Recently I had the opportunity to truly feel how damaging expectations actually are. My experience allowed me to see that having an expectation is really just an ideal or a belief about something that we want and imagine will happen. When it doesn’t happen in the way we have imagined, we are likely to be left feeling disappointed, dissatisfied, saddened, frustrated and plain let down.
Sure expectations are often exceeded too, seen by many as being a great thing, albeit still creating a temporary emotion or heightened state in the body that is based on something outside of our control.
With all these emotions coursing through the body, it is not hard to see why I consider having expectations is damaging, with my recent trip to the snow giving me a very clear example.
Springtime in the Australian Snowy Mountains is considered by many to be a very beautiful time with the last of the snow melting, the rivers running fast, fresh and clear, and the animals – kangaroos, wombats, and owls, to name a few, out and about in full force. But on my recent road trip to these mountains, I didn’t notice much of this.
I have visited Canada and Japan during their winters and experienced mountains of snow. The accompanying feeling was glorious as I was awed by the beauty and sheer brilliance of nature – the ground, trees and buildings covered in copious amounts of snow: it was a magical sight.
I fully expected to be awed by the Australian Snowy Mountains in the same way but I wasn’t because in late September in Australia, there is barely any snow left. The mountains never look like they do in Canada or Japan – we champion 15cms of snow as being a great thing, whereby other countries are measuring it in the metres. Having a picture in my mind of what I wanted and expected to see created something quite unpleasant: my expectation was just not met and I was disappointed, dissatisfied and cranky because of it. Where had the joy and delight of being witness to this scene gone?
My husband on the other hand, was feeling the enormity of how marvellous and awe-inspiring nature in the Snowies was. He just arrived in the mountains and simply allowed whatever it was he saw and experienced to be. He allowed the world to meet him as it was, with no pre-conceived ideas or expectations. He could clearly see and feel the silence and loveliness laid out before him with no impediment.
With having an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen.
With this very simple example, I can see now that having any expectation can carry the same outcome of disappointment or falsehood, regardless of the actual scenario.
Many times throughout life we hold an expectation of how we want it to be or how it should be: we are not open to just letting the world – people and situations as well as nature – show us their own true beauty, untarnished by our own made up reality. What we can conjure up in our own minds is likely to fall far short of the true splendor and magnificence real life can and does display.
Through this experience I have come to appreciate that in not imposing my own ideals on how life should be, in reality it can actually be more remarkable than anything my simple mind could imagine.
I see now that having expectations are our way of controlling a situation, but when we free ourselves of them we are able to feel and experience the true potential and beauty life reveals to us.
My writing is inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
By Suzanne Anderssen, Brisbane
Further reading:
A True Relationship with Nature
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Oh I hear you about expectations, that is a biggie and a killer to many disappointment I have lived with for many years and probably life times too. Those images or pictures we hold in our minds are the ones that are given to us from someone, something or from somewhere and purposefully done to keep us away from who we truly are.
The best form of medicine is to have no expectations, so there are no surprises, no disappointments but also no elations either. We simply live our lives by being true to ourselves and the rest will follow. And it doesn’t matter what another is doing, we give them the space to be who they truly are too, and one day they will realise that they have grown up or bought up with expectations too.
It is a bit like choosing which glasses we are to wear for the day – the ones that allow us to see truth or the ones that try to make us see what we want to see and then get affected by this not being so.
Not having expectations, in a world where we are conditioned to control the things that happen around us, is not an easy thing to do, but what helps is to see each day and each opportunity as a fresh start and check in to see if we are holding on to any expectations, or ideals about how things are to be…Awareness of this or even of how we are feeling is then the first step to begin unraveling the situation and hence learn from it.
Henrietta spot on, controlling everything in our lives eventuates to many diseases and unsettlement. It’s a no wonder we have melt down moments. The first spoonful of medicine is first of all loving and taking care of yourself and then, when things around you don’t go the way expectations expect, it doesn’t affect you as much as it used to. It’s just a muscle that needs to be strengthened.
It is so true that having an expectation is a way of trying to or wanting to control things outside of us. And yet this means we do not allow space for things to be as they are. And enjoy them for what they are. Suzanne’s example is great and depicts expectations of snow in the mountains, but we can have expectations on another person, or on ourselves etc and this too then creates a situation of not appreciating what is actually there and hence we miss out on the gift that is in front of our very eyes because we are the ones ignoring it.
