#EXAMPLES OF TYRANNY DRIVER#

The fifth step is to accept yourself as a good person who is imperfect and limited. Just because I am not happy all the time doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, that something is wrong with me, or I have a psychological problem to think so is a falsehood. The fourth step is to recognize that you are not a bad person. No one is happy all the time.” Upon embracing the truth, you will feel a perceptible shift a sense of liberation and a feeling of lightness. In this example, the truth would be, “It is ok to feel unhappy and be in a bad mood from time to time. Is this true or false? It is certainly a lie, because it is not humanly possible to be happy all the time and never be in a bad mood. For example, I might hear myself say that I should always feel happy.

The second step is to recognize that some shoulds are lies. When you begin to become aware of them, you will discover just how many there are, some obvious and others quite subtle. The first step is to become aware of your shoulds. A person who loathes himself feels depressed, hopeless, sapped of vitality. Every should carries an implicit message that, “If you don’t do it perfectly, you are a bad person.” Thus feeling like a failure, one inevitably falls prey to self-hate and shame. If this isn’t enough, shoulds are also experienced as punitive. There is a loss of personal agency, genuine creativity, and authenticity.

#EXAMPLES OF TYRANNY DRIVER#

The hallmark of the experience of one controlled by the tyranny of the should is that one feels driven but never feels like the driver of his life. Under the burden of these dictates, one’s behavior may become pressured, forced, and may take on an obsessive quality. When the shoulds are reinforced by social pressure they become even more unbearable. One is never able to relax because the pressure to be perfect is unrelenting Shoulds are rigid, unyielding, and devoid of compassion for ones limitations and weaknesses. The “tyranny of the should” is experienced as a demand to be perfect and therefore feels like an order given by an oppressive dictator who ruthlessly demands perfection and nothing less. “You should never be weak,” is an impossible demand to meet. Shoulds become tyrannical when they are experienced as making impossible demands that are impossible to meet.

(I invite you to make your own list of shoulds) Here are some examples of shoulds that can become problematic: Karen Horney named this experience, the “tyranny of the should.” For such people, their inner shoulds are sources of great emotional suffering. They feel pressured and strangled by them. When we do the right thing, we feel good about ourselves and feel that life has meaning and purpose.īut there are others who do not experience shoulds in a positive way. Meeting ones moral obligations is a great source of pleasure. For many, their shoulds are experienced as positive and fulfilling. Everyone lives with “shoulds.” One might say Judaism is a way of life built on shoulds, such as, one should love others, one should keep kosher, one should give charity.

Examples of tyranny