Great Expectations

Great Expectations

One of the things I love about being a grownup is being able to feel satisfied in so many different ways.

Why is it so easy?

Well, for one thing, satisfaction is all about expectations, and whoo boy, do we have junk around expectations.

Open your mind to the possibility of a different way of handling our disappointed expectations, This can make a huge change in your level of happiness.

We have all sorts of ideas about how things are supposed to go, how people are supposed to act, what constitutes reasonable behavior. Those ideas are not universal.

The bottom line is this:  You don’t disappoint me, my expectations of you disappoint me. Just one more way I create my reality, if you see what I mean.

My expectations of you are based on my filters, my mislearning, my NEJ (negative, emotional judgment), my beliefs, and so on. My expectations are based on my personal fantasies about how the world works. Some of those are negative, and some of those are positive, but they are still fantasies.

This is also true of my expectations of me. On the one hand, I know that in this moment  I am perfect. I also know that sometimes I fall back into my old crappy habits, and disappoint my expectations. I can often find myself treating me really poorly as a punishment for that disappointment. It’s all just made up, and there I am feeling rotten about a made up story.

If I am frequently disappointed by others, I will benefit by looking at my expectations. I love it when I find ways to make my life nicer by correcting my stuff. Lord knows, I can’t correct yours!

One of the ways I make this course correction is to shift my expectations from you to “the universe” when I’m wanting things to get done. Once I started doing that, and asking Creative Questions about feeling so supported, I found that I could be supported in a whole bunch of unlikely ways, by people I never would have expected. How do I feel when I am fully supported?

One of the ways I make this course correction is to shift my idea of you into looser territory. Many years ago, I read something that stuck with me. I don’t know who said it, but it went something like, “we can’t behave out of character, only out of our idea of character.” So if I can find a way to allow you greater leeway in your thinking, in your behavior, I will be way less disappointed.

The other piece that will help me experience less disappointment is clear communication, but that’s for another time.

How have I changed from feeling so disappointed to feeling satisfied?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 08262013