150: Life’s Expectations
What are our expectations for our life?
What was your expectation for your life? And is your expectation meeting reality right now?
As Brene Brown has said, Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
I don’t believe this means we can’t have any expectations for our lives, or we just have to lower our expectations so that we have no opinion, purpose, or dreams. But noticing that your expectations for your life is what causes a lot of suffering.
What should your life look like? What is it supposed to look like? What is supposed to happen? What is not supposed to happen?
These expectations set you up for what you believe to happen in your life, and the reality of it is, if your expectations are shattered, it probably has not happened. If you are listening to this podcast, maybe you have had the expectation that children shouldn’t die before their parents. The natural order of things is that your children should die after you. That makes sense right?
It makes sense, until that’s not our reality. This is our life. This is what has happened to us. I get the fight. If you are in the place of fighting with your reality, I get it, and fight away. I get what it’s like to refuse to accept that this has happened and to not want to accept it. That’s okay too.
I’ve been there myself, and worked with countless women, one mother described it as living in two parallel realities, one knowing what is real and what has happened, and the other not wanting this to be her life, wishing it were different, fighting that it’s true.
But with that fighting of reality comes a lot of suffering. A lot of struggle. A lot of turmoil because you are fighting with something that you cannot change. If you have the belief that children shouldn’t die before their parents and they do, how do you make sense of that?The reality is that many children die before their parents. Is it horrible, sad, painful, yes, but who is to say it shouldn’t happen? Because it does. Every single day. The pain is intense and horrible, and yet it happens over and over and over again. And we can’t change that.
What did you expect your marriage to look like? Your family to look like? Your life look like? These are the layers of grief that we might have in our lives. Because maybe it looks different than you expected. Maybe it’s not like how you thought it would be.
Grief permeates all of these, and when you can allow for space for that sadness, acknowledging that this is not how you expected your life to be, you can absolutely allow yourself to be in that space of grieving the loss of the expectation of what you thought it would be.
When you are in that turmoil, notice if you are putting a bunch of garbage on top of that turmoil with thoughts like, why is this so hard? What’s wrong with me? Things that significantly increase the pain.What if you could just allow yourself to be present in the emotion you are feeling now? Without resistance or judgment? Just allowing yourself to be exactly where you are at. Letting yourself grieve the expectations that you have had for your life. Allowing yourself to feel the pain that your life has not gone the way you thought it would. Allowing yourself to acknowledge that you’re hurt, in pain, broken.
So notice what your expectations have been. Notice what they are. Notice how you feel surrounding them.
Notice, if you can grieve them, and as you grieve those expectations of what you thought your life would look like, if you can begin to open up to acceptance of what your life is.
I just had a client message me that she is finally beginning to open her mind just a bit to what IS in my life rather than what I thought it would be. This is a place many of us have to start at, as the dreams we had, the plans we had especially because none of us plan on our child dying, and it feels so unnatural and against the order of things, it’s hard to accept our life as it is.
But Nothing can ever change, until you find some sort of acceptance for where you are at right now.
Start with being exactly where you are at, being in this moment, acknowledging the pain you have, and the expectations you’ve had.
Expectations are not always bad, just be aware of what your expectations are, and notice if they are causing you undue suffering. And notice if you are ready to change your expectations, of yourself, of your grief, of your life, whatever it is. It doesn’t mean you have to “lower your expectations” but notice if they can shift or change at all.
Until next time friends I’ll see you next week!
If you like this podcast, and found it helpful, I want to invite you come check out Grieving Moms Haven, my monthly community for Grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms, find a safe space with others who understand, and learn life long skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.
There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breathwork, and just talk, knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss
You can come check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com
