Living with (unnecessary) pressure

You’re putting too much pressure on yourself.

Sound familiar?

Pressure happens when we hold onto absolute ideas on how things “should” be. We stay inflexible and narrow minded.

Pressure does not allow space for perspective.

Whenever we tell ourselves that things must be a certain way, we put ourselves under a lot of stress and make things painful for ourselves.

Guess what? n’betweeners do this with both the small and big things in life. So how do we alleviate this pressure?

Well let me tell you this story.

I was caught in a spiral of “shoud’ing” myself the other day and called my cousin in despair.

My cousin got strict with me and yelled:

“Oh la la Nora, ARRÊTE! Tu te mets de LA pression”.

(Goodness Nora, STOP! You’re putting so much pressure on yourself).

Western culture often villainizes yelling. It’s seen as purely violent. No wonder we’re called angry women of color (more on that next week).

But there I was on Fulton street in Brooklyn strangely feeling comforted by her yelling.

Something clicked, her words pierced through my heart, “Damn, I'm putting unnecessary pressure on myself.”

My cousin’s forceful love was transported all the way from the islands of Comoros to the islands of New York.

She wanted to communicate something important to me. She did so lovingly with frustration.

Anger in its wisdom communicates boundaries.

My cousin supported me in setting a heartfelt boundary with myself: To stop being so hard on myself.

I was being oblivious to the pressure I was placing on myself. I normalized the pressure by having unrealistic expectations towards myself.

And right there I could see the unkindness towards myself. I cried and released the expectation 🥲.

As n’betweeners we can have a lot of invisible expectations towards ourselves. To the point that we don’t even realize the pressure we place on ourselves.

The pressure to perform.

The pressure to enjoy our time with loved ones.

The pressure to take time off.

The pressure to be present with our children.

The pressure to do the hard thing.

The pressure to do self-care.

What are you trying to live up to? What are your invisible expectations?

Take a moment to acknowledge the pressure you’re putting on yourself. Begin with a simple breath, and start slowly shifting the self-talk.

What might support you in lowering your inner pressure cooker?

Usually it involves a shift of perspective, or a new intention or set of expectations.

It happened for me on Fulton street, I decided that I had done enough, I let go, and something eased within me. This can happen for you too.

Merci ma couz.

💗

Nora