Suzanne, this is a great way of describing what an expectation is and how it leaves one feeling when one has invested in it in any shape or form: “an expectation is really just an ideal or a belief about something that we want and imagine will happen. When it doesn’t happen in the way we have imagined, we are likely to be left feeling disappointed, dissatisfied, saddened, frustrated and plain let down.”
It’s a great example of an expectation Suzanne and how they impede our ability to receive in full everything before us. Pictures of how we expect things to be are such a narrow view, and if they’re not met then we can dismiss the person or situations when it’s actually offering us so much. The difference between how you and your husband experienced the snow highlighted how disabling our pictures are and how closed we can be in expectations.
I agree, the difference between how you and your husband experienced the snow highlighted how disabling our pictures are, and how they close us to what is on offer. A great example to show the damaging impact of expectations in life.
Expectations really do blind me to anything other than what I want the situation to be. It is really ugly whereas there’s a feeling of lightness and expansion when I allow myself to see what is truly there to be seen.
What a good way to describe the reduction of what we see when we approach it with a picture from an ideal or expectation.
Our emotional landscape is pretty much based on our expectations and pictures that we have – does it get met or not, how much/little of it does it get met? I am constantly uncovering my own expectations and pictures whenever I find myself go into reaction. It makes me realise how I have made the world very conditional. It is amazing how well we know to block out or filter our perception just in case what is in front of us might reveal something that would dislodge us from our comfort zone.
Suzanne our expectations are based on such limited information. Not only that but they are also incredibly biased according to our limited experiences. All in all the reality of anything is rarely going to match our expectations, the chances of life and our expectations matching are usually very slim. There is also a sense of investment in expectations, be that we are invested in something going well or not so well.
When we have expectations we are in comparison with what we are thinking.
Absolutely Mary, and we know how harmful comparison can be.
I had no idea I had so many pictures, ideals, and concepts stored in my body so that everything in a way is controlled by these projections. When we are controlled by our minds there is no spontaneity to life. Interestingly, I feel this was squashed by all the years of seeing a psychologist as I was taught how to function to get through life and cope with my depression.
Reading this just goes to show how expectations get in the way and limit our perception of life, leaving us constantly in a lesser state.
Expectations leave us in a lesser state, ‘Having a picture in my mind of what I wanted and expected to see created something quite unpleasant: my expectation was just not met and I was disappointed, dissatisfied and cranky because of it.’
I realised the other day how expectations can drain us and make us exhausted. For instance I am working in the healthcare and the care clients need is becoming more complex and time consuming everyday and there is a shortage of caregivers and nurses. So I can go to my work thinking the work pressure will be less than the day before or that I can fulfill the needs of all the clients but with this expectation I get disappointed every time and complaining will also not work. To just observe and be with the way it is, makes it lighter and easier to handle the hard work.
Yes and to know that when we apply ourselves we will be working hard therefore what gets done gets done and what is for another day, is simply that, for another day.
Reading this blog I am reminded that we miss out on so much when we project our pictures or expectations on what we think life should be like.
It is a lovely example showing how much we can miss out on when we let expectations or pictures run our lives.
“With having an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen.” This is a great observation and one that reminds us what we can miss out on when we have locked in an expectation of how we want, or hope, things work out. There is so much magic waiting out in the world for us to experience. All we need to do is simply allow ourselves to trust, surrender to the process and allow it to unfold in its own time and in its own unique way.
Nothing in life is fixed or predicable. Expectations seem like an attempt by us to control things so there is more of a known element to life. However as the with the perfect examples in this article, expectations set up a picture of how we want things to be which can lead to disappointment or a temporary emotional high. Accepting what is there at the time and working with that feels like a way to be in life rather than standing outside of it, trying to control something we cannot control.
When we hold pictures we miss the opportunity to experience what is in front of us, we are in control but we also experience disappointment when our pictures aren’t met, awesome to expose how this stops us from feeling the beauty and magic that’s around us.
“With having an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen”. Very true whenever I have an expectation I have closed all the doors on the multidimensionality and narrowed everything down to what I want to see and not what is there to be seen.
‘With having an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen.’ True Suzanne we stick our own image onto something and are judging what is actually there to not be what we expected it to be. Never will life be what it truly is if we look through this kind of tainted glasses.
