Here is the real truth about expectations. They are bogus. We are setting ourselves and others up for disaster every time we invoke them. I will, of course, elaborate, but this is what I say to everyone: The most beneficial thing we can do is eliminate expectations altogether for ourselves and everyone else.
Let’s talk about what expectations are. Plain and simple, they are judgements. We all have them, even when we think we do not. We often believe they are necessary and valuable. We have obvious expectations and many are far more subtle and can go undetected as such. They are always a setup for reactivity, disappointment, anger, righteousness, resentment and the like. We can internalize those things and beat ourselves up about them and we can also project them onto everyone else and feel justified in those projections.
Here is the dictionary definition of expectation: a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future; a belief that someone will or should achieve something.
What that means is we are very busy (more about that below) deciding, determining and judging how something, someone, a situation should be. We have become not just predictors of the future, but judge and jury for what everyone else should be doing as well.
I have been talking and teaching about this for so long, I have heard many of the responses about this topic. There are common threads of how people tend to consider this possibility or not as the case may be. After the initial look of shock and I’m sure mostly “this lady is nuts,” the conversation generally turns to, “but no one will show up for me”, “then nothing will happen”, “I will never get anything done” and the list goes on, but I’m sure you get the idea. While I certainly understand the counter-arguments to this, please hear me out before you discount the value I am offering.
The “busy” I mentioned earlier could use some explanation. My experience is that most people have very little to no idea how much is going on behind the scenes in our minds. We are generally exhausted, drained and sleep deprived. As soon as our heads hit the pillow and we hope to finally get some rest, our mind seems to kick into high gear and run on the hamster wheel for some amount of time. Then there are the background operations that we have truly no awareness of. We are human supercomputers that have been programmed since the beginning of our existence (including in utero). We have coding and mechanisms that run whether we know about them or not. Most of these we need not think about or have a part in running- think digestion or blood flow in the body. Others are buried within the unconscious or subconscious mind and can be discovered if we know where and how to “look.”
This busy mind is constantly surveying, scanning, planning, catastrophizing, predicting, deciding, opinionating, judging, expecting, etc. Phew! I’m exhausted just writing about it. We are not actively telling our minds to do all of these things, but we are not exactly encouraging it not to either. Mostly because we are not even really aware that it is happening or that we have a choice in the matter. These processes are so much more in our control than we realize and moreover they are robbing us of our precious energy and resources.
The next layer to reveal is the true nature of expectation. It is another form of judgement wearing a different face. If we are expecting ourselves, another person or a situation to produce a particular result, that mean we have already decided, beforehand, what “should” happen. Should is a key word here and any time we are using it can be an indicator that we are engaging in some type of expectation.
When we are deciding what or how things should be, we have in-avertedly deemed ourselves judge and jury in addition to decision makers for things outside of our control. Here we have set ourselves up for both exhaustion and an exercise in futility leading mostly to disappointment. There is no possible way for us to know what will happen, how we will feel, how someone else will feel or react and so we have entrapped ourselves in an impossible mission. Then the hamster wheel continues as we are drained from the experience, angry at others, beating ourselves up, distressed about a situation gone “wrong” and having to recover in some way.
Another consideration to take into account is that opinions are judgements are expectations. Think of a three-headed monster rearing its head and one or more of them taking your inner workings over at any given time. We are so programmed to believe we have to have an opinion about absolutely everything. Embedded in those opinions are judgements about how we think people and things should be. (There’s that should word again.) When we have judged and opinioned how they should be we have developed expectations deciding things far out of our jurisdiction. I would be shocked if you are not feeling tired just from hearing and becoming more aware of this.
The development of man-made determinations around what is right or wrong, good or bad, wonderful or terrible, etc. has set us all up to believe constant decisions are necessary. They are often changing, fleeting and highly subjective. There is no clear pathway from expectation to understanding and compassion. We cannot be in both at the same time as they do not have the same base element. It is impossible to see the positive side of occurrences, feel excited, surprised, curious or interested in what plays out when we have already deemed a particular result necessary.
So, what of these mantras I have heard more and more in recent years: Come as you are and You do you? Are we saying these to ourselves and one another because it sounds good or we think we are supposed to (another expectation by the way)? What would it look like if everyone adopted those philosophies and truly meant them?
I believe the truth is that we have no idea what these inner mechanisms are really doing and doing to us. I have heard no significant call to action to eliminate or shift these outdated and not beneficial operations. When we can explore our inner world we are taking our power back and liberating ourselves and everyone else from the heavy burden of needing to be anywhere other than where we are. We can be in the “what is” state, present, understanding and everywhere that our controls actually are.
You may have many questions swirling around in considering how this all works. This does not mean we should not have goals or hope. We simply need to loosen the grip and not hold so tight to it all. This will allow space for more enjoyment, being in the flow of how things are unfolding. There are so many more moving parts than we can know about and attempting to decide it all will never be possible.
Adopting this approach will take time and steps. It is an incremental process to uncover how many ways and places expectations show up. Be gentle with yourself, find grace for the steps involved and embrace the freedom you will undoubtedly experience. There is no worthier resolution to undo the trap we have imprisoned ourselves within.
Allowing what is will invite everyone, especially you, to rise to any occasion. A common fear is that if we don’t hold these expectations we will not get things done, people will not show up for us or a situation will not work in our favor and this perception could not be further from the truth. Imagine the difference between deciding to do something of your own accord because it feels right to you rather than expecting of yourself or being told to do it. This is too heavy to carry and we can lighten the load for us all. Nothing beneficial happens by force. Leaning into our true nature of free will and the need for independence and freedom is aligning with who we really are. When we align with who we really are our true nature appears. Our true nature (yes, that means everyone) is good, loving, compassionate, understanding and kind. Everything we want happens in that space. That is true creation and the only place we can enact the immense power that we do have. Plus, it just feels absolutely fantastic for everybody.
