Expectations, Attachments and Disappointment

Today's blog is about something we all experience from time to time. Yes, the dreaded disappointment. During one of my journey experiences I realized that a part of me expected people to disappoint me. That was a biggie for me. I know that if I expect that, I will not be disappointed. Haha! We must understand that if we expect things to be a certain way, we are holding a kind of container for that to happen. If what we expected was something good, that we wanted, maybe it wouldn’t necessarily be such a problem but more often than not, it seems we are expecting something we really don’t want. Obviously I don't want people to disappoint me, who does. I was determined to unravel how I had developed that kind of expectation and the quick answer was because I had been disappointed many times. Again, who hasn't but it was more than that. And it is an ongoing unraveling that I hope is coming to its conclusion as I continue to process Mark, my boyfriend's unexpected death. I’m not a needy person and it takes alot for me to ask for help but I’m getting better at it. I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine I had some disappointment when Mark died. I think it’s normal and very understandable. What I didn’t expect was the lack of support from some key people in my life. And it has taken me a lot of quiet time with myself to make any kind of sense out of it. I sat down one evening and wrote down my story about what had happened with a couple of these people. That night I wrote down three stories about three things going on in my life. I closed the computer and went to bed. The next evening I opened my computer and re-read each story. My first thought was who wrote that BS! So I again got present with what I was willing to carry forward in my life in terms of my understanding of what was happening. It was a powerful process and I highly recommend it to you. If something is bothering you, sit down and write your story about it. Leave it over night and come back the next day and read it. I promise you, you will want to make some changes to the story the next day and they will be upgrades. I read them again before I sat down to prepare this blog and I’m still good with all three stories. One of them has just dropped out of my life totally which I know is what is best for all. Letting go is a skill. And it’s one we all need. I’m a Scorpio and like all fixed signs, shifting gears isn’t always as easy or fast as with a mutable sign like Virgo. But I know we have the opportunity to complete so much right now and there is a lot of support from the cosmos for us to do so. 

Whenever we feel disappointed, there can often be an unfulfilled expectation that causes that disappointment. We may have expected someone to say or do something they didn’t for example. In my case, it was more that I thought I knew who these people were and I found out I didn’t. To go along with that was that I was comparing what I would do with what they did not do which doesn’t really sound like a great idea as I say it so it’s probably safe to say that’s not going to work out the way we want either. And on some level, disappointment is about not getting what we want. Right? It changes it to shift those perceptions. 

Yoga is pretty clear about expectations. If our expectations are not met, we get disappointed so if we leave out the expectations, it looks like we will be in a more pleasant position to move through any situation. We are never going to have all of our expectations met! And if we free ourselves from having them in the first place and decide to just be fully present in whatever unfolds, we will be able to respond rather than react and more easily let go of things needing to be the way we want them to be. If I’m giving you something and I get upset if you don’t say thank you, why bother? Giving for the joy of giving is much more satisfying as far as I’m concerned. The same goes for me doing something for you so I can ask you to do something for me at some future time and getting upset if you don’t. These are some of the ways expectations cause problems. Non attachment if the same. If I give you something because I want you to give something to me in return, this is a recipe for various misunderstandings and disturbances in your relationships. 

I realized today that my disappointment has faded into a deeper understanding of how to let people be who they are.They will show you. Believe them. It’s also absolutely possible you only knew them as well as they allowed you to or that you misinterpreted something somewhere along the line. It doesn’t make them bad people. Just human. And It’s also possible they simply were not capable of what you wanted or needed or chose not to be involved for whatever reason they had. The bottom line is their behavior is about them and who they are. Taking things personally is never a good idea.It’s good to check in on that one regularly.