And how our world opens up when we truly see what is going on.. the beauty of allowing our surrounding to be, including ourselves.
Having a picture of how we expect or would like something to be is a killer, especially when we get there and it’s not that – what are we left with? Not an appreciation of what is on offer but the disappointment that reality is different from what we wanted. Our expectations essentially set ourselves up to fall, instead of coming at something fresh and ready to embrace whatever is next.
If we surrender to what is on offer, allow it to unfold in its own time and unique way then magic can happen.
Expectations about a future movement only may come from our current pattern of movement not present in the present.
This is an interesting observation and comment… that our expectations are limited by our current patterns and therefore static or stuck and narrow whereas life is constantly moving on and deepening and expanding if we allow it to unfold.
We create pictures of how we want a situation, people and events to be and then we are disappointed and possibly even hold to ransom what and whom hasn’t turned out the way we pictured it – our pictures and smashed pictures are harmful and dangerous to our health and we are much better for not cultivating them at all.
I agree Conrad, how many of us carry bitterness around in our bodies from year to year, bitterness that’s banked up because of things not turning out the way that we hoped or expected them to.
This is so true, holding onto bitterness because things didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to, how harmful are these emotions to our health, and then we wonder why we became ill.
When we realise that we are/have been living to pictures and start to pick away at them we learn that there are many, many pictures. And the sooner they are addressed the better, if left to stagnate they can exhaust us and destroy our lives.
How many of us live from pictures of what we think life should be or ought to be? I certainly have and these pictures already set us up to not be open to what ever life presents us with as we preconceive love to be a certain way it inevitably is not. This is not a smart way to live
I have just realised that every time I have had “an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen”, and that simply was because I was so busy trying to deal with the disappointment and the feeling of not having control. I can see that it actually was all about the lack of trust, not letting go and allowing the situation to unfold in its own timing and its own way but wanting it to fit a certain picture I was holding in my mind.
I was moved to tears reading this today, especially this line – “He allowed the world to meet him as it was, with no pre-conceived ideas or expectations”. Could you imagine if we could do this? If we could allow ourselves to see what is truly going on? I imagine our responses would be quite different to the world.
After reading this great blog on expectations, I am now feeling just how much these expectations of how things will or should be plays out like a giant filter on the reality that is there to be felt, aware of, and learned from. Perhaps we are afraid of seeing all there is to see because it would remind us of our true potential that we have not been living up to this point?
Yes, that is a really good point, do we not want to notice the filter because then we would have to admit that we know full well we are not living to our full potential?
Great blog to show how capping and misleading pictures can be, putting an expectation to a situation. It can be a complete setup for many situations. Setting us up for a downfall. It’s a great practice to live connected to ourselves for in this movement we have no pictures of what lays ahead.
I find these images of good/success to be too fast at times. It comes with rigidity that does not want to accept or let alone allow possibilities outside its framework, it thinks it knows best and dictates how life should run for me. And I guess it aided me to develop my organizational skills and efficiency to a very high level, to be prepared and be secure in my pictures of ideals, but in that there always was a self-imposed capping as to how much of the world/people/life I would allow myself to embrace and appreciate. It always comes with a sense of mediocre. There is another way to be in the world that is of more trusting and surrendering to what is on offer, and learning to get myself out of its way sometimes feels like standing on a cliff top and daring myself to jump with no harness, but otherwise, how would I ever know?
A group of us the other day were having a conversation about how we create our own situations, such as placing my car in a car park where someone could reverse into it and dent my left fender – I created the situation in advance for that to happen. This is the same with our expectations, as in we build them up in advance to play out perfectly or not at all, and then we get to act disappointed and go into a reaction. Feeling justified that the way we are acting is acceptable and that anyone in near vicinity of us gets to feel the brunt of our tantrum, and dare I say it, in those moments we do not care about the harm we are inflicting on others.
Very true Suzanne. I also discovered that having expections, or investments, in any situation blocking the flow of how life, people want to flow.
I love coming back to this blog Suzanne and being reminded of how we limit the true beauty and magnificence available to us in life when we focus on the pictures and ideals that the mind creates.
This is such beautiful blog Suzanne – it simply and graphically puts the issue of images and expectations very clearly. I have been dedicated to dropping my images and yet I still live in a world populated by them – images, images, images! I can find myself reacting to something two or three times in a day which means I have an image about something – whatever has happened simply IS. The way I clock the images and reactions is I start walking towards the fridge to numb the reaction and handle it! I am really getting onto this as it is ruining my diet!
