Expectations, Starting Again.................Again!

I have forgotten how much time writing can take. Gathering your thoughts and then coherently putting them down on paper can be tough. Thus, the reason for Brene’ Brown’s SRD (in her words, shitty rough drafts or more nicely stormy rough drafts). I am totally understanding this again. Good writing takes time but you must first get it down before you can refine it. That aside, I will get on with this.

Life for the last three years has been a series of coming and going, ups and downs, highs and lows and frankly, I haven’t had the energy, the time nor the desire to write on my blog. I started this for me and those most close to me and I have been totally consumed with just trying to get here from there.

It has been three years of ups and downs that I have experienced in a similar way at other times but this time it has been from a different point of view. It has often been third person rather than first person. There have been wonderful, fulfilling and loving times and there have been dark, painful, fearful, heart rending and depressing times. I have had to give up on much and I have been given much. I have definitely had to change my perspective on and let go of many things. Most of those things were expectations.

Much has come to the fore in the last few months. I have visited and revisited many places physically and in my mind. Some have been to make beautiful memories and others have brought back some really tough memories. Fortunately, the good has outweighed the bad in general but there have been times where I have become stuck in the tough. I don’t apologize because it is stuff I have needed badly to work through and I have had some very good help to do that.

My counselor who is amazing had me do some work to promote mindfulness this week and I have really enjoyed it. I sit on the edge of the bed, put my hand on my heart and ask myself what am I feeling. I then move on to what do I need and then comes what do I need to do. Sometimes I am surprised by the things I learn about myself. Often I am surprised by the answer to the last question, what do I need to do. It is almost always directed inward and it often is nothing.

I am realizing that there are so many things over which I have no control. They are controlled by other people and circumstances. I can’t take away their choices even if I really want to. I can’t take their agency to do what they feel best fits them even if I can see the pain it causes them and others. I certainly can’t nor should I take away their agency because it doesn’t fit my view. That is not God’s plan but it seems like a lot of human beings spend an inordinate amount of time trying to control others to meet their expectations.

Expectations! Those messy things that we place on ourselves and others that most often are never met. Expectations! Those things that prevent us from living in the here and now and always caught looking toward the future. Expectations! Those things that often destroyed our past and forever make us feel not enough.

“You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.” 

― Lisa Kleypas

I am certainly learning and growing and I have to keep starting again.............again!