Practice 15

Releasing Expectations

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
~ Alexander Pope

Expectations are ways our ego seeks to gain control of what are largely uncontrollable circumstances.

They’re the game of giving away your power to the external, rather than internal source of your happiness. When we have an expectation of someone, or something we want to happen, we are postponing our sense of wellbeing for a potential future event that is ultimately beyond our control.

We don’t often recognize that placing expectations on ourselves or others starts with an assumption or judgment that the present situation is lacking or wrong in some way, and we believe that is keeping us from being happy. And we expect that when the situation is changed or fixed, we can finally be happy. But our ego-self always feels that lack inside and will soon find something else that is wrong, even if our expectations are met.

For most of us, defeated expectations are the more likely explanation for our unhappiness. For example, we have cherished dreams that don’t come true that we feel hopelessly attached to. This is a common thing in romantic relationships. We expect to be happy once we find the right partner, and when each relationship falls short of those expectations, we feel hurt and confused. By holding our partners accountable to our expectations of them, we drive them further from their authenticity, which makes them unhappy too.

Expectations are a manifestation of conditional love. Something that looks like, “if you do this and that happens, I will feel happy. If you don’t and it doesn’t, you’ve made me disappointed and sad.” This is an example of the opposite of mindfulness—not being with ‘what is.’ You’ve made someone or something else responsible for your happiness.

Expectations, unless formally agreed upon by all parties involved, require making assumptions about what condition your expectant party (partner, person, weather, virus, etc.) is in, and are often projected from your insecurities. In relationships, our subconscious goes something like, “I feel insecure about whether or not my partner loves me, so if they act in this way, it will confirm my suspicions.” Our shadow being projected in this example is one where we aren’t experiencing enough of our own love, so we seek to source it from others to replace what is lacking. These expectations are how our ego attempts to source things it views are lacking within, from others. In relating this way, we end up driving ourselves and those who we expect from, a bit crazy. They feel judged and can begin acting inauthentically, behaving in ways that anticipate your expectations—inhibiting expressions/behaviors that will possibly garner your disapproval. This creates the '“walking on eggshells” effect in a household.

Expectations are going in a direction away from presence, as they are constructed out of clinging to future outcomes rather than accepting the present circumstances.

Keeping an expectational relationship with the world around you leads to suffering and is a coping mechanism for not dealing with your shadow—insecurities, sense of lack and unworthiness. They originate from your beliefs stemming from a lack trust that the Universe will always provide exactly what you need, even if it doesn’t look like what you wanted. Letting go of expectational ways of relating means becoming more responsible for your feelings of inadequacy and insecurity and creating better ways of communicating your desires and feelings.

With expectations about situations instead of people, we have simply lost sight of the fact that we cannot control the outside world in order to create a conceptual experience of happiness. We have forgotten that sustainable happiness isn’t conceptual at all and instead comes from a compassionate, loving, presence-based relationship with ourselves.

We hope, we anticipate, we desire certain outcomes as part of the human experience. By the same token, despite our best efforts, ambitions and expectations for success can end in failure, perhaps making us wonder why we weren’t the lucky ones who were given the secrets of success. And then there are the ways we fall short of the expectations we set for our self—our social behavior and habits.  We have the expectation that if we were a better person, that we would be happy. But because we judge our current behavior as imperfect or lacking, we feel a dissatisfaction—an unhappiness within.

It seems reasonable then, that living without expectations could be the key to happiness. But most people are mystified by this solution. They equate a state of no expectations in negative ways—lack of ambition, asking for too little out of life, feeling alone and lonely. So we have to reframe how expectations actually work. When reframed, having no expectations means that you live in the here and now. In other words, expecting nothing is a state of openness to everything.

You may know someone who habitually talks about how they are “too old” for something, or how there’s some (fill-in-the-blank) reason they can’t or won't do something. Once they’ve made up their mind, that it’s not available to them, that belief is usually upheld.  On the other hand, some of the most vibrant, active people seem younger than their years because they approach the world from a place of possibility and openness. It’s this attitude and limiting-belief release that can help open you up from a place of disappointment. Doing so, leads you into a place where you can find the teaching or lesson that shows you more of who you are—the thing that doesn’t look like what your expectations were searching for, but is much more valuable to your soul than getting the situation you expected to have.

If you experience every moment as a time of freshness and renewal, there are no expectations about the passage of time. Even death itself becomes nothing to expect or anticipate. Anyone who has been through a crisis and comes out the other end will attest that anticipating the dire outcome was much worse than experiencing it. Expectations don’t call upon our inner resilience, inner strength, the ability to cope, or the support of others. Instead, expectation is the ego’s way of  creating an imaginary reality.

The ego likes to serve up the worst possible outcomes and scenarios. It may seem like it’s helping you prepare yourself for the impending situation, when really it’s stirring up unnecessary stress, chaos, and turbulence which takes a toll on you emotionally, mentally, and physically. It substitutes images for actual experiences.

In addition, expectations make us stuck in fear and contraction.

We can also hold universal beliefs about the world that limit ‘what we think is possible’ as a form of expectations. For example, you may hear someone or yourself say, “I knew this was going to happen.” The answer to that is, “and what good did it do you when it did happen?” Expectations such as these are like being defeated in advance. As the late Wayne Dyer wisely said, “Your thoughts, not the world, cause your stress.” When you expect the worst, you don’t allow positivity to flow in your life—and you end up spending precious time worrying about something that may not even happen. 

What would life be like if you released your expectations—of relationships, other people, social situations, jobs, the Universe, and yourself? If you released your preferences and fears—and instead, directed your mind to focus on the present moment—what would happen? When you expect nothing, you are open to any possibilities that may unfold, untethered to a specific outcome. When you approach life with this kind of openness, you are more likely to be energized by any outcome and less likely to be disappointed by, and judgmental of life as it unfolds. You are also more likely to take setbacks in stride and manage your stress levels in a healthy way. Releasing expectations then, can be linked to being content in the present moment—exactly as it is, with no attachment to what the next moment will bring.