Awesome awareness Lyndy – it is certainly a work in progress and as soon as we clock something that we do not like, this is our first sign of having a picture that prevents us from truly seeing it all and understanding what is happening.
Totally Suzanne, any form of picture and we have already set ourselves up for the potential to react. It’s a continual process learning to live without pictures and expectations.
‘With having an expectation, I did not allow what actually was there to be seen, to be seen’. I love what you have shared in the wisdom of these words Suzanne.
Expectations are a killer of the magic of God that is all around us just there in any moment for us to receive, when we need to control we are limiting what is on offer for us to feel and enjoy.
Beautiful, showing us that expectations are sitting in the way of feeling truth, beauty and instant surrendering. I love that!
No expectation of the picture we have created in our mind can match the magic of God in nature.
Whenever one feels shocked, or disappointed, it becomes very clear that there we’re expectations being held there, otherwise there would be no reaction but simply observation. And expectations arise from us having an image about the way the world should be, which, in turn, is a protection mechanism. When we fully surrender and allow ourselves to see what is there to be son without judgment then a]one big step in evolution for mankind has been imprinted.
Ageing has a configuration that is natural so when we look at something only with our eyes we see either old or new and this can make us decide what is before us; when we feel beauty it is always ageless and feels the same! Australia is an old continent and has well-weathered mountains where Japan and Canada are relatively young mountains with shape mountain buttresses exploding everywhere. Having lived in both Australia and Canada for extended periods I have seen and felt both and for me when I feel the energy they feel the same. My question is to my-self why do I not also feel each person for the energy they are in rather than first looking at their age?
I had moment of disappointment the other day and as quickly as I felt it I realised that to feel this emotion I must have had an expectation in the first place. Now that was a big wake-up call but one that I welcomed as it was offering me a deepening of my growing understanding of how controlling expectations are and how damaging they are to the quality of our lives. And of course it offered me the opportunity to ask why I needed to have control over the outcome in the first place.
We can only have expectations when we do not read movement; hence when you do not read energy.
It’s a great line Suzanne that we when we have expectations we don’t allow people to “show us their own true beauty”. I had a situation recently where someone didn’t do what I expected and because I held a picture that didn’t get met I felt hurt. In the hurt I stopped feeling and appreciating the beauty that I know this person holds. In the expectations we don’t respect or appreciate people, they instead become almost like a chess piece on our board of life that we want to be moved a certain way.
When we have expectations we fail to see the beauty that is always on offer – no matter the context.
In having expectations, we instantly limit our experience of life to being dictated by outcomes, by our thoughts as casting a linear projection into the future, rather than simply being present and open to the magic of what each moment has to offer.
Expectations are the biggest let down as they rarely, if ever, live up to the pictures created from them.
It’s great to be reflecting any time on the images or pictures that we have… The anticipation that actually stops us being able to be to feel and to see what is truly there in front of us.
So true Chris – in being caught up in our minds about what is going to happen or is happening is we are instantly cut short from truly experiencing and exploring all that is on offer in any moment.
When our lives are like a roller-coaster ride our expectations are running high and when we feel a true feeling of our life is flowing with a forever deepening expansions we are divinely connected.
Expectations are a killer. They give us a picture of an event, scenario, relationship and we run with how we think things should be. We then constantly wait or look for if things are meeting that picture and if things are going ahead as planned. But all the while we can be missing out on what is in front of us.
Expectations keep a lid on what is true accessible to us at any given moment, as anything that is not our particular picture, does not exist.
What a beautiful reflection for you to learn such a priceless lesson. Having expectations is like being carried on a cloud of illusion and when the expectation is not met the cloud dissolves and you plummet back into reality accompanied by all the emotions that come along for the ride; failure, disappointment, anger etc, they are all there making the outcome even more painful and leaving you feeling worse than in the beginning.
What life reveals to us is always there for us to learn from so we can evolve and it certainly seems you have from this trip Suzanne.
Having expectations can be a way of us trying to control a situation, I love what Lyndy shares above, so very true, ‘They lurk in the background of our minds ready to jump in and claim their ground which they pretend is truth, and then watch us collapse into reaction as the expectations are not met. ‘It is indeed very ridiculous.
