Thank you for coming to the third installment of thriving in difficult times! If you'd like a quick recap of what we're going to learn to do over the next couple of weeks, click here. We've discussed step one, are you being real with yourself? You'll definitely want to check that out if you haven't (here) because we're about to build on that step with step 2! This week we're discussing your expectations.
So you put in all your time and effort only to be rewarded with a big fat flop? You worked hard on the presentation and the boss wasn't impressed. You hand-made goodies to send as presents only to have your hard work harshly critiqued? Perhaps it is more personal than that? You poured your heart and soul into a relationship then discovered that you're the only one who valued the relationship. You worked hard, you expected something good, and it didn't happen. Or maybe you have high expectations of yourself. You're hard on yourself. You expect yourself to give 110% and when it doesn't happen, you feel like a failure. I understand how you feel. Remember, you're talking to me, right? The girl with the pee and coffee-scented Christmas.
Quick recap, at Christmas, we generally spend time with family. Like many this last year, we chose not to do so. I determined not to let the change get me down. In my usual fashion, I had tons of expectations. I decided that Christmas would be magical, intimate ( the husband and myself). It would be filled with yummy homemade food. Then, I would spend the candlelight evening cuddling my sweet hubby and perfectly behaved pets. Nope. I woke up early to get baking underway only to encounter cat pee. Then another cat decided to push my coffee off of my desk while cleaning the aforementioned cat pee. While cooking, I had to throw a whole batch of goodies out because a certain kitten wanted to sample what I was baking. I found myself surrounded by playful kitties, spilled flour, and a complete mess. My place lost power several times while baking. As you can imagine, this yields interesting baking results. I was in Christmas hell. My darling hubby slept through it all, that is, until I yelled at him for sleeping while I was being assaulted by cats demons. Feeling broken down, ashamed, and defeated, my expectations shattered. Expectations are tricky little things.
Why are expectations tricky? They're tricky because they aren't all bad. In fact, they are necessary at times. Like eating, I used to think that if I could quit eating, things would be perfect. That isn't realistic, nor is the idea of having no expectations. How do we bounce back from our own personal Christmas hell and thrive?
It is vital to understand that there's a time and place for expectations. We need expectations to set healthy behavioral boundaries. For example, I expect my guests not to rob my house. That's a healthy reasonable expectation. Another healthy expectation is that, by working well at my job, I expect I will earn a raise (fill in the blank with recognition, clients, bonuses). Finally, expectations govern all our relationships. My boss expects me to show up when I say I will do so. My husband and I expect each other to communicate. I expect my friends and me to make time for each other. Of course, there are nuances to these expectations and allowances required. For instance, if I am dying of the black plague, then I am expected to contact my boss on time and not make an appearance at work. Or, if the husband is sick, this isn't the best time to discuss the fact that his leaving power tools all over the house drive me bonkers. We do need expectations to set boundaries, achieve goals, and govern relationships.
Things definitely go wrong. This will happen whether your expectations are healthy or not. However, it helps to know where your expectations fall on the spectrum to bounce back more quickly. To figure out where we are on the spectrum, we need to ask ourselves a few questions about our busted expectations.
Here are the tools we are going to apply:
First, I got real with myself – how am I doing (basic needs and emotions) and how did I get here? You can read more about this step here.
Secondly, given that I got real with myself, what are my expectations? How can I go forward now?
I had to get real with myself. Physically, how was I doing? Not great. I was super tired from working hard the night before Christmas. I was super frustrated after my old senior citizen cat had his little pee-pee problem. That frustration leaked into everything I touched. My car had broken down a day before so I wasn't able to buy the food that I had originally planned to make for Christmas. I was winging the food thing but expecting Martha Stewart's results. Repeatedly going out into the rain to fix the circuit breakers improved my mood. Especially when I came back in and found the cat licking the spoons for me. I felt upset, disappointed, and bitter over various circumstances. I felt like a failure. I didn't want to admit it because it felt like I was giving in. It wasn't giving in. It was getting real.
Now that you've gotten in touch with yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally, we can progress to the next step of healing! Ask yourself, is your expectation realistic? I often expect myself to perform perfectly, all the time. I'm the sort of person that picks up an instrument for the first time and expects to be Mozart. That's just not realistic. In your mind, imagine your friend coming to you with your same shattered expectation and test it. What would you tell that friend? If you aren't able to discern the validity of your expectation, ask someone. Ask a trusted friend. If you don't have someone to bounce ideas off of, leave a comment on this blog or email me at the360lifejourney@gmail.com.
A good couple of guidelines on realistic expectations Nicole Charisse here. She breaks expectations down and you can take her steps to turn unrealistic expectations into healthy things. To summarize the article:
What are you expecting yourself to do?
If you are expecting perfection, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Generally, I find that a big warning sign regarding expectations is when I start to say the word "should". I should make this the best Christmas ever! I shouldn't admit that it is rough. I shouldn't admit that lack of transportation, last-minute changes of plan, mini-disasters, and power issues are impacting the day. Marisa Peer often says that "should is shit". She says this for good reason! "Should" is a word we use to shame and blame ourselves and others. Don't get me wrong; wallowing in self-pity and misery isn't a good idea. Sometimes we need to grieve disappointments and then work to make the best of them. More on that later.
If your expectations of yourself seem healthy and based in reality to you (get a second opinion if you're not sure), then move to step 2 below!
2. What do you expect others to do?
If you are expecting them to anticipate your needs, you're shooting yourself and someone else in the foot. I somehow expected that my husband would use his amazing hubby senses. While asleep, they'd alert him to the difficulties facing me. I could've woken him and asked for help. I could've told him that the power was going out and I needed him to keep the kitties out of the food. I could've put the food away, waited for him to get up, and vented about what happened while we cooked our Christmas feast together.
