My Boundary Lesson: Unlearning the “should”

When I first moved to Colorado, I remember thinking how nice everyone was. It felt different than the “nice” of the Midwest, where I grew up. It took me a long time to pinpoint what exactly felt different to me. I realized that my experience of others in my new home felt more genuine. It felt as though people weren’t being kind because it was what they were “supposed” to do but because they actually cared. 

Now, I know not every Midwesterner is this way. There are plenty of genuinely nice humans everywhere. For me, living in a new environment with new people helped me open my perspective about the world and myself. I noticed that interactions where I thought I knew how the other person would respond (usually negatively) turned out differently than I anticipated (usually more positively, or with more understanding). The more this happened to me the more I wondered if maybe I had to adjust what I thought I knew about people.

At first, I was rather harsh with myself, often thinking “why are you so negative about people?” Or “why are you judging that person, their choices do not impact you”. I started by trying to be gentler with myself. For example, when these thoughts would come, I would follow them with more positive or kind thoughts like “I don’t actually know if that person is bad/mean/rude etc.” or “I’m glad that person is choosing things that make them happy or fit their lifestyle”. 

Turning inward and getting curious about where these thoughts came from helped me identify them as shoulds. I came to realize that I was taught that even if someone was rude to me or disrespected me, I should be nice to them regardless. Unfortunately, this taught me to have very little boundaries with others which led to a lot of hurt. I’ve had to make the conscious effort to recognize when I may no longer want to include someone in my life. 

Sometimes it’s especially hard if I think about how the other person might feel or perceive me. It has taken effort for me to recognize that I can try my best to be kind and direct with boundaries and that others still might get upset. This is still uncomfortable for me. I feel like I should to adjust myself to cater to their emotions more so than my own needs. Part of this work, for me, has been to recognize that my needs also matter. That it is okay to do things differently than what I was taught I should.

I continue to try to recognize situations where shoulds come up for me. I take a non-judgmental look at what those shoulds are and if they truly align with who I am, or if they come from outside of myself. Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with shoulds at times.

So let me remind us all to have patience with ourselves while we grow and try to recognize shoulds and how to set boundaries when needed.