Tag Archive for: The Thriving Studio

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The Trouble with Assumptions and Expectations

Assumptions and expectations carry the same fatal flaw – they create a preconceived notion about the future that we relate to as if it is reality. Then as the situation unfolds and doesn’t match our assumption or expectation we are caught off-guard and are unprepared for what has happened. Typically, the distance between reality and our imagined future gets filled with negative emotional reactions.

The insidious part of this is that it is usually happening without our awareness, and we end up blaming and judging others for not measuring up to our imagined reality. By setting up preconceived notions about how we want our experiences to be, we plant the seeds of our own unhappiness. 

Consider the following scenario: Jane and Nash are on their third date. He picks her up in his car, they have a nice time together at dinner, go to a comedy club, and then to a bar for drinks. He invites her to come home with him away from the city where she lives. She’s caught off-guard, not on the same page in terms of where they are in the relationship, panics, and says no. He’s annoyed and sarcastically suggests she pay for their drinks, cuts the evening short, and sends her home in an Uber. Nash had an agenda – he assumed that they would have sex on their third date and expected her to say yes. When she didn’t, he was mad and acted that out by having her pay for the drinks and go home in a cab. His preconceived reality did not have room in it for her to behave any differently than he wanted her to.

How might this have looked if he wasn’t operating out of expectations and assumptions? Here are two possibilities. Had Nash been more tuned in to Jane’s reality he might have realized she wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the next level. Instead of inviting her home, he could have affirmed his affection for her and asked her how she was feeling about their relationship. Or he might have gone ahead with his invitation but been open-minded about her response. In either of these two alternate scenarios, Nash would have been staying present in the moment and emotionally open and free in relationship to Jane’s experience. His focus would be more on wanting to know her better than demanding that she want what he wants when he wants it.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself:

  • Where do expectations and assumptions get in my way? 
  • Do I or someone I know behave in a way that is “my way or the highway”? 
  • Do I have any personal or professional relationships that repeatedly get snagged in misunderstandings, judgements, or a lack of cooperation? Do I see patterns of assumptions and expectations on either side that are preventing a healthy, present-in-the-moment flow in the relationship?
  • In what ways do I demand that reality be the way I want it to be rather than the way it is?
  • What can I do to be more trusting of my ability to adapt to the realities of my life?

Please share some of the ways that you see assumptions and expectations getting in the way in your life. By sharing our experiences, we help each other.

For further insight into mastering the art of being you, read more here.  If you’re feeling social, I also provide daily wisdom and tidbits on my Instagram account. Give me a follow so we can thrive together!

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Leaving the Past Behind

We all have scars from our past. But what do we do with them now? That’s a really important question. In mentoring clients, I typically find that their current distress mirrors unresolved upsets from the past. For example, a woman who was never able to feel loved by her father might be drawing men to her with whom she also fails to experience love. Why does this happen? Think of it as a karmic pattern that is seeking healing. Your life will continue to replicate an unresolved situation until you are able to neutralize the state of consciousness from which you relate to it.

One of my clients who was caught in such a pattern convinced herself that she was fundamentally unlovable. As I observed her I noticed that she was turned off by men who liked her and attracted to those who gave her no encouragement. Could it be that she was simply staying in her comfort zone? This is counter-intuitive but typical. She knew herself as a woman who was rejected by the men whose affection she wanted, and that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She didn’t know how to be a woman loved by men. Through her eyes as a child, she recognized that her father didn’t show her love. But she had falsely concluded that the reason was because she was unlovable, rather than that he had difficulty expressing his caring for others. Then she carried that unchallenged belief forward into adulthood.

Once she was able to see how the faulty conclusion of her past was inhibiting her from experiencing love in the present, she realized that she had the power to change how she saw herself. She began taking pride in herself and replacing her old, self-rejecting belief with appreciation for her own goodness. As a result the affection of good men became desirable to her.  She stepped out of the belief that she was unlovable. She left the past behind. When I asked her what life lessons this had taught her, she told me she learned to pay attention to her own beliefs about herself when in situations that were difficult for her to see if she was sabotaging herself.

