I think it’s pretty easy to put the pressure on ourselves during pregnancy. Based on what we think and what others tell us, we often tell ourselves that we “should” engage in certain activities, “should” think in certain ways, “should” experience certain emotions…. in essence, that we “should” be a picture perfect pregnant person in some way. It’s understandable, especially because a pregnancy is important, emotional, and takes place during a finite period of time. These attributes can easily contribute to us wanting to pull it together and do it just right for the nine months. Also, since pregnancy is a common occurrence, we know a lot about it and people have a lot of opinions about it. So, we hear about what worked for others, we’ve observed what’s worked and not worked for others, and we know about the results of important pregnancy studies. This can all add up to the opportunity for unhelpful stress and strain.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be passionate about and committed to certain endeavors during pregnancy or that we shouldn’t be influenced by pregnancy studies or others’ experiences. That may be very appropriate. I’m saying that we don’t want to try to tie ourselves down to beliefs or activities that actually don’t work for us. We don’t want to tell ourselves that we want something that we don’t want. That’s when we put ourselves in a no-win situation. It’s not going to feel good to actually achieve what we tell ourselves we “should” because it’s something we’re forcing ourselves into, and it’s not going to feel good to not achieve it because we’ve told ourselves we “should.”
Before getting pregnant, Michelle considered herself a pretty healthy eater. She had had an “everything in moderation” type of perspective, and she had always felt this approach had worked reasonably well for her. When she became pregnant, she thought she should change her eating habits. She wanted to eat more fruits and vegetables and completely eliminate caffeine and junk food. She figured this wouldn’t be too tough since it wasn’t going to be a hugely drastic change and she figured she had a good deal of motivation. Dietary changes seemed like the least she could do for the health of her baby. And she didn’t want to gain too much weight to make it easier on her to lose the pregnancy weight after her baby was born.
Yet, given all these thoughts, she soon realized that she had backed herself into a corner. She was telling herself that she should eat perfectly every day, all the time. And, if she didn’t, she was going to feel bad now, during the rest of her pregnancy, and after her pregnancy as she struggled to get the extra pounds off. She started beating herself up for not doing, not wanting to do, what she thought she should be able to do easily. She fell into a trap of thinking she was a bad mom who obviously didn’t care enough about her unborn baby to nourish herself as best she could!! What started out as a seemingly reasonable expectation turned into a pressure cooker for Michelle.
Please join the conversation: Are you familiar with the downward spiral that can occur when we tell ourselves we “should” do something…that we don’t actually want to do? When did you “should” on yourself? And, how did you stop?