Expectations can be so sneaky and subtle. They lurk in the background of our minds ready to jump in and claim their ground which they pretend is truth, and then watch us collapse into reaction as the expectations are not met. It is a truly ridiculous trick!
When we have pictures in our mind how things ought to be we will not only be disappointed or especially pleased but we limit ourselves to what there is to see, as we have already framed the picture without having perceived its fullness.
When our mind paints any image we use that image to build a profile of what we consider as being normal and this is an expectation, which has the propensity to get out of control. So Life can be as you say Suzanne, a way to “show us their own true beauty, untarnished by our own made up reality. What we can conjure up in our own minds is likely to fall far short of the true splendor and magnificence real life can and does display.”
Expectations are really just ideals and beliefs about something that we want and imagine will/should happen, and by the very nature of having this ‘expectation’, we set ourselves up to be disappointed or worse if this fails to play out. How simpler life is if we let go of having any expectations in the first place.
Expectations I have found to be all wrapped into how we see or believe something will happen leaving us feeling disappointed or hurt when things don’t work the way we envisioned them. Having expectations also adds a lot of pressure on our bodies and how we move, taking us away from our natural movements and placing tension on ourselves instead. Letting go of these expectations leaves much more space to see the bigger picture and also simply connect to our bodies and how we move for we then cast the next movement or moment ahead by the energy we move in. Moving from our natural quality and expression brings a greater freedom and observation to how we live which feels so much more spacious than the movement or anticipation of expectation on our bodies.
I completely agree, we often have so many more images and expectations than we are aware of and it clouds our vision. Sometimes I meet someone I have been speaking to on the phone or communicating with for some time but never met in person. It is only at that point that I realise I had pictured them at a different height or with different coloured hair and hadn’t even realised that I was holding that picture until I saw something different.
Thank you Suzanne, this is a topic that comes up a lot, as when traveling people are always asking the question are you looking forward to going or getting home etc. The answer that keeps me connected to my inner-heart is that it is one life so enjoying where I am now keeps me present and when I get to the next where ever be it the car, the airport, or the trip itself, enjoying every aspect of a trip as much as being wherever at that moment is a blessing, all this to the best of my ability.
When I was young I hated the feeling of expectations that were put on me by other people , they wanted me to be the way they wanted me to be , to live up to their expectation , this was such a terrible burden. There is no allowing of free will .
Once a person has a picture that picture energetically controls them , for the picture will never be true: it will always be a false projection and so it will always be a disappointment in truth.
The detrimental power that expectations have over our community has become a focus once more in my working life recently. The final school exams are approaching and some of the parents of the kids I am tutoring are getting understandably anxious about how their kids will perform in the exams. It has been a very interesting time observing all the factors that come into play. Many believe in the system and cling to the picture that their child must be successful. In the end it feels fruitful to drop all expectations and pictures and simply do ones best – no judgement. It is the student’s choice and they will reap the consequences.
I am getting to see how my expectations deprive me of new experiences because I make up my mind about how its going to be beforehand. I am catching myself with this on many levels so its good to be aware, and with this I’m starting to be more open to new things.
What a great example of how much of a set up expectations are. We put a block up to receiving all that is on offer before the situation has even occurred.
Expectations are not only exhausting they are also distractions that take us away from the truth that is often right in front of us. Having a picture of what we want or how something will play out and then being presented with the opposite has the potential to bring up a whole raft of emotions, from frustration to anger which then impact so severely on our body. To let go of expectations offers us the freedom to simply allow everything to unfold; and that often is a most welcome surprise.
Expectations are a big trap, continually keeping us searching for an unreal existence externally, and as a form of control – how we translate and re-interpret things we see and hear which thus restricts our way of movement.
Yes our body just is in the moment and is totally fine with whatever happens in that moment when we are present with it, it is the mind with expectations that can make things seem wrong or ‘not how it should be’ because it was not as it thought it would be. It is one to really look out for because it is what can make the difference in enjoying a moment or not.
This is a gem of wisdom to read “an expectation is really just an ideal or a belief about something that we want and imagine will happen”. It’s like our mind holds a road map for how things need to be and have to happen, we literally try to control life, instead of allowing it to unfold before us and enjoy and learn as it does. I can also feel when others have expectations on me and what an imposition this is, which is a great reminder to not have expectations on others.