I had a similar situation during a recent weight loss journey. I reached a plateau and couldn’t get the scale to move despite following all the rules. In observing myself, I realized the issue was emotional. In listening to my self-talk, I kept hearing, “I don’t know her.” When I explored this, I recognized that I was afraid to go past that particular number on the scale because in my mind it represented a level of success with which I was not comfortable. I knew how to be almost successful, but I didn’t know how to go for and get the brass ring of success. It took several months before I was able to break through this barrier. Now I am learning new life skills and a level of self-trust that was not  apparent to me before. When we become too familiar with failure, we have to push through our own resistance to the unfamiliar territory of success.

Leaving the past behind often requires that we recognize the ways we sabotage ourselves out of fear of moving into the unknown. Being good at failing and being disappointed doesn’t mean you can’t also be really good at success and exceeding your dreams. It simply requires a new point of view.

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Women Who Doubt Themselves

 

I’ve never met a woman who didn’t doubt herself in some way.  Our doubts and fears can either paralyze us or we can learn to hold steady in their presence, assess their content, diminish their power and move forward in spite of them.  It all boils down to how much power we give our doubts and fears.

 

It helps to know what doubts and fears are and that they really have a positive side to them. Imagine being a little girl who is just learning to walk and those moments when you maybe took a few steps farther away from your mom than you were comfortable with and ran back and threw your arms around her thigh.  Safety!  That’s the feeling of our comfort zone.  It’s largely an unconscious pull to stay where we feel safe and able to manage the options of what is familiar.  But, stepping outside into the unknown territory of what might happen if you move too far away from the familiar can be disorienting, unsettling and scary.  Crossing that line is when doubts and fears can either send you running for the safety of the familiar or present you with the opportunity to expand your comfort zone.

Think of doubts and fears as simply red flags that alert you to the fact that you are entering your uncomfortable zone.  “Get back! Get back!” they scream.  Imagine that instead of impulsively running back to safety you simply said, “Oh, thank you.  It’s OK.  I’ll take a look and decide what to do.”  What if you developed sufficient confidence and trust in your own ability to effectively evaluate whatever possible challenge comes your way and no longer felt the need to run for safety?  What if you began to feel safe even in the presence of doubts and fears?

Consider the fact that doubts and fears are nothing but figments of your own imagination.  They are the creation of thoughts and pictures in your mind that represent what you are most afraid will happen if you don’t run back to safety.  Perhaps you have heard the acronyms for the word Fear:

Fantasy Expectations Appearing Real

False Evidence Appearing Real

The sense of reality that fears carry is solely fueled by emotional investment in these possibilities.  Indeed, we can talk ourselves into or out of just about anything.

Most of us have autopilot responses to our fears – a set point of how much uncertainty and fearful possibilities we can tolerate.  But guess what?  You can change the setting!  Just start creating and investing in some positive figments of your imagination and start investing in them emotionally.  Dialogue with your fears.

There is also the fine art of pretending to not be afraid – feeling the fear and doing whatever it is you are afraid of anyway.  That’s something I learned to do as a young child as the youngest of three siblings.  My mother used to tell stories of how she would take us to the doctors to get a shot and the other two would run and hide from the doctor and I would step forward in front of him, puff out my chest, put my hands on my hips and declare, “I’m not afraid!”  But the truth was I was just as fearful as they were – it was my way of pretending to be more grown up than I was in hopes that they would accept and include me more.

Other great techniques to stabilize yourself in the presence of fear include such things as breathing into the fear, acknowledging the fear and consciously choosing to override it by creating more favorable imaginings and choosing to maintain your sense of well-being in the presence of doubts and fears.  Remember, fears and doubts are just doing their job to help you feel safe inside so they throw up scary images whenever you are overstepping your comfort zone.  But here’s the deal – we never know until we try.  Look at your life and ask yourself are there things I really want to experience that I am forfeiting for the sake of feeling comfortable? What do I need to do to reassure myself when I get afraid or start second-guessing myself?  It’s your choice – keep running for safety or explore and expand and find out what you are capable of doing, having and being.  Playing it safe costs you a world of possibilities.

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