Other times, your expectations might be reasonable, such as in the case of expecting guests not to rob your house. If this is you, move on to step three below.
3. Finally, what do you expect from the event/situation?
Perfection, magic? The best Christmas ever? I expected the best Christmas ever. I expected the Hallmark channel! We'd all snuggle in comfortable loungewear while sipping hot cocoa (the hubby can't even drink that), in front of a fire (we didn't have), and nibble on beautiful Christmas hams decorated with pineapples and cherries (I hadn't bought). My expectations were lunacy!
Still, you might have had healthy expectations for an event/situation and it went bad! If that is you, it is time to skip to the next paragraph below.
Finally, after going through our expectations, it is time to go forward with our lives. How? By accepting what is right now. I can hear people shudder as they read this, but I promise I'm not going to bombard you with toxic positivity. It doesn't help. It shames hurt people into feeling inadequate. I can promise you that acceptance applies to unrealistic and realistic expectations. People have a great deal of confusion about this concept, but acceptance isn't as complex as we think. Humans are complex. Acceptance is not. Sometimes, acceptance is accepting that we aren't ok with what is happening at all! This is tough but imperative. I'll explain how it works.
We have a couple of types of situations. Some are easily accepted, some are not easily accepted, and some are unacceptable.
I won't spend much time on the easily accepted situations, except to say, enjoy them! Enjoy those times where everything feels right with the world!
Now I do want to discuss the situations that are not easily accepted. These are the ones that people tend to bump into the most often. After you've figured out if your expectations were realistic or not, we need to jump the next hurdle. We do that by asking ourselves:
Is there anything else I can do? Using my Christmas fiasco as an example, I realized that I did what I could with what I had. Meal plans had to change at the last minute (no car for grocery shopping). That was out of my control. I used what I had on hand. Cats will be cats. Old cats are apparently leaky. All I could do was clean up and run damage control. I'm not an electrician and couldn't fix the wonky power situation we're in (long story). I adapted to it and the food was eventually finished.
Eckhart Tolle often uses the example of going to a restaurant and ordering soup. The server comes back and hands you the soup you ordered but it is cold. Acceptance doesn't mean you eat your cold soup. It means that you politely ask the server if there's any hot soup available. The soup is out of your control, but you can still take action. If there is hot soup, great! Eat your hot soup. If there isn't hot soup available, you get to decide if you want something else or if you're fine with cold soup. You make a choice and accept that choice.
Is there anything good coming out of this? Look for the good! I learned that I can adapt to some crazy things! I made some delicious food and eventually laughed about the whole ordeal with the husband. I also learned a lot about my emotions and that I'm a little too hard on myself. Next time, I'll think over my expectations of the situation and go a healthier way.
Sometimes we're stuck in a horrible situation. A situation we don't want to accept. Perhaps a loved one is dying or the end of a relationship. Let's talk about those times.
First of all, get real with yourself here and accept that you don't accept it. Don't "should" yourself to death. Allow yourself to feel whatever it is your feeling. Try not to categorize the emotions as good or bad. They're just there. That's fine. You're human, remember?
Then ask yourself, what can I do right now? The situation may be out of your control and that is ok. We're humans. That's part of getting real with ourselves. Let's go back to basics. Have you eaten? Slept? If you can't sleep, can you rest? Have you let yourself cry? Are you comforting others and allowing yourself to be comforted? Sometimes, thriving in a difficult situation means doing what we can (basic as eating and sleeping). Give yourself a little credit for living through this.
I want to give you an example of dealing with a traumatic situation and broken expectations from my own life. I do this in the hope that it helps you apply these ideas. Once upon a time, I had a roommate. I loved (and still love) this person very much. Unfortunately, they chose a very hazardous life path. It involved theft (go to stores and shoplifting clothes) and hard drugs (discovered them using heroin in my home). My expectations of the person were healthy; do not use illegal drugs in our house. I attempted to speak to them about it, but my attempts to help the person met with hostility. It caused strife among everyone and created a dangerous living situation. I couldn't change the person. That is out of my control.
I still had choices. I could carry on and enable a bad situation or I could leave it. My choice was to no longer have this person in my life or home. It broke my heart. It was unacceptable to me for a long time. I had to accept that I couldn't accept it.
It took two years, but I've moved from "accepting I can't accept this" to accepting it. It still makes me sad. Yet, I can now see the good that came out of it, good that I couldn't see before. I can see relationships that strengthened. We all supported each other through a terrible time. Love grew between us. Finally, I can see the great love that I will always have for that person who has headed down their own dangerous path. Though it still hurts, I can now smile softly at the precious pain of it and cherish my love for them. I can stand tall, knowing I asserted healthy boundaries and protected myself and my family.
I wish you the best, my friend. How are you doing? Please don't hesitate to leave me a comment with thoughts, feeling, advice, or questions. You can leave them here or you can email me. I can't wait to tackle the next step of thriving during difficult times with you next week. Next week we're learning to have compassion for ourselves. I will see you soon.
Resources of Interest:
Eckhart Tolle - Oprah - The two types of complaining - http://www.oprah.com/own-a-new-earth/eckhart-tolle-on-the-two-kinds-of-complaining-video_1
Great article about setting realistic expectations by Nicole Charisse: https://www.finerminds.com/mind-power/3-guidelines-setting-realistic-expectations
The French Art of Not Giving a Sh*t: Cut the Crap and Live Your Life by Fabrice Midal
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz