As Salaam Aleykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatouh,
This past week, I had been feeling quite tired, so tired that I took a very long nap right in the middle of the day. It wasn’t a big deal. I needed to recoup, asked my spouse for help, and took some time to rest. But in that moment, that did not feel okay. I found myself thinking things like: “I should not need a nap”, “I should be attending to all these things I need to get done instead of sleeping,” etc.
Thinking along the lines of these ‘should statements’ was very unhelpful; it made me feel guilty and even more exhausted.
Perhaps you “should” yourself at times too, and believe thouhgts like “I should not feel down”, “I should not feel anxious”, “I should be able to snap out of this”, “I should not need therapy.”
Should statements are a type of cognitive distortion. They are made-up rules about how we need to feel or behave. “Cognitive distortion” is a scary term, but as human beings, it is quite natural to think in a skewed way at times, unless our distortions are so significant that they cause emotional suffering.
As you may know, I am certified in TEAM-CBT. In the TEAM-CBT approach, we consider that all should statements are invalid and distorted, except for:
‘Moral shoulds’
‘Legal shoulds’, and
‘Laws of nature shoulds’.
TEAM-CBT is a secular approach to therapy, and I thought it was quite neat that all the valid shoulds connect to Allah ﷻ and our deen; our ‘moral shoulds’ are the rules that Allah ﷻ asks us to follow. As Muslimahs, we are also instructed to obey laws. These are the ‘legal shoulds’. ‘Laws of nature shoulds’ comprise the law of gravity, for instance. An example of a ‘laws of nature should’ is: “If I throw a ball in the air, it should eventually come down due to gravity,” and we know laws of nature were designed by Allah ﷻ.
If we really think about it, all other shoulds are indeed basically fabrications. This is not to undermine the considerable impact that these should statements have on us and the fact that they often result from family, cultural or societal pressures. In fact, identifying the source of our “shoulds” can help tremendously and even be essential to the process of letting go.
So, if you believe that you may have been “shoulding” yourself, I invite you to:
Write down word-for-word what these should statements have been telling you;
Examine if they are moral shoulds, legal shoulds, or laws of nature shoulds. If none of these categories apply, where do these ‘rules’ come from?
Finally, what would happen if you changed these should statements so they they were more compassionate AND reflective of reality?
For instance, what if instead of telling myself “I should not nap”, I said to myself, “It would be nice to have an unlimited supply of energy and not have to ask for help, but that is not how Allah SWT created humans; I have limitations like everyone else. Besides, asking someone for assistance may help them earn good deeds. Isn’t that a good thing?”
If what I have said is correct, it is from Allah; and if it is wrong, then it is from myself and Shayṭān.
As Salaam Aleykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatouh.
Audrey Kodye, Registered Psychologist and Islamic therapist at Overcome Anxiety Psychological