Frustrated Expectations

It is our expectations of life that get us in trouble! If you didn't go into situations expecting things to go your way you wouldn't get so upset when they often don't. Expectations are a disease that we all have to varying degrees. Controlling dictator types are the worst, but you have it too, even in small things. We want family to behave certain ways, our work to go our way, even the weather to please us. 

It's all a set up for frustration and resentment. But we can do something about it. 

Transcript

A man told me about his birthday. He took off from work to get some important errands done. They went all wrong and took three times as long as he expected. Then on arriving home he walked into damages and mess his family had made while he was gone. Nothing about his birthday went the way he expected.

One of the really frustrating things about life is that how we would like things to work out and how things actually turn out is often very different. You can name whatever situation you are experiencing: It can be aging and the aches, pains, and medical trips that go with that. We envisioned life going smoothly but it just doesn't do that all the time. It can be parenting a small child and how the expectations of being a parent and the expectations of your particular child often are dashed on the rocks of reality. Simple things and big things. We expect political, religious, and business leaders to lead, not be immature and selfish. When we hear a forecast for sun and we get rain instead, we are frustrated. How we would like things to work out and how things actually work is often very different. 

It is hard to live every day if we have really tight cling to our expectations. in fact expectations are the one thing that is required for getting angry. We never get angry if we don't have expectations that fail to be met. So, say something happens on the highway with another driver, or in your home with your family members and you expected it to go one way, and it goes a different way. You get angry, don't you? At least sometimes you get angry sometimes we just sort of wince and move on but often we really expected things to work out a certain way and it was hard to imagine that it could possibly go another way, and then it does. 

The answer is not to have no expectations; that's very unrealistic. We all have expectations most of which are unconscious. We walk into a situation expecting it to go a certain way but unaware that we expect it to go a certain way until it doesn't, and then we react.

Have you ever said about someone “she's so controlling”? Or has someone said about you that you can be really controlling? The truth is everybody is controlling at some level. Meaning we want life to go as we want it to go, we don't want surprises, and we feel more secure when we can lay out a plan and have it work out. The confounding thing about that is many times in life we can make a plan and work it out but too often our plans go like the old joke: Man plans and God laughs. This saying reminds us that many times our plans are frustrated, and things don't go out the way we want them to go. 

So, you're thinking to this point Jay has not said anything new; there's nothing here that everybody doesn't already know. Maybe, but I'm coming from sitting with clients who have expectations that have resulted in breakup of families, or lost jobs, even legal trouble. Some expectations have resulted in violence, and you can see it all around you. Violence is just extreme anger so when there is violence someone is trying to force things to go the way they want them to go because they can't even imagine accepting the way things are. A good guide for life is the serenity prayer. It says, “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” The focus here is on that first phrase, finding serenity from God about the things I can't change. When we can live in a way that is accepting. It is not endorsing, not happy about how certain things happen but allowing that this is the way it is. That is so much more peaceful way to live; when we are constantly fighting reality we live in an unreal world.

Get still with me for a few minutes. If you are moving about as you listen only do what you can do safely, not endangering yourself or others. 

Find a comfortable place to land and settle in. Close your eyes or choose a focus point so you may redirect your mental attention to your other senses. Scan your body for tension and relax as much as possible. Scan from head to toes and let go of tense spots. If you have areas of pain, relax all around them, don’t get stuck trying to let go of pain if it won’t go. Take a few moments to accept what is right now. However you feel and whatever you have been thinking is okay. Don’t try to stop thinking, just make an effort to relax and redirect your attention.

Now let yourself recall a time you were frustrated. The word frustrated, means kept from something you wanted. So, remember being frustrated. How did it feel? Did the frustration locate in your body somewhere? Tight fists? Heaviness in the chest? Belly? Somewhere else? Investigate what you expected that you did not get. Sit with that a minute; think about it. Was it realistic? Picture yourself accepting that outcome with serenity. Accepting doesn’t mean liking or choosing, but it does mean not fighting reality. Serenity comes from the release, the letting go. What is it that you need to let go?