Does Chronic Illness Have You Should-ing On Yourself?

Often times when we are chronically ill and in pain our ego-self takes a beating.  Our world may be skinnied-down to the four walls of our house, or even our bedroom.  If we can get out, our energy might be consumed running errands and doing the grocery shopping with none left for social get-togethers with friends or outings with the family.

Sometimes it is difficult to find self-acceptance when we feel we “should” be doing more, we “should” be a better friend/spouse/parent, or we “shouldn’t” allow our illness to define who we are.

Maybe we even layer on a few oughts and musts.  We ought to get eight hours of sleep.  We ought to exercise like our doctors have told us to.  We must lose the extra weight we have gained.  We must not turn our friend’s invitation for lunch down yet again.

This should-ing on ourselves can know no bounds until we remember that we are already good enough.  There is nothing more we must do.

The antidote for being dictated to by the ego, by the should-ing, is self-acceptance.  Self-acceptance is about realizing that you are whole, perfect and lovable just the way you are.  You have nothing to prove.  Self-acceptance means that you don’t need to change yourself.  Instead, you have an open invitation to get to know yourself — the real you, the Essential you.  Yes, even the sick you.

In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Victor Frankl said, “My definition of success is total self-acceptance.”

That is what we are after…total self-acceptance.  However, we can start small and build our anti-should-ing muscles with each time we choose to accept ourselves over judging ourselves.

A journaling exercise for learning more self-acceptance could be to write down ten ways that you “should” on yourself.  Read back over your list and think about whether it is really true that you should do this.  As Byron Katie would say, can you absolutely know that it is true that you should, ought to or must do these ten things?