Breaking the Rules

Early on in my marriage I noticed that I put expectations on myself that my husband didn't have. I got frustrated with those expectations and I told him.  He reminded me that he didn't expect any of that from me.  I worked hard to keep the house clean.  I would put expectations on myself to dust at certain intervals, clean the floors regularly and keep the kitchen clean.  He didn't care if I did any of that.  I was getting frustrated at the rules I had put on myself.

It has taken me a lot of years to lighten up on myself.  I have to remind myself that I am the only one making these expectations and rules.  No one else cares if I do them or not.

I have made a lot of gains over the years, but I still fall into old habits of setting rules or expectations for myself and I am hard on myself when I don't measure up.

This past week, while sitting by the ocean, I did a lot of coloring.  I have those fun adult coloring books.  I have about 5 of them.  It takes days to color one page so I don't imagine I will run out of pages to color any time soon.  I began with a plan to color the page a certain way and struggled when it didn't look right.  I had a difficult time letting myself change my plans and use different colors.  I wanted to mix just the right colors together and it wouldn't always come out the way I planned.  I continued to battle against the rules I had set while coloring.

If I'm struggling to come to terms with my own expectations while I'm coloring, what is happening in other areas of my life?  Am I setting unrealistic expectations and not giving myself the freedom to change directions or change plans?

I started one page using only autumn colors.  Once the leaves were finished, I didn't know what to do. What color do I color the flowers?  It took a little bit and some prodding from my daughter, but I eventually used all the colors to color the flowers.  There were no more rules about autumn colors.

I was coloring every part of the picture one color.  Again, my daughter blended colors together.  After looking at actual trees that had green leaves in the center and orange leaves on the ends, I started mixing colors together. I was literally making myself color outside the lines.

I need to give myself freedom to change plans, freedom to do things differently than anybody, including myself, expects.  I need to be willing to break the rules that I set for myself.  I need to be willing to break away from the expectations that I unconsciously place on myself and think outside the box.  I need to think outside the lines and think about the different choices I have rather than sticking to what I expect I must do.

This battle won't be won in a day, but I will continue to fight it knowing that freedom is on the other side.