Cart 0
🎧 Listen: Session 357 — Shedding the Shoulds · ▶️ Watch: TBG on YouTube
Take a second and notice how many “shoulds” are running quietly in the background of your mind right now. I should eat healthier. I should be further along by now. I should be a better mom, a better partner, a better friend. I should want what everyone else seems to want. For so many of us, that word becomes a constant, low-grade hum of pressure — a voice that’s always pointing out where we’re falling short of some standard we never actually chose.
Here’s the freeing part: most of those shoulds aren’t laws. They’re inherited expectations, old messages, and other people’s blueprints for a life that might not even be yours. In a rich conversation on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, Dr. Joy and returning guest Dr. Melissa Robinson Brown — a licensed clinical psychologist known to many as Dr. Mel — explored what it looks like to put those shoulds down. Because imagine how much freer you’d be if you could trade the shame of “I should” for the possibility of “I can.”
Where the “shoulds” come from
The shoulds rarely originate with us. They’re handed down — from family, from culture, from respectability politics, from a society that has very specific (and often impossible) ideas about who Black women are supposed to be. We absorb them so early and so completely that they start to feel like our own thoughts, when really they’re echoes of everyone who ever told us how to be acceptable.
That matters, because you can’t release something you can’t see. When you start to notice that a “should” is really your mother’s voice, or a cultural script, or a fear of being judged dressed up as a personal value, you create a little space between you and the pressure. And in that space, you get to ask a much better question: Is this actually what I want?
Catching yourself in the act of should-ing
One of the most practical shifts is simply learning to notice when you’re should-ing — on yourself or on the people around you. The shoulds tend to show up loudest right alongside guilt, shame, and that heavy sense that you’re never quite doing enough. If you find yourself spiraling into “I should have,” “I shouldn’t be,” or “they should know better,” that’s your cue to pause.
A few gentle ways to catch it:
- Notice the feeling first. Shoulds usually travel with guilt or self-criticism. When that wave hits, ask what “should” is hiding underneath it.
- Name whose voice it is. Is this your standard, or someone else’s expectation you’ve been carrying without consent?
- Try the swap. Replace “I should” with “I could” or “I can,” and feel the difference. I should work out lands like an accusation. I can move my body in a way that feels good is an invitation. One shames you into action; the other lets you choose from a place of self-respect.
That small linguistic shift — from should to can — is the heart of this whole idea. It hands the power back to you. You stop being someone who’s failing an endless to-do list and start being someone who gets to make choices for her own life.
Why you need a circle that calls you back to yourself
Here’s a truth Dr. Mel and Dr. Joy returned to: we are not meant to fight the negative self-talk alone. When the inner critic gets loud, a strong, loving group of friends can be the thing that interrupts it. The right people in your corner will reflect back the version of you that you can’t always see when you’re deep in the shoulds — the one who’s already doing more than enough.
Think about how often a good friend has talked you off the ledge of your own harsh judgment. “You’re being way too hard on yourself.” “Girl, you are doing the most for everybody — give yourself some grace.” That’s not just comfort; that’s a reality check that helps loosen the grip of shame. Community is a form of mental health care. Make sure you have people who know you well enough to remind you who you actually are.
Breaking the cycle for the next generation
If you’re a parent — or an auntie, a mentor, anyone with little ones watching you — the shoulds carry an extra layer. Because children are listening, and they learn how to talk to themselves by hearing how we talk to ourselves and to them. The good news is that the cycle of should-ing can stop with you.
It starts with grace and compassion — first for yourself, then extended outward. When you model self-kindness instead of relentless self-criticism, when you let your kids see you make a choice because you want to rather than because you should, you’re teaching them that their worth isn’t conditional on performance. You’re giving them a softer, freer relationship with themselves than many of us were handed. That’s generational healing in real, everyday terms.
Trading shame for freedom
Shedding the shoulds isn’t about lowering your standards or stopping caring. It’s about making sure the life you’re working so hard at is actually yours — built on your desires, your values, your definition of a life well lived, rather than a checklist you inherited and never agreed to. You get to pursue what you want without shame. You always did; you just may not have known you were allowed.
So start small. The next time that familiar “I should” rises up, pause and ask whether it’s true, whose voice it is, and what you’d choose if no one were grading you. Then offer yourself the same grace you’d offer your best friend.
For the full, nuanced conversation — including more of Dr. Mel’s wisdom on noticing your patterns, leaning on your people, and parenting with compassion — listen to Session 357: Shedding the Shoulds on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast wherever you stream. And when you catch yourself swapping a “should” for a “can,” tag us with #TBGinSession. We’d love to celebrate that freedom right alongside you.
