While we don’t recognise it, we habitually subscribe to ‘The Rules’, or at least, we try very hard to fulfil them, even to the detriment of our health. I call these rules ‘The Subconscious Subscriptions’ because we subscribe to ‘them’ and are unaware of doing it; it happens outside our consciousness…
Subconscious subscriptions
Let me clarify what I mean here… Subconscious subscriptions are the rules written nowhere yet followed by many or most people.
Examples are: what car to drive, what success means, what fashion to follow, what place and the area is ‘acceptable’ to reside in, what type of dog to have, what to do with free time, what kind of dinner party to through, what TV programmes to watch, what social media to follow, what to look like, what size and shape to be and the list goes on with no end.
Have you noticed that sadly, none of these ‘rules’ suggest being an individual with different interests, likes and wants that represent the genuine You?
When you subscribe to these unwritten rules, you might gain some ‘social medals’ but are they worth losing the most important thing – yourself?
Membership to belong
It is like buying a ‘membership to belong’ to a particular society or community and paying for it by conforming to the terms and conditions of HOW TO BE and WHAT TO DO. Let me say, that this kind of membership is not a good value for your money! It will not make you well; the opposite is the truth.
If you feel you don’t belong to a crowd, don’t ‘subscribe to their membership’, rather find a different crowd, or be your crowd and same-minded people will join you.
The point is, our lives have become entirely ruled by thousands of unwritten expectations on ‘how to be’ and ‘what to do’; and if, or when by any chance we do not follow these expectations, we get shamed to ‘be or do better’.
I ask:
“What way of being is better than being genuinely yourself? What way of being is more fulfilling than being content without all the unwritten pressure, without shaming?”
“Are your choices in life genuinely and organically yours or are they ‘subconscious subscriptions?”
Be and do you!
In recent years, I have noticed a vast increase in people of all ages seeking therapy because they don’t feel good enough. They often tell me a long list of ways they think they should be and another list of things they should do or achieve. They are overwhelmed. When I ask them why they feel they should ‘be and do’ all on these lists, they often shrug shoulders and reply with a question: “Isn’t this what everyone should be and do?” I compassionately reply: “Certainly not, be and do you!”
If you would like to read more and reflect on this topic, join me in my next post about the ‘shaming undercurrent’ in our society.
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