Where do psychological problems due to self-demand arise from?

Many people suffer unnecessarily from mismanaging what they expect of themselves.

Self-demanding is a quality that, taken to the extreme, causes people to feel discomfort and anxiety as they are dissatisfied with their lives.. It has a lot to do with an oversaturated mind and with great difficulty in recognizing and expressing our vulnerability, which is inherent to human beings.

Life is uncertain, impermanent, and constantly changing? And the self-demanding precisely has to do with the fear to the uncertainty, because a form to try to cover this fear is to assume difficult goals to reach, with the "false" or almost impossible purpose of wanting to control the situation.

Where does excessive self-demanding come from?

Self-demand arises from the combination of external pressures and fear of the uncontrollable..

The norms we learn throughout our lives may or may not translate into pressures. It all depends on how one internalizes the messages presented to him/her from different external sources, which are the following.

1. Society

The simple fact of having been born in the XX-XXI century means that we have certain pressures that people from another historical moment would not have had.. For example, there is much more pressure on body image today than there was hundreds of years ago.

2. Culture

The cultural aspect also plays a role. The pressures on a person from China are very different from those on a person from Spain.. For example, a person from China may have the pressure not to show his feelings and be more reserved compared to a person from Southern European countries.

3. Family Education

Depending on the expectations (expressed or silent) that exist in the family environment, people may develop certain demands or others.. For example, parents who overly reward good grades may cause their children to develop a need to always achieve success. Or their self-esteem may be dependent on external achievements.

4. School Education

Depending on what is experienced in some schools or others, students may develop certain demands or others.

5. Social Relationships

School friendships, friends, partners... will have an effect. These constitute one of the most important forms of influence in the youth.These constitute one of the most important forms of influence in youth, because when our identity develops during adolescence, it is when we give more importance to our peer group.

6. Events that have marked us

Those important milestones that have marked us, can make us create a rigid rule of operation.

How does it translate?

When one generates self-demands that interfere in your life, you present them as "I must" or "I have to".... This feels like a rigid rule from which you can't get out of it in the slightest This feels like a rigid rule that one cannot deviate from in the slightest, "you can't fail", it is very imposing. It differs from values in that these are flexible, freely chosen and more based on compassion; if one day we "fail" absolutely nothing happens because we understand that we are human.

Who has these kinds of problems? To some extent, everyone. Whether one is aware of it or not is another matter. Therefore, some are affected to a greater extent than others. The less one has reflected on it, the more suffering will exist, because in this way, one is not the "owner" of the "entrenched" and repetitive patterns that one presents, but rather it is these that govern one's behavior in a rigid way, as if one did not have the reins of one's life. it is these that govern one's behavior in a rigid way, as if one did not have the reins of one's life, as if one could not choose freely.as if one could not choose freely.

Within this group, those who suffer the most are people who set high goals (perfectionism) or when the proposed objectives are very inflexible.

How does it affect people?

Self-demanding acts in dichotomous and extreme values of always/never, black/white... Therefore, when it reaches extremes, this translates into anxiety translates into anxiety because the rules are very rigid and end up paralyzing the person..

This occurs because the actual achievement of such self-demand, with all that it entails (high goals), is very unlikely to be achieved. It is a very high stress factor that makes it difficult for the person not to cover everything proposed; in fact, in some occasions it makes it easier to do nothing in the end.

How to solve it?

The first step is to be aware of what our own "shoulds" are, where they come from, and not to martyr ourselves for it.. To be aware that we are a consequence of what we have lived, but not guilty of it. From that moment on, and from awareness and responsibility, we can learn to respond in a different and more adaptive way, instead of reacting automatically, constantly reproducing the same patterns ("debos") that make us suffer.

With a personal work of introspection, we can lower the level of self-demand and from there be able to decide in favor of our own values and not so much for the "debos".