 An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. This might sound like a belief that could be helpful in achieving your goals, and we would agree that some sense of what’s next is always present in your awareness. However, expectations that are tightly held as a necessary future outcome are more likely to serve as distractions from just being present in the moment that is now.
All of you have expectations about most things, in fact, we would suggest that most expectations are thoughts which originate as memories and with unconscious cultivation, become expectations of future experience. Expectations readily become a pattern of thinking—it is always easy to get lost in your expectations. If you come to understand the mechanics of how you unconsciously lock yourself into patterns of thought and expectations that do not serve you, you can find effective ways to free yourself from those patterns and expectations. Many patterns of thought have arisen as a defense built around memories of some part of you that has been wounded. You set up expectations to avoid the pains of your past, as revealed by your memories of past experiences. It is easy to think that whatever happened before will happen again, even in the midst of contrary evidence. Expecting a hurtful outcome can contribute to a revisiting of painful experiences of the past. However, once you see yourself doing this, your spiritual maturity can reveal a deeper truth. You can discover that you no longer need any patterns that have arisen out of fear of future pain, and furthermore, that you no longer need patterns of thought that have anything to do with not being who you really are. Realizing you no longer need these patterns is the first step to releasing yourself from those patterns. Memories which are held in reverence because they are either very painful, or very happy, function more often as structures upon which you build stories upon stories that change over time. These are the stories of self, who you have been in the past, often exaggerating the characteristics of the self, fueled with your judgments about them. The cultivation of stories around memories which are primarily emotional impressions of experience, (experience is only in the present) can sometimes begin to be believed as reality. Most of you believe you remember things as they were, with objectivity, rather than acknowledging that whatever occurred in the past is remembered by a story constructed in the present, and therefore influenced greatly by the present sense of self currently creating the story. So the current sense of self creates the stories of the past, and the judgments of those stories, (how you perceive them to affect you), become the glue that keeps expectations in place. In other words, you naturally assume the next creation of reality constructs will be as you expect them to be, based on your sense of what has been. The judgment of the memory is what holds it in place. These judgments tend to be about whether you want to avoid the memory or grasp on to it tightly. If you free yourself from the judgments you hold around your memories, you free yourself naturally from developing expectations. When you have few expectations, you become free to imagine possibilities. Expectations are thoughts that try to predetermine outcome, and are thereby very limited. Nothing new or unexpected can occur amidst a thought environment of expectations. Expectations of Another Everyone has had expectations of another held in the course of relationship. Any long term relationship can get lost in each individual’s expectations of the other, so that the relationship is not really functioning in the present, but just playing out old expectations that are unconsciously held. An example of this might be a relationship where one person expects not to be heard or taken seriously, and the other person expects to be criticized or evaluated for their degree of emotional connection. One expectation bumps against the other and then there is very little real or deep communication. Expectations of Yourself Everyone has expectations of themselves. At times these expectations can function as goals used to develop motivation to achieve something. That may be a useful employment of the power of expectation. But expectations can get used against yourself if you do not make them flexible. This is especially true if you are unwilling to make adjustments in a moment to moment recognition that expectations, in order to be useful, cannot be rigid and must reflect each moment. The “being/doing’ balance in your life is greatly affected by the amount of flexibility you have in your expectations of yourself. It is not healthy to expect yourself always to be productive or to be strong or to be any other characteristic that you might attach an expectation to. Expectations of your World Everyone has expectations of their world. You expect your world to reflect your sense of peace, or justice, or conflict or injustice. Your world is simply the out-pictured view of yourself, and if you are rigid in your expectations of yourself, you will likely be rigid in your expectations of your world. Then the ‘we are in it together’ notion can be lost. From our perspective, the notions that ‘everyone is in it together’ and that there must be a new balance between the ‘doing’ and the ‘being’ sides of life has developed in many ways amongst many of you without even realizing the power of this development. It has been one of the gifts of the current collective experience, the pandemic. “In it together’ is being reinforced by the wearing of masks, for example. The new balance of doing and being has been artfully crafted with the ‘stay at home’ vs. ‘go out and shop’ dichotomy. All of this is simply the breakdown of old patterns of collective thinking becoming new patterns of collective knowing. And, of course, this is an outer reflection of the depth of transformation occurring inwardly. Letting go of expectations is a practice. First you notice that you are making assumptions and hold ideas about the outcome of communication or activities you are engaged in. Usually this comes on the heels of a memory arising. You may notice also your judgment as to whether you want to hold on or push away that memory. Then, upon these realizations, you simply let go. Let yourself become more present, more able to accept the mystery of life, and simply remember how loved you are. You are so loved by everything and all that is—One Life—that you can relax and know the outcome will be the outcome most appropriate for the present moment. Delight in not knowing what that might be and regain an enthusiasm for the unknown. In this way, you will be who you are and all that you are. It is always simple—just be as loved as you are, and have no expectations that do not serve you.
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