Expectations Ruin Everything!

05 Jun Expectations Ruin Everything!

Posted at 23:40h in Meditations & Mindset by

Do you ever have an expectation that something’s going to happen a certain way, and then everything gets messed up, leaving you disappointed?

Last week after teaching a bunch of classes, practicing yoga, and taking a new karate class, I hit a wall. All evening and night I was trying to figure out how I was going to get through the next day. How was I going to pull through and show up for others, who were counting on me? Well the next day, I had plenty of energy.  My classes went awesome!!! I’d worried for nothing. I was so looking forward to the weekend.  We had a big group dinner planned with great friends at the best Indian restaurant on Friday, and my husband and I had a big date planned for Saturday – on the books for a month – daughter sleeping over for her best friend’s birthday. I was so excited, so looking forward to these fun events after a rough week. I got everything done beforehand: office work/billing, housework, cleaned the car, food shopping done just in the nick of time. And guess what. Daughter got sick. Can’t go. Within 2 days, I’d experienced dreading the worst and getting an awesome outcome, thinking the best, and getting let down.

What about yoga? Ever have a class that you think you’re going to ROCK?  Nail that pose you’ve been working on, or just have the space to focus and let go of the monkey mind for a bit? But it doesn’t go like that. You don’t have the energy you thought you would. Child’s pose is your best friend instead. What if there’s a sub, that person next to you who reeks of perfume or mildew, your mind is all over the place and so is your balance???  Conversely, you might be feeling low energy, or in a bad mood, and end up having the best practice ever!

Every time you set up an expectation–whether good or bad–you take yourself out of the present moment.  How many times do you worry, only to find out that the worst didn’t happen? Or, even if the worst did happen, in retrospect, it made sense for necessary growth in your life.

Set yourself up for a perfect or rigid scenario, and you’ll often be let down. Expectations ruin everything. Life doesn’t work like that. It’s cyclical and filled with twists and turns, ups and downs.

So then. What do you do? Recognize the moment you sense an expectation creeping up (whether negative OR positive). Quicken the time it takes you to let go of it.  Recalibrate your mental state back to the present. Enjoy the ride and see what happens, right as you live it.

Kelli Russell
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