically, there are things I can no longer do: for example, carry my golf bag.  I just don’t have the strength in my back anymore.  Physically, there are activities I can do, but the possibility of breaking fragile bones always comes up in my decision process.  I carefully evaluate financial considerations and even fashion trends!  Hair streaked with purple and holey jeans are not for me!

African-American actress and singer Pearl Bailey summed up all this should, could, would stuff when she said, “You never find yourself until you face the truth.”