I recently joined wholeliving.com and found this post on the blog community. I found it so relevant and had to share, why?

I’ve found that a lot of times, taking up a new and verrry healthy lifestyle can have effects on those around us that at times can come off isolating or overbearing. For example, I live at home with my parents— my white flour, white rice, south asian sweetsnack loving parents. As someone on a quest for a whole gran only, brown rice, no refined sugar if possible lifestyle, a lot of times my ways appear strange to them. And unfortunately, I find myself adding to this tension every time they do something like offer me their savory southasian puffpastry snack, or when we go grocery shopping together, and I respond by saying something that they just don’t want to hear. 

My own feelings of guilt end up coming off as guilt inducers to them… and sure, I’d LOVE if they adopted my superhealthy lifestyle, but they are content living their way and at the end of the day I’d rather get along with them, than have them hate my lifestyle on top of finding it weird or whatever it is. 

So for that reason, I found this article really uplifting, and hopefully I won’t come off as such a health snob anymore :)

Stop The Guilt Beatings!

• Posted by Karolina on April 9, 2011 at 10:21am
• Send Message   View Karolina’s blog

Remember last Friday’s post on Catastrophizing? Today I’m going to talk about another cognitive distortion  under the category of “should statements”.

Tags: CognitiveDistortions, Guilt, Health,Stress, Thoughts

Words like “should”, “ought”, or “must” very often lead to a sense of guilt or shame in life. While it seems like guilt may help us produce the desired change, it is really counterproductive. We not only take away energy from doing or thinking positive and healthy things in life, but we tend to increase stress, anxiety, and depression in life as well. If nothing else, we’ve turned to negative thinking instead of positive and rational thinking. When we guilt beat others, we create tension in relationship, and can create stress for them as well. It’s not fair to yourself, and not fair to others. Instead of guilt beating (stating things in dogmatic statements), it is healthier to state things in terms of your preferences.

Here are some examples:

• I must go to bed by 11 pm.
  • I would like to go to bed by 11 pm as a way to further my health. 
• I should study tonight instead of watching a movie with friends.
  • In order to meet my goals in life, I’d like to spend the evening studying.
• I have to do a workout tonight. 
  • I’d like to get a workout in this evening. 
• They must come to my dinner party if they consider me a good friend. 
  • I’d appreciate if my friend came to my party to support me tonight. 
• Ugh, I really should have done more work last night. 
  • I wish I had gotten more done last night.

What do you think about the idea of guilt beatings? How might your life be different if you replaced your dogmatic demands with preference statements instead? 

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