The “I Should Be…” Loop (Why Your Body Reads It as Threat)

Expectations can be sneaky little f*ckers. Not the big, obvious ones you can name in a heartbeat - the small, insidious ones running in the background, constantly measuring your real life against some imagined standard.

The expectation that you’d feel more settled by now. The expectation that your energy would bounce back faster. The expectation that adding something new wouldn’t make everything else feel impossible.

When those expectations aren’t met, it doesn’t just feel disappointing; it feels crushing. Draining. Depleting. Like proof you’re failing at being human.

Here’s what unmet expectations actually do: they keep your nervous system in a constant state of low-grade threat.

You’re not just disappointed. You’re dysregulated.

The “I Should Be…” Loop Is a Nervous System Trap

Expectations show up as that quiet, relentless inner narrator:

• I should be further along by now.
• I should feel different.
• I should be handling this better.
• I should have figured this out.

Every single “should” sends a signal to your nervous system: You’re not safe. You’re not enough. Danger.

The problem isn’t that you want growth or change. The problem is the invisible measuring stick behind every “should”, the one that keeps you stuck in survival mode instead of letting you shift into your Healing Frequency.

When you’re constantly measuring yourself against an imagined timeline or a fantasy version of how this should feel, you create a steady hum of not enough.

Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a real threat and a perceived failure. It just knows: threat detected. Stay vigilant. Don’t rest.

If you’re already carrying a full load, aging parents, demanding kids, a body that doesn’t bounce back like it used to, relationships that need tending, a career that’s supposed to mean something, this expectation trap hits different.

You don’t have the bandwidth for constant disappointment.

Why This Feels So Damn Heavy

Expectations don’t just create disappointment, they create a pattern your nervous system memorizes:

1. You imagine how it should go.
2. Reality doesn’t match.
3. You interpret the mismatch as failure.
4. You push harder (or shut down completely).
5. You get more exhausted.
6. You “prove” to yourself you can’t handle it.

It’s a loop. It’s brutal.

Especially when you’re already stretched thin. Especially when you’re sandwiched between everyone else’s needs. Especially when you’re just trying to make it through the week without completely losing yourself.

This isn’t a mindset problem alone. This is also a nervous system pattern.

You can’t think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system.

Releasing Stagnation: A Simple Energy Clearing Reset

When you’ve been living in the “should” loop for a while, it doesn’t just stay in your thoughts, it gets stored in your body.

In energy work terms, this is stagnation: emotional pressure, unprocessed stress, and survival-mode charge that never completes its cycle. It can show up as heaviness, brain fog, irritability, tightness in your chest, a lump in your throat, clenched jaw, restless sleep, or the feeling that you can’t quite move forward.

Here’s the part most people miss: you can understand the pattern intellectually and still feel stuck, because your system needs a somatic exit.

So instead of handing you a 12-step protocol, here’s a quick reset I use (and teach) to create immediate space.

The 90-Second Reset: Clear the Charge, Return to Your Body

1. Name what’s happening: “My nervous system is reading this as threat.”
2. Exhale longer than you inhale for 3 breaths.
3. Do one physical release: shake out your hands/arms for 20–30 seconds or sweep your hands down your body like you’re brushing off static.
4. Ground: press your feet into the floor and feel the support underneath you.

That’s it.

Not because you’re “fixed.” Because you’ve interrupted the loop long enough to choose your next thought from a regulated place.

If you want deeper energy clearing, especially if you’ve been carrying this for years, this is where guided support (Reiki, nervous system coaching, and targeted clearing work) changes everything.

Gratitude Isn’t “Positive Thinking.” It’s Nervous System Regulation.

Here’s what I’m learning in my own life, in my own body:

Gratitude isn’t just a nice practice. It’s a buffer against the constant disappointment loop that keeps you dysregulated.

When you’re grateful for what actually is, you stop being devastated by what isn’t.

Not because everything is perfect. Not because you’re forcing positivity. Not because you’re bypassing the hard sh*t.

You’re giving your nervous system permission to notice: I’m here. I’m doing this. I’m still standing.

That signal matters.

Expectations will always find you lacking. Always.

Gratitude - real, embodied gratitude, helps you drop out of threat mode long enough to see what you’re actually doing. What you’re actually building. What you’re actually capable of surviving.

Even when none of it looks like what you thought it would.

This is the shift from survival mode to Healing Frequency. From constant measuring to actually being present.

What This Sounds Like When You’re In It

• I expected to feel energized by this new chapter. Instead, I’m exhausted. I’m grateful my body is honest enough to tell me what it needs.
• I expected things to click into place faster. Instead, everything feels like I’m learning a new language. I’m grateful I’m actually doing it instead of just thinking about doing it.
• I expected this to feel easier by now. Instead, it still feels hard. I’m grateful for what that hardness is building in me, a capacity I didn’t know I had.

The expectations kept me stuck in a loop of disappointment, my nervous system humming with low-grade threat.

Regulation is what lets me see what’s actually here.

Not because everything is perfect, I’m choosing to notice what’s real rather than mourn what’s not.

A Practice That Actually Works

This week, try this:

Every time you catch yourself in the measuring trap—I should be further along… I should feel different… I should be handling this better…

1. Pause.
2. Feel where that “should” lives in your body. (Chest? Throat? Gut? Shoulders?)
3. Do the 90-Second Reset.
4. Then ask: What can I be grateful for right here, even if it doesn’t match what I expected?

Notice what shifts. Even a millimeter.

This isn’t about pretending things aren’t hard. It’s about giving your nervous system a way out of the loop.

If you’re always measuring yourself against an imagined standard, you’ll always come up short. Your nervous system will always be on alert.

When you start noticing what’s actually true, what you’re learning, what you’re surviving, what you’re building, you might realize you’re doing better than you think.

You’re just measuring against the wrong f*cking standard.

A Question to Sit With

What expectation keeps making you feel like you’re failing when you’re actually just being human?

What could you be grateful for instead, right here, in the messy, real, imperfect version of your life?

If the “I should be…” loop has been running your life, you don’t need more pressure.

You need a new standard. One that lets your nervous system know: you’re safe. You’re doing it. You’re enough.

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