A beautiful sharing and understanding of life and the control expectations puts on us if we live by them. The appreciation and honesty with which you share is very reflective and special to realise “I see now that having expectations are our way of controlling a situation, but when we free ourselves of them we are able to feel and experience the true potential and beauty life reveals to us.”
Thank you Suzanne, I was having a phone conversation today about this very thing! This is a great line about how we let our pictures of how life should be affect us “we are not open to just letting the world – people and situations as well as nature – show us their own true beauty, untarnished by our own made up reality.” Giving our power to anything that comes from the outside world, whether is how our house or body should look because of a magazine, or how we or others should be etc creates stress, tension, and disharmony. We can instead feel and read things from our own inner heart.
The thing is with expectations is we can’t keep them to ourselves. If we have them with us, we have them with others too. Did you ever get stopped and see that you were totally missing the beauty of a place or person and think ‘gosh how did that happen?’ Well the answer you show Suzanne lives in the expectations we let go. Like money in the bank we look forward to what we have in mind only to receive a great big surprise. It’s often not pleasant though, because as you say you find yourself feeling short changed by life.
Brilliant Suzanne. I can see the link between expectation and control so clearly after having read this blog. There is a sense of entitlement that comes with expectations. I recently experienced how damaging it is to have expectations. When I let go of my expectations I see life as a reflection and accept what is before me.
Having expectations on myself is a sure route to feeling lesser or not enough, which then leads to the vicious cycle of giving myself a very hard time. Big ouch!
Thank you Stephanie, a great summary and something I can relate to. Expectations also have a nasty habit of always being unreachable so that the cycle can perpetuate. As soon as we allow in from the outer world the expectations we supposedly need to reach, we begin to see ourselves as failing instead of taking in the whole of our life, and appreciating the qualities of who we are and all the little miracles along the way.
It’s so true how if we’re projecting out what we expect or want to see that we miss seeing what is actually there to observe in full, in any situation in life. And this can apply if we put on rose-tinted glasses as well, so to speak, and don’t allow ourselves to observe all of what is going on…
Suzanne, this blog illustrates perfectly how having expectations can limit what is truly there to be experienced. When we want things our way, its like we have blinkers on.
This is such a beautiful and honest blog Suzanne and I especially love the last line and your words of wisdom that are a great reminder for me to take into my day ‘I see now that having expectations are our way of controlling a situation, but when we free ourselves of them we are able to feel and experience the true potential and beauty life reveals to us.’
I will take this blog and commit to bringing it in all areas of my life, one by one and step by step, but a commitment it is. The reason being, joy is my natural state, anything that dampens it is not worth it to indulge in, so expectations and the disappointment we all know it brings, is not part of the true me.
I have just had a great lesson in expectations, or in other words, putting conditions on life. I had been out of work for longer than I planned to be and during this time I found myself putting conditions on what job, what hours, what location etc etc, and funnily enough no job appeared. Last week I realised that it was time to let go of all conditions, scary for a moment but so very freeing. Within a few days there was a job, a short term position, but one that fits so beautifully into my life right now and in a place where I had actually begun volunteering! I know now that I am not going to place conditions on what comes after it’s finished; letting go of all those controlling expectations feels so liberating.
Surrender is the new black
Thank you Ingrid, how beautiful to read and how very freeing. Life is an awesome school.
I have found that when I have an expectation of something it automatically shuts down my ability to feel the joy in that moment, and accepting and embracing every new moment brings a lightness that is felt throughout our body.
How my life is now, I could never have imagined or tried to concoct or control. Making life about being and having a relationship with all we are in every moment allows a flow to move from each moment to the next – all is simply revealed in this flow and each step is an offering to deepen the relationship. The outcome is less important as the journey never ends.
So True Rachael, outcomes mean we have a condition attached for things to be a certain way. Then we are coming from ideals, beliefs and expectations about what is around the next corner, in our life’s “journey”. When it is always the same road we are journeying on, and it is up to us to learn the in’s, out’s and “step” in a way that allows us to evolve on our never ending path.
Expectations and investments go hand in hand. The problem is not just what happens to us, but also the fact that both are impositions over free will and the evolutionary path of another one. Oneness is a true alternative.
Great point Eduardo – that our expectations effect not only our relationship with evolution and what is unfolding before us but also that of another. We don’t appreciate just how sensitive and connected we all are and that each choice we make, whether it outwardly or ‘privately’ is felt more broadly than we care to see.
