I had a complicated situation to deal with recently. It got sorted but in the aftermath, I had been thinking that of all the things that I ‘should’ do.
And in doing this, I had created a lot of stress and anxiety for myself. My heart was really weighed down at the thoughts of all the ‘shoulds’.
I was speaking to one of my mentors about this, and for each thing that I was thinking of doing, she asked me a very simple question: ‘will you feel better or worse having done this?’
In each part of the scenario that I felt I should do, I definitely would have felt worse. The question had been put so simply to me, it made the answer so obvious to me.
Sometimes I have a bit too much empathy for people and I can take on responsibility for things that really are not mine to own.
This line of thinking in terms of being better or worse, really simplified things for me. And it was such a relief for me to realise that I really didn’t need to do anything further.
We may not always have control over everything that we do, but we can create a lot of stress and anxiety for ourselves. And very often we do this through our thoughts and all of the ‘shoulds’.
Ask yourself, is this going to make you feel better or worse and then make your decision accordingly. It’s really that simple.
It is all about taking care of ourselves and not creating any more stress than there needs to be.