page 25: “Many people say, ‘I should be able to do this,’ as we work on decluttering tasks, even though the experience of living through traumatic events has caused a struggle to complete those tasks. Removing internalized ‘should’ statements from the vocabulary of people I work with is a long-term goal of mine.”

**

I’m in the public library of the next town over. I found a comfy yet industrial armchair, and grabbed this book for some soothing reading. I am quite sure I don’t need organizing help — I delight in it — and I’m not traumatized. Not in that sense, for sure.

I started qualifying exam number 3 last Monday. I have learned why half my profs thought doing 3 of 4 exams in take-home format was a bad idea: it is a long slow process, verging on the relentless. I started January 27th, and won’t wrap up until mid-April. The day-after-day stress bore down on me starting this week.

So I’m at a new-to-me library, for novelty. Reading non-fiction about a topic I know well, for… distraction? Calming? “Smooth brain,” as A. says? Sure, all of it.

Writing can be that too. This sort, anyway.

**

What got me pondering:

When I did my most effective stretch of therapy, in my 20s, my salty-tongued therapist told me, “Don’t should on yourself,” scatological overtones intended.

Made sense. Being externally conditioned, negatively, tends mostly to pile shame on the should-ing person. What value is that?? If one isn’t altering circumstances so as to reset “I should,” then drop it! Drop whatever “should” be done, that is.

Many times these shoulds are outdated or inaccurate or misapplied or inappropriate… all the more reasons to leave them behind.

And also.

Lately, I’ve been re-assessing my “I should”s. More specifically, my “I should be able to do this.”

Turns out that, after decades of should-removal, when I tell myself, “I should be able to…”

I’ve identified a gap. Not a shame-problem.

I’ve done plenty of work crumbling away bad tapes and unreflective agreement to Other People’s Priorities. Rarely do my “should-be-able-to”s point to disconnects with my values and priorities.

They seem to point out that I’m out of balance, low on energy — bodily, mentally, emotionally.

I don’t want this to be true! I want to “just do it!”

But I’m learning that bulldogging is not my answer. It’s counterproductive, even.

And I’m also learning that simply shutting down (a.k.a. “resting”) doesn’t resolve it, either. Pity. That would at least be easy.

Instead, I find myself asking more questions. Is there a reconfiguration? Will changing my timing shift it for the better? What’s the core, and is there a different way to get to that?

..

My exam* is The Most Important Thing. Everything else needs to be pushed aside, unless it directly causes me to have more energy for my exam.

Except,

now I wonder,

should I add in, and untangle, one of these abandoned “able-tos”? Every once in a while? Would that lighten my heart and my grind?

.

* “My exam”, despite technically being multiple separate things, can also now be considered One Thing, since I’m only doing one exam at a time and I’m doing them back-to-back. So it’s a wave-form of research and writing that is cycling until April.