When we are controlled by our expectations, we miss out on all that is naturally going on around us, and the reflection that it offers us too.
We don’t let love in (and out) when we come from the expectations we hold. it is as simple as that. It sets us up to be disappointed, frustrated and all other kind of emotions so we dismiss the grandness that we truly are and is reflected in nature, the magic of God.
I love what you present about expectation Annelies – you remind me that expectations get in the way of our connection to ourselves and our connection to others.
Running expectations will immediately and without doubt cut us from from the greater awareness that is there for all. Expectations are like a protective device to keep the world within a framework that feels handle-able. This inevitably stops growth.
It is interesting to consider why we do have expectations and what they actually do bring to us. In general to my experience is that my expectations do never meet the actual reality when I am at the point I had the expectations about, they either are under estimated or over estimated but never meet the actual experience. The thing that then is happening to me is either to get a heightened or disillusioned state of being that takes me completely away of who I really am and does not allow myself to actually experience and feel the reality that is in front of me and the lesson that is there for me to be considered and learned. Running life from expectations will bring nothing else than disappointment or dissatisfaction and leaves us empty that in turn have to be filled with another falsity, a perpetual movement that will not bring us any closer to who we truly are, our true way of being.
Expectations are a great way to reduce everything and everyone. There is such a false sense of security by expecting life be a certain way, instead of being open and ready to receive what is on offer moment to moment, and appreciating ourselves, others, and life exactly as it is now.
I have been noticing how quickly I come up with pictures of how things would be, or rather how I would like it to be. This happens so fast, and usually keeps me on the safest track. And I agree that having expectations is our way of wanting to control situations – so for me, it feels related to the lack of confidence – that I do not feel I am equipped to handle whatever that may come my way – and this can only go back to how I live my every day.
I can so relate to what you have shared, I have had many moments lately where my expectations, ideals and beliefs have set me up for a let down. Not only have they effected me they have effected others who I have imposed upon with these expectations. In living like this we can absolutely miss the beauty that is right in front of us.
We must think we need the thing we expect, otherwise why would we be disappointed?
It is remarkable how often we unknowingly taint things with an expectation of how we would like things to be… the ideal picture. However even the slightest change to this can create disappointment when the picture is not met…. Each time denying the beauty that can come from just allowing life to be and to happen as it should and for us to then experience it as such… free of any control or imposition for it to be anything else other than what it is.
Such a beautiful reminder to not impose our expectations, ideals and beliefs on ourselves and others, thank you for this gentle reminder Susanne;
“I see now that having expectations are our way of controlling a situation, but when we free ourselves of them we are able to feel and experience the true potential and beauty life reveals to us”.
The images we create and conjure in our minds blind us to the beauty that lives within and all around us always.
That’s the sad thing about expectations, it breeds comparison and judgement instead of allowing the beauty and potential of anything to be fully understood and appreciated.
A valid point Elizabeth. Using everything that happens to us can be used as an opportunity – to evolve – or stay in comfort – and perhaps wallow because reality didn’t match our expectation, which then becomes a wasted opportunity to grow. .
“….. see now that having expectations are our way of controlling a situation, but when we free ourselves of them we are able to feel and experience the true potential and beauty life reveals to us.” So true Suzanne. Expectations are something I still struggle with and although I didn’t think I was a controlling person I can see that is how exactly I am in some situations – all to do with my expectations of how things will turn out. ‘Live and let live’ is a good motto for me.
Living without attachment to our past experience or future outcome grants us access to the full potential of what is at the very moment.
It is so true Suzanne, and so beautifully and wisely shared. With any expectation that we impose on anything or any situation, we instantly forgo the opportunity of discovering the truth and wonder that is naturally there to explore and appreciate.
Suzanne your example shows how very much we limit ourselves by expecting things have to be a certain way and how we are influenced by the image of beauty that we have. I would with certainty say that you probably would have been disappointed too if the mountains had been as you had expected, because how could one place in the world possibly be exactly like another?
I agree with you, Suzanne, having expectation being a way of controlling a situation, and I have had plenty of experience to say that trying to control a situation is frustration breeding and robs me of joy that life has otherwise on offer.
Expectations are super harmful to those on both ends of the expectation – The expector will either be under a false elation or a disappointment and the expectee will feel the enormous pressure that